Finnish boreal forests; Otter tracks in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan; grazing in oak forests in Kurdistan, Iran.

Welcome to our Research Lab!

I lead a diverse and exciting group of researchers, studying many different dimensions of sustainability. Some of my students work close to home: examining the utility of otter populations to understand forest habitat connectivity in the UP (SR Cotey); working with local citizens and stakeholders to develop indicators for sustainable landscape management in the UP (A Vaidya); detecting the use by bats of commercial ships across Lake Superior (S Lohi); and understanding the impact of hybridization on protecting endangered species in the US (J (Lind) Riehl).

Others are focused on issues in their countries: the evolution of the ship-breaking and recycled metal industry in Bangladesh (SMM Rahman); and the development of biofuel policies in China (XM Yang).

I work in other areas as well: developing an Agent-Based Model for understanding the impact of forest owner social networks and behaviors on forested landscapes (with M Rouleau and R Winkler); constructing "green infrastructre" plans for forested landscapes (with Per Angelstam, Marine Elbakidze and Robert Axelsson at SLU in Sweden); using Information Theory to measure the sustainability of complex human-and-natural systems (CHANS; with CW Pawlowski and RP Donovan); and applying remote sensing technologies to support environmental policy and sustainable resource management.

We are always interested in new members and collaborations; contact me at almayer@mtu.edu with questions.

Looking for the research project on Western UP private forest owners and voluntary incentive programs? You can find it here.

Recent News

Congratulations to Stacy Cotey for receiving a grant from the Michigan Space Grant Consortium, for a project titled "Analysis of Graph-Based Connectivity Models as a Possible Method of Assessing Watershed Health"!

Check out Michigan Tech's Sustainability blog, managed by Audrey Mayer.

Interested in the Peace Corps Master's International Program in Forestry? See our website or contact me for more information.

Recent Publications

Henareh Khalyani A and AL Mayer. 2013. Spatial and temporal deforestation dynamics of Zagros forests (Iran) from 1972 to 2009. Landscape and Urban Planning 117:1-12. You can read it here.

Henareh Khalyani A, AL Mayer, CR Webster and MJ Falkowski. 2013. Ecological indicators for protection impact assessment at two scales in the Bozin and Marakhil protected area, Iran. Ecological Indicators 25:99-107. You can read it here.

Schubert JR and AL Mayer. 2012. Peer influence of non-industrial private forest owners in the Western Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Open Journal of Forestry 2(3):147-155. You can read it here.

Henareh Khalyani A, MJ Falkowski and AL Mayer. 2012. Classification of Landsat images based on spectral and topographic variables for land-cover change detection in Zagros forests. International Journal of Remote Sensing 33(21):6956-6974. You can read it here.

Henareh Khalyani A, AL Mayer, MJ Falkowski and D Muralidharan. 2012. Deforestation and landscape structure changes related to socioeconomic dynamics and climate change in Zagros forests. Journal of Land Use Science DOI:10.1080/1747423X.2012.667451. You can read it here.

Mayer AL, WD Shuster, JJ Beulieu, ME Hopton, LK Rhea, AH Roy, and HW Thurston. 2012. Building green infrastructure via citizen participation: A six-year study in the Shepherd Creek (Ohio). Environmental Practice 14(1):57-67. You can read it here.

Mayer AL and A Henareh Khalyani. 2011. Grass trumps trees with fire. Science 334(6053):188-189. This is a Perspectives piece reviewing new work by Staver et al. and Hirota et al. (in the same issue). You can see a summary here.

Mayer AL and RD Lopez. 2011. Use of remote sensing to support forest and wetland policies in the USA. Remote Sensing 3(6):1211-1233. doi:10.3390/rs3061211

Ståhls MH, AL Mayer, PM Tikka, PE Kauppi. 2010. Disparate geography of consumption, production, and environmental impacts: Forest products in Finland 1991-2007. Journal of Industrial Ecology 14(4):576-585.

Brida JG, AL Mayer, C McCord, and LF Punzo. 2010. A theoretical, multidisciplinary view of catastrophic regime change. In Peixoto MM, AA Pinto and DAJ Rand (eds.), Dynamics, Games and Science, in honour of Mauricio Peixoto and David Rand. Springer.

Mayer AL, L Vihermaa, N Nieminen, A Luomi, M Posch. 2009. Epiphytic macrolichen community correlates with modeled air pollutants and forest conditions. Ecological Indicators 9:992-1000.

Mayer AL. 2008. Ecologically-based approaches to evaluate the sustainability of industrial systems. International Journal of Sustainable Society 1(2):117-133.

Mayer AL. 2008. Strengths and weaknesses of common sustainability indices for multidimensional systems. Environment International 34:277-291.

Mayer AL, AH Roy, M White, CG Maurice, and L McKinney. 2008. Quick Assessment Protocols for measuring relative ecological significance of terrestrial ecosystems. US Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, EPA/600/R-08/061, 37 pp.

Last updated: March 13, 2013