October 24, 2025 

Amy Waananen and Sam Reed joined the Midwest Climate Adaptation Science Center community in the fall of 2023 as postdoctoral researchers based at the University of Minnesota’s Institute on Environment. Over the past two years, they pursued adaptation research topics related to seed sourcing for ecological restoration and forest disturbance management, respectively.

This wasn't the first time Reed and Waananen worked together. In fact, they originally met in David Tilman’s Theoretical Ecology course in 2017, their very first graduate class at the University of Minnesota. They enjoyed the chance to get to know each other better during their time with the MW CASC. In addition to leading their individual research projects, they collaborated on projects about understanding maladaptation and the risks posed to climate adaptive tree plantings by early spring freeze events.

As their postdoctoral positions came to an end, they reflected on the research they led, the relationships they developed with management partners, and what they learned from each other along the way.

Pursuing Questions 

Reed has been fascinated by forest disturbances for a long time. Disturbances can be big events, like wildfire and insect outbreaks, and smaller things, like white-tailed deer and fallen trees. “That’s really where my heart lies – the things that make ecosystems tick, and make them change really fast,” Reed said. When he started his postdoctoral position with the MW CASC, he began exploring the interrelationships between forest disturbances and climate change. “We know that disturbances are increasing with climate change, so I wanted to merge our understanding of ecological disturbance and climate-adapted management. My goal was to synthesize how we are preparing for increasing disturbances alongside climate variables like increasing temperatures and more variable rainfall.” Reed said. 

While Reed was delving into forest management’s responses to disturbance, Waananen was investigating a different but equally practical challenge: the seeds needed for climate-resilient restoration. In many places in the United States, the limited commercial availability of native seeds can hinder the implementation of climate-resilient ecological restoration projects. “My initial goal was to do an analysis to describe the trade-offs and constraints that natural resource managers face in designing seed mixes in terms of cost, species diversity, and ecological appropriateness of the seed mix,” she explained. Along the way, however, she learned some surprising things that shifted her work.  

Collaboration in Action

Through the MW CASC, Waananen and Reed connected with a broader collaborative network of researchers and management professionals. As they began to interact with federal scientists, natural resource managers, conservation planners, and other partners, those conversations offered new insights and ideas that shaped their research strategies. 

Waananen’s initial assumptions about seed sourcing were challenged as she began talking with land managers in Minnesota. “I was surprised to learn that many of them use a totally different approach to seed sourcing,” she explained, “By pooling their collective land bases and equipment, they're using combines to harvest all the seeds they need for their projects, so they’re not reliant on the commercial native seed market and all of its limitations.” 

She began exploring their approach as a potential model for other regions to pursue. “It was exciting to see how an organizational solution – not a technological or financial fix  – solved the problem of seed availability that was impeding the installation of diverse ecological restorations,” she said. The managers she spoke with emphasized that the benefits of the organization for addressing the seed availability problem were actually secondary to the ways that it helped facilitate cooperation and knowledge exchange among their individual institutions.  

As Reed got to know management partners throughout the region, he wanted his research to be responsive to the needs and opportunities they identified. “I was able to develop my own project and think really intentionally about how it could be useful,” he said. “I'm not sure if I would have gotten that if I had done a traditional postdoc.” One thing they pointed him toward was an important but little-known resource: State Forest Action Plans, which every state is required to have and regularly update. The plans became the basis for much of Reed’s work. 

Reed reviewed more than 3,500 pages of plans from every state in the Midwest and Northeast regions. For each plan, he recorded if and how they discussed disturbances and climate, as well as the specific management strategies they used to mitigate disturbance impacts. He explained, “I recorded every instance that a disturbance was mentioned or discussed, along with their management strategies, so it's a really high-resolution analysis. From that, I was then able to distill hundreds of unique and creative disturbance management strategies from Minnesota to Maine and down to Missouri.” 

From Research to Impact

Reed and Waananen are both wrapping up their projects as they transition into new roles. 

Using the information he gathered from the State Forest Action Plans, Reed created a dataset of disturbance management strategies and actions, documenting hundreds of actions that can be used to mitigate forest disease, wildfire, invasive species, and more. Its comprehensive view and bite-sized descriptions allowed him to easily compare strategies between states and identify gaps that could be addressed in future plans. For instance, drought had relatively few management actions associated with it and could be further strategized for in the 2030 updates to the State Forest Action Plans. The dataset will be available upon publication and he hopes it will be a tool for managers to learn from innovative work being done in other states and find opportunities to work together to address the rising threat of disturbance. 

Waananen is working on a manuscript that she hopes will inspire people working in other areas to consider collaborative solutions to problems they face, whether about seeds or other restoration and management limitations. “In addition to the article, we plan to put together some more practical documents that would walk through the process of evaluating whether a group of potential partners have the resources they need to recreate the seed sourcing approach being used in Minnesota or a variation on it.”

Reed and Waananen’s projects exemplify the MW CASC approach: fostering actionable, innovative adaptation science that is rooted in partnership. Their research will support on-the-ground decisions across the Midwest and beyond.

The two postdocs valued the opportunity to work collaboratively and learn from each other. Waananen appreciated Reed’s extroverted personality and seeing how this created opportunities for him to connect meaningfully with people in all kinds of settings. This ability will serve Reed well in his new role as the Climate and Conservation Manager with Minnesota-based nonprofit Friends of the Boundary Waters, which he began in September 2025. In this role, he hopes to apply his understanding of climate-adapted disturbance management to better guide future management of the Northwoods. 

Reed appreciated Waananen’s well-organized and efficient approach to science. He felt that their respective creativities and strengths suited each other, with Waananen being one of the best scientists he has met and a great friend. He believes the CASC is very lucky to have her. Waananen is still part of the CASC network – she’s now a Climate Adaptation Postdoctoral Fellow researching how adaptive differentiation and landscape context can inform forecasts of species range shifts. 

By Jess Del Fiacco, MW CASC Communications Manager