Alison Donnelly

  • Professor, Geography

Education

  • PhD, Botany, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, 1998
  • MS, Environmental Science, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, 1993
  • BA, Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, 1988

Office Hours

By appointment

Teaching Schedule

Course Num Title Meets
GEOG 125-201 Introduction to Environmental Geography No Meeting Pattern
GEOG 340-001 Biogeography MW 11:30am-12:45pm
GEOG 489-001 Internship in Geography, Upper Division No Meeting Pattern

Courses Taught

  • Geog 125 – Introduction to Environmental Geography
  • Geog 304 – Human Impact on the Environment
  • Geog 340 – Biogeography
  • Geog 450 – Climates of the Past and Climate Change
  • Geog 650 - Geography Field Work

Research Interests

Her research interests include examining the effects of climate change, and in particular rising temperature, on the timing of recurring life-cycle events (phenology) of temperate deciduous shrubs and trees. She is also interested in the phenology of birds and insects. This work employs the use of long-term observational data together with remote sensing techniques to determine changes in timing of spring and autumn phenological events. Her work also focuses on discrepancies between different methods of determining phenology.

Selected Publications

Donnelly, A., Yu, R., Rehberg, C. and Schwartz, M.D. 2024. Variation in the timing and duration of autumn leaf phenology among temperate deciduous trees, native shrubs and non-native shrubs. International Journal of Biometeorology 2024 68:1663-1673.
Donnelly, A., Yu, R., Rehberg, C. and Schwartz, M.D. 2024. Characterizing spring phenology in a temperate deciduous urban woodland fragment: trees and shrubs. International Journal of Biometeorology, 68:871–882. 
Donnelly, A., Desai, A., Heckman, K. et al.. 2024. Fostering effective and sustainable scientific collaboration and knowledge exchange: a workshop-based approach to establish a national ecological observatory network (NEON) domain-specific user group. International Journal of Biometeorology, 68:1475–1481.
Alison Donnelly, Rong Yu, Katherine Jones, Michael Belitz, Bonan Li, Katharyn Duffy, Xiaoyang Zhang, Jianmin Wang, Bijan Seyednasrollah, Katherine L. Gerst, Daijiang Li, Youssef Kaddoura, Kai Zhu, Jeffrey Morisette, Colette Ramey and Kathleen Smith. 2022. Exploring discrepancies between in situ phenology and remotely derived phenometrics at NEON sites. Ecosphere https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.3912
Donnelly, A., Yu, R. and Liu, L. 2021. Comparing in situ spring phenology and satellite-derived start of season at rural and urban sites in Ireland. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 42(20):7821–7841. https://doi.org/10.1080/01431161.2021.1969056 
Gedymin-Viel, Jana, Donnelly, Alison C., Fredlund, Glen, Mueller, Willian, and Brady, R. “Common Nighthawk (Chordeiles minor) occurrence in urban areas of southeastern Wisconsin, USA” The American Midland Naturalist (2020).
Zhao, Bailu, Donnelly, Alison C., and Schwartz, Mark D. “Evaluating autumn phenology derived from field observations, satellite data and carbon flux measurements in a northern mixed forest, USA” International Journal of Biometeorology (2020).
Gedymin-Viel, Jana, Donnelly, Alison C., Fredlund, Glen, Mueller, William, and Brady, Richard. “Developing a citizen science protocol to monitor Common Nighthawks (Chordeiles minor) in southeastern Wisconsin” The Passenger Pigeon 82.3-4 (2020): 169-179.
Donnelly, Alison C., Yu, Rong, Rehberg, Chloe, Young, Erica B., and Meyer, Gretchen. Extracted leaf chlorophyll content with corresponding SPAD values of temperate deciduous native and non-native shrubs, autumn 2018, southern Wisconsin, USA PANGAEA. 2019.
Donnelly, Alison C. “Climate change: potential implications for biodiversity in Ireland” International Journal of Biometeorology (2018).
Donnelly, Alison C., Yu, Rong, Caffarra, Amelia, Hanes, Jonathan, Liang, Liang, Desai, Ankur, Liu, Lingling, and Schwartz, Mark. “Interspecific and interannual variation in the duration of spring phenophases in a northern mixed forest” Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 243. (2017): 55-67.

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