Forest Isbell is an associate professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior and a Fellow at the Institute on the Environment.
He is actively involved in international science-policy efforts, including contributing to expert information documents for the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and assessments by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.
He has served as the director of the MnDRIVE Environment program (2022-2023), the associate director of Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve (2015-2022), and on the editorial boards of Ecology Letters, Oecologia, and other journals.
His research considers how human activities are changing biodiversity, and how changes in biodiversity cause changes in ecosystem functioning, stability, and services, often with a focus on plant diversity in grasslands and forests. He has also reintroduced bison to an oak savannah more than a century after their extirpation. His research has been published in top scientific journals and he is recognized as a Clarivate highly cited researcher.
