Jennifer A. Olson’s scientific contributions

... For example, clearing for agriculture using fire resulted in a prevalence of red oak and white pine in the canopy of the mesic northern forest of Colonial Point on the northern shores of Burt Lake (Albert and Minc 1987). Several Great Lakes islands (e.g., Harbor Island and Garden Island) support red-oak-dominated mesic forests that likely originated following similar disturbance (Penskar et al. 2000, Penskar et al. 2001. Indigenous peoples indirectly influenced mesic ecosystems across the Great Lakes by maintaining low levels of white-tailed deer, which at high densities can drastically alter the structure and composition of mesic northern forest (detailed discussion below). ...

Reference:

Assessment of Anthropogenic Disturbances to Mesic Northern Forests and Summary of Restoration Strategies: A Multi-Scale Approach

... Biodiversity and conservation values of the US islands were based on a review of existing information and by updating basic spatial information. Many of these US islands have been inventoried by Michigan Natural Features Inventory and others (see Penskar et al., 2002;Penskar et al., 2000;Soule, 1993). Priorities for colonial nesting waterbirds have also been identified (Wires and Cuthbert, 2001) and basic island metrics have been developed for the shoreline units of Lake Huron (based on Reid et al., 2001). ...

Reference:

Biodiversity and conservation of Lake Huron's islands