Dr. Eric Higgs

Biography

Eric Higgs is a Professor in the School of Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria, and focuses interdisciplinary methods and insights in understanding ecological restoration in a time of rapid change. From 2001-2003 he was Chair of the Society for Ecological Restoration. For two decades he has directed the Mountain Legacy Project, a long-term study of changing Canadian mountain landscapes using the world’s largest systematic collection of historical survey photographs. In addition to more more than 100 articles and book chapters, he is co-editor of the Novel Ecosystems (Wiley; co-edited with Richard Hobbs and Carol Hall), co-author of Mapper of Mountains (University of Alberta Press; with Ian MacLaren and Gabrielle Zezulka-Mailloux), and author of Nature By Design (MIT Press). His previous long-term appointment was at the University of Alberta (1990-2001), and he has held visiting and short-term appointments at the Universities of Groningen, Western Australia, British Columbia, Waterloo, and Oberlin College and MIT.

Featured Research Summaries

New Technologies use Historical Photographs to Offer a Glimpse into the Past

Selected Publications

Novel and designed ecosystems
Higgs E
Restoration Ecology doi: 10.1111/rec.12410 (early view July 2016)

Extracting ecological information from oblique angle terrestrial landscape photographs: Performance evaluation of the WSL Monoplotting Tool
Stockdale CA, C Bozzini, SE Macdonald & E Higgs
Applied Geography 63:315–325 (Sep 2015)

Committing to ecological restoration
Suding K, E Higgs, M Palmer, JB Callicott, CB Anderson, M Baker, et al.
Science 348:638–640 (May 2015)

The changing role of history in restoration ecology
Higgs E, DA Falk, A Guerrini, M Hall, J Harris, RJ Hobbs, et al.
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 12:499–506 (Nov 2014)

Managing the whole landscape: historical, hybrid, and novel ecosystems
Hobbs RJ, E Higgs, CM Hall, P Bridgewater, FS Chapin III, EC Ellis, et al.
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 12:557–564 (Dec 2014)

Flexible and Adaptable Restoration: An Example from South Korea
Temperton VM, E Higgs, YD Choi, E Allen, D Lamb, C-S Lee, et al.
Restoration Ecology 22:271–278 (May 2014)

Novel ecosystems: implications for conservation and restoration
Hobbs R, E Higgs & J Harris
Trends in Ecology & Evolution 24:599–605 (Nov 2009)