Andrew M. Barton

Andrew M. Barton is a forest ecologist, science writer, and professor whose work examines long-term change in woodland ecosystems. The Changing Nature of the Maine Woods, written with Alan S. White and Charles V. Cogbill, follows Maine’s forests from geological formation and postglacial recovery through Indigenous history, European settlement, modern land use, and possible future conditions. Published by the University of New Hampshire Press in 2012, the book combines ecology, environmental history, and regional narrative. Its chapters address climate, disturbance, insects, disease, introduced organisms, forest management, and the varied communities found from the coast to Mount Katahdin. Barton teaches biology for the University of Maine at Farmington and researches forest responses to climate change and wildfire. White contributed expertise in forest ecology, while Cogbill brought work in historical ecology, making the volume explicitly collaborative. Reviews noted its unusually comprehensive effort to explain both how Maine’s woods developed and why they continue to change. Barton’s later writing and public lectures extend the same interest in old-growth forests, conservation, and ecological recovery.