William J. Ripple Papers, 1927-2014

Series 1 consists of Ripple’s papers written during his time in the master’s program at University of Idaho, as well as papers he wrote and exams that were taken while attending the Ph.D. program at Oregon State.

Series 2 consists of Ripple’s publications, as well as drafts for many of these publications. The publications in this series are collaborative texts, as well as some written solely by Ripple. The majority of his publications are about his extensive work on trophic cascades, which are indirect interactions that can control entire ecosystems. This is seen when predators in a food web alter the behavior of their prey, which in turn lowers the predation on the next trophic level. These publications includes ERSAL's Remote Sensing Research journals and his extensive work on aspen regression, which looks at the impact of wolf extirpation on local ecologies. This series also includes a number of children’s books written by Ripple.

Series 3 consists of Ripple’s research projects and proposals. All of these research projects were conducted during his time with the Environmental Remote Sensing Applications Laboratory (ERSAL) including his work on the Oregon Mosaic. Items include spotted owl data/research, aspen regeneration research, Oregon Mosaic prints and negatives, as well as special use permits.

Series 4 consists of press releases and articles that were written about Ripple and his research with ERSAL. This includes school magazine publications, multiple articles about “Wolves, Elk and Aspen in Yellowstone”, as well as various newspaper clippings that cover these topics, along with others. Notably, this series also contains articles about the awards that Ripple has received for his work.

Series 5 consists of the reference materials that Ripple used while conducting research.  A majority of the materials in this series are reference materials on landscape ecology and the trophic cascades. The landscape ecology material spans from 1927 to 2010. This series is also made up of reference materials for quadtree and GIS, as well as his work in New Zealand.

Series 6 consists of meeting handouts and minutes from Ripple’s participation in committees and associations. This includes multiple meeting records for the Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, as well as The Wildlife Society and notes from Joint Government Affairs, a national committee that worked with the American Congress of Surveying and Mapping, as well as the House Committee of Energy and Commerce.

Series 7 consists of course material for the classes that Ripple taught at Oregon State, as well as a collection of student papers. It contains course material, including a term reading packet, for FOR 599, Aldo Leopold and Ecosystem Management. The student papers include multiple research papers, a thesis, and a dissertation proposal.

Series 8 consists of the early stages of the designs for the website Wolves in Nature. It includes changes to the original website design, as well as printouts of images that could be found on the website to inform viewers about aspen recruitment in Yellowstone.

Series 9 consists of three posters featuring Ripple. There are two copies of a poster announcing an event that was held when Ripple received the Distinguished Professor Award from Oregon State University. The other shows Ripple looking through binoculars and is titled “We’re Seeing How Predators Balance Nature.”

Series 10 consists of tree cores collected for research projects in various geographic locations. Included with these cores are the publications of the research findings based on said cores.