Experience

  • Consultancies

    Missoula Art Museum (MAM) - Below the Bark: Art of Disturbance Ecology. October 2021-February 2022. Over a period of about three years I worked individually with three artists (Tim Musso, Jim Frazer, Suze Woolf) helping them interpret their emotional responses to the large climate change-driven mountain pine beetle outbreak that resulted in millions of hectares of dead trees. Each artist was profound in their interpretations of this event and were quite different from one another in their approach and resulting works. There came a time when it felt natural to bring them together. The show was very well attended and formed the base for a month of art and science outreach to local schools and groups.

    Residencies

    Playa Art and Science Residency, Summer Lake, Oregon. Awarded residency to Suze Woolf who I joined to work on ‘bark beetle books’ constructed of wood and silk. July 24-27, 2018 (she would later be part of Below the Bark exhibit at MAM (see above).

    Playa Art and Science Residency. Summer Lake, Oregon. July 2019. 10-day awarded residency. Playa is focused on the nexus of art and science. I focused on completing an intensive conceptual paper on the symbiosis between bark beetles and the fungi they rely upon for survival and acrylic painting. Because this was during the COVID shutdown, only one person at a time could be present at the facility. The location is very remote (over an hour to a town/supermarket) with remarkable quietude and dark skies. Animals wandered freely on the campus in the absence of people. It was magic.

    Playa, Art and Science Residency. Summer Lake, Oregon. October 2020. Awarded Residency. 10-day residency just (barely) post-COVID shutdown and limited to three people (with extreme distancing). I was invited to help draft a new mission loosely defined as ‘An Education of Arid Places’. I also focused on a collage (using Playa’s example as an ecosystem dying from water loss) and a painting related to climate change grief.

    The Verdancy Project, Ponder Residency. Troutdale, Oregon. 7-day awarded residency. May 19-25, 2025. I focused on small and microscopic organisms on site in ways that expressed how such small things run the world using pastels.

    Hypatia-in-the-Woods, Shelton, WA. May 24-30, 2026. 7-day awarded residency. My focus was on beginning a large fiber piece that shows my transition from ecologist to coroner (see ‘about’) and completing several small quick abstracts in oils reflecting on interactions in nature. I presented a public lecture and shared my art at Marmo Cafe and Gallery.

    Workshops

    Symbiosis – An education of arid places. Playa, Summer Lake, OR. August 19-23, 2021. I guided six participants in how to apply an understanding of science to direct art projects using the topics of symbiosis and microhabitats to interpret ecological interactions on very small to very large scales. Each day involved a field trip followed by work in the studio with access to microscopes, etc.

    Symbiosis – Connections: The art and science of symbiosis. Playa, Summer Lake, OR.  September 22-26, 2022. I guided five participants through the ecological and human landscape of the Summer Lake/Christmas Valley area. Each day involved a field trip followed by conversations and work in the studio.

    Using art to communicate science: October 2022. Forest and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa. Seminar followed by a two-hour open conversation with exploratory exercises. 68 participants. The seminar coincided with delivery of ‘Symbiosis: An Autobiography’, a collage I made that expressed my growth as a person and scientist to be placed in the permanent collection of The University of Pretoria.

    Day of the Dead Insect Apocalypse Workshop October 2024. Missoula Butterfly House and Insectarium. In conjunction with Missoula’s annual Day of the Dead Procession. In support of seminar I presented at the insectarium ‘Behind the Empty Windshield: The Insect Apocalypse’ that focused on the massive loss of insects that is occurring and what that means for humans and life on Earth. I made 160 block prints of various insects on repurposed fabric that workshop participants made into banners and clothing to wear in the procession.

    Other activities

    The Emergency: A sci-art collective: 2022-2023. I acquired a grant from the University of Montana to support a facilitative process and collective designed to bring together scientists and artists on campus to communicate pressing issues in ecology. The name of both process and collective, The Emergency, was based on the common definition of the term as an unexpected and usually dangerous situation that calls for immediate action, as well as the term's root - emergent - a phenomenon in both science and art that occurs when an entity expresses properties that emerge only when its parts interact. For one year, a group of about 22 faculty and graduate students met and created art focusing on the climate crisis. The group was led by myself (professor of forest entomology) and Eric Jensen (MFA student). At the end of the year, eight participants contributed to a month-long show at Gallery 709 in Missoula, MT, including a festive and very well attended First Friday opening.

    Shows

    Gallery 709, Missoula, MT – The Emergency. 2023 (multi-artist show, I contributed six collages)

    Gallery 709, Missoula, MT- Insect Integra (as part of Day of the Dead) Nov 1-30, 2024 (multi-artist show, I contributed six acrylics, three colored pencil drawings, four collages)

    Break Espresso, Missoula, MT – Missoula Sketchy Folks invited group show, January 1-31, 2025 (I contributed one colored pencil drawing, two pastels, one graphite drawing)

    Frame of Mind, Missoula, MT – Juried art show, two pastels. May 2025.

    Training

    Botanical Illustration: series of four multi-week courses 2016-2018 - Nancy Seiler, Missoula, MT

    Monoprinting: one day workshop 2017 – Bev Beck Gleukert – Missoula Art Museum, Missoula, MT

    Liquid acrylics: one day workshop 2018 - Nancy Seiler, Missoula, MT

    The art of mixed media (weekend workshop) 2019 - Patrick LoCicero – Gage Art Academy, Seattle, WA (online)

    Landscape watercolor (weekend workshop) 2019- Suze Woolf, Gage Art Academy, Seattle, WA (online)

    Oil painting Interior Scenes: eight-week course 2019 – Grace Athena Flott – Gage Academy, Seattle, WA (online)

    Identity in America: four-week course (online) 2020 – Timothy Hyunsoo Lee - Gage Academy, Seattle, WA (online)

    Painting I: Fall semester 2020 - Jennifer Combe- University of Montana, Missoula, MT

    Drawing dinosaurs: four-week course 2023. Jason Poole – Zootown Community Art Center, Missoula, MT

    Pastel Landscapes: Three-day workshop August 2024 - Barbara Griffin – Hockaday Art Museum, Kalispell, MT

    Digital drawing: four-week course September 2024 – Blaise Chambers – Missoula Life-Long Learning Center, Missoula. MT

    Drawing like a Pro: four-week course October 2024 - Jason Poole- Missoula Life-Long Learning Center, Missoula, MT

    Creating from the heart: The creative process: one-day workshop November 2024 - MayAnn Bonjorni – Missoula Art Museum, Missoula, MT

    Figure drawing: 12 week course with live models, 2026. Bev Beck Gleukert. Missoula Art Museum, Missoula, MT.

  • ‍ ‍

    Most recent publications

    Six, D.L. and P. Biedermann. 2023. Fidelity or love the one you're with? Trade-offs can drive strategy and specificity in bark beetle-fungus by-product mutualisms. Ecology and Evolution https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.10345 ‍

    Kovalenko, V., Doser, J., Bate, L. and Six, D.L. 2024.Paired acoustic recordings and point count surveys reveal Clark's nutcracker and whitebark pine associations across Glacier National Park. Ecology and Evolutionhttps://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.10867 ‍

    Kovalenko, V., Bate. L. and Six, D.L. 2024. Can climate variability and landscape position predict white pine blister rust incidence, mortality due to the disease, and regeneration in whitebark pine?Canadian Journal of Forest Research https://doi.org/10.1139/cjfr-2023-0270

    Bullington, L., Martin, E., Erbilgin, N., Kenedy, P., Kegley, A., Lekberg, Y., Six, D.L., and R. Sniezko. 2024. Linking symbioses with intrinsic chemical defences in conifers: Fungal-mediated resistance against an invasive pathogen. Journal of Applied Ecology https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.14816

    ‍Thompson, Alex, Shealyn C. Malone, Drew Peltier, Diana Six, Nathan Robertson, Celso Ricardo de Oliveira Junior, Cameron D. McIntire, William T. Pockman, Nate G. McDowell, Amy M. Trowbridge, Henry D. Adams. 2024. Carbon reserves are insufficient for phloem terpene induction during drought in Pinus edulis New Phytologist https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.20051

    Malone, S., Thompson, A., Landhaeusser, S., Six, D., McCulloh, K., Adams, H., and Trowbridge, A. 2024. Water, not carbon, drives drought-constraints on stem terpene defense against simulated bark beetle attack in Pinus edulis. New Phytologist  https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.20218

    Lindenmayer, D., Zylstra, P., Hanson, C.T., Six, D.L., and DellaSala, D.A. 2025. When Active Management of high conservation value forests may erode biodiversity and damage ecosystems. Biological Conservation 305: 111071.

    DellaSala, D.A, Africanis, K., Baker, B.C., Rogers, M., and Six, D.L. 2025. An ecoregional conservation assessment for the Northern Rockies of Idaho, Washington, and Montana, including Proposed Climate Refugium in the Yaak River Watershed, Montana, USA. Forests 16: 822.

    Six, D.L., Alverson, H. and Bullington, L. 2025. Ecological stoichiometry of mountain pine beetle, its mutualist fungi, and the disease white pine blister rust, in whitebark pine.  Oecologia 207: 176. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-025-05813-1 ‍

    Six, D.L., Hammerbacher, A., Trowbridge, A. and Bullington, L. 2025. From beginning to end: The synecology of tree-killing bark beetles, fungi, and trees. Biological Reviews. https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.70084

    Six, D.L. and Alverson, H. 2025. Interior ponderosa pine genetic profiles, chemistry, growth rates, and climate sensitivity in relation to mountain pine beetle predation. Forests DOI: 10.3390/f16091453

    ‍Bullington, Lekberg, Y., Martin, E., Sadyrova, M., Sala, A. and Six, D.L. 2025. Bark beetle-fungal symbioses influence nutrient dynamics, fungal decomposer succession, and subsequent decay rates in conifers. New Phytologist  249: 2041-2054 ‍https://doi-org.weblib.lib.umt.edu:2443/10.1111/nph.70778

    ‍DellaSala, D.A, Buma, B., Leverkus, A.B., Lindenmayer, D.B., Müller, J., Price, K., Six, D.L., Zylstra,, P., Burton, P.J. 2025. Removing dead trees will not save us from fast-moving wildfires. PNAS 122 (47) e2510922122 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2510922122

    ‍Alverson, H.R, and Six, D.L. 2026. Whitebark pine growth dynamics reflect diverse responses to climate and patterns related to bark beetle-caused mortality. Forest Ecology and Management 619: 124056