Articles

Forest Service scientist Anthony Vaudo approaches his research from a “bee’s-eye” perspective with a focus on the impacts of pollen nutrition in bee and plant community interactions.

While fire promotes cheatgrass, invasion in the absence of fire drives the overall risk of conversion to cheatgrass dominance in the sagebrush biome.

Steve Wondzell, a research ecologist with the Pacific Northwest Research Station, has a long track record of building partnerships that benefit both research and the restoration goals of USDA Forest Service partners. Here are two examples of successful coproduction of knowledge.

This June, under the blazing Nevada sun, USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station research ecologist, Alexandra (Ali) Urza, led a group of partners through a pinyon-juniper woodland to gather input for improving ecosystem resilience.

Over the summer, a team of researchers led by Forest Service Research Ecologist Christopher "Kit" O’Connor, forest managers, and supporting partners kicked off a series of workshops geared toward this mission and new chapter in PODs development.

Scientists use genetic tools to investigate the risks and benefits of translocating foxes to help their populations recover.

Different climatic conditions between plant populations are associated with differences in their pollen nutritional quality for bees.

A huge mussel study in 92 streams across 13 states is underway. As part of that study, researchers needed an objective way to assess mussel health in each stream – so they developed the Mussel Assemblage Health Index and made it available as a spreadsheet tool.

On August 5, 1949, 13 smokejumpers lost their lives responding to a fire that at first glance appeared manageable. The tragedy shook the wildland fire community and sparked a nationwide research effort aimed at better understanding wildfire behavior and improving firefighter safety.

A new protocol explains how to use Terrestrial Laser Scanning for fast and accurate fire effects monitoring.

This guide discusses seven management considerations for evaluating vegetation treatments in shrubland and pinyon-juniper ecosystems vulnerable to the wildfire crisis.

A Forest Service researcher developed a scientific model pinpointing where fuels treatments make the most sense. With the model, forest staff can measure where forest density exceeds desired conditions — and more — to target fuels treatments.

Wildfire suppression is costly. Over the last decade, suppression has cost the USDA Forest Service and the Department of the Interior an average of $2.9 billion per year.

A better understanding of how invasive annuals like cheatgrass dominate grassland ecosystems can help managers manage plant community trajectories following a disturbance.

Hot droughts are of increasing concern for forests of the south. When temperatures are high and moisture is low, trees become vulnerable quickly. Meteorologists sometimes refer to these events as flash droughts, and one for the record books happened in Mississippi and Louisiana in 2023, emerging in late summer as the rains diminished, and the persistent heat shattered records.The consequences f...

Warm-season bioenergy grasses are ecologically and economically important species whose responses to weather variability will shape the future bioeconomy.

Biochar offers a promising alternative to slash pile burning, with several options for in-woods production to suit diverse forest management activities, wood volume, available equipment, and a variety of crew sizes.

New research explores the relationship between detrimental soil disturbance and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to create a model and decision-making tool for land managers planning, evaluating, and monitoring disturbance from post-fire salvage logging.

Benzene polycarboxylic acids (BPCAs) may serve as tracers for wildfire impacts in postfire ash runoff and streamwater. Surface runoff transports these compounds from burned hillslopes into aquatic environments where they can enter water supplies.

In 2021, lightning struck on a ridge top in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest in California and ignited the Tamarack Fire. The area is rocky, rugged, and buffered by natural barriers, but about a week later, the fire changed course. Strong winds drove the fire downslope, causing it to spread rapidly toward several communities and highways. This threat prompted over 2,000 people from several ...