Articles

Generative text-to-image tools that use artificial intelligence (AI) can create images from keywords. This transformative technology has the potential to improve the community engagement process in landscape planning and help ensure that these projects meet the community's needs quickly without requiring extensive graphic design knowledge.

When it comes to rationing recreation opportunities, visitors have varied preferences and different user groups will benefit depending on the approach used.

A long term project helps managers influence the development of western larch forests by identifying the long-term effects of hot versus cool prescribed burns on duff reduction and later conifer recruitment.

Initial results from Phase I of the WOODWISE test series show that encapsulation may not affect fire temperature but does reduce the total heat release rate and reduce fire spread at the floor-to-wall connections in mass timber. These results also underscore the importance of considering how the type of fuels present in mass timber buildings can change fire behavior.

Integrated plant functional strategies arise via selection on trait combinations and genes that encode multiple traits.

Post-fire seeding in drylands often has low success rates that are likely to be improved by seeding at higher rates and/or across multiple years in order to hit years with suitable precipitation.

Rural communities bordering the Tongass National Forest harvest more than 4.5 million pounds of wild food per year, including 100 different species that our public lands help support. Just how much food is this? An average quarter-pound cheeseburger might weigh around 6 oz, depending on your toppings of choice. Assuming a 6-oz weight, the wild food harvests in this region are equivalent to more...

Throughout the Forest Service's history, agency researchers have helped decrease waste and increase profit in the forestry sector—work that continues today as researchers continue to help streamline nearly every aspect of the industry, from harvesting to hauling to processing to selling.

When most people think of the City of Chicago, they probably picture a modern-looking skyline rising above Lake Michigan, congested urban streets, and iconic architecture. Trees might not immediately jump to mind. However, they form a vast ecosystem amidst the urban footprint that benefits city residents in many ways.Chicago’s urban forest represents a vast natural infrastructure investment. ...

Understory plant communities can be bolstered in the wake of spruce beetle outbreaks. The magnitude of change can depend on the amount of spruce mortality, the frequencies of understory species present at the time of the outbreak, and understory species’ traits.

Scientists found that warmer sites could see up to 5 generations of beetles in a single year, whereas cooler sites would only see 2 generations. More beetle generations translates to more pinyon pine mortality.

We can now quantify (from space!) that following high-severity wildfire events, the mastication of undesirable brush species can result in less evapotranspiration and increases in soil moisture. This information will help managers concerned with water security and forest health in Arizona.

We are working with partners to use cutting-edge technology to study the impacts of a large-scale juniper removal project. This collaborative effort is supporting biomass markets, soil moisture sensing, and real-time drought monitoring in central Arizona.

From creating better sunscreens to disrupting the trade of illegally harvested timber, agency scientists push the boundaries of the wood product sector. 

Most wood used in buildings is harvested from live, mature trees—but much of what we need to remove from forests to reduce fire risk is small diameter trees and dead woody debris. That’s why Forest Service scientists are innovating ways to use and profit from less merchantable forest products. One of these innovations, mass timber.

Conducting prescribed burns in the spring rather than the fall may help promote soil carbon storage.

Lidar is an excellent remote sensing technology to use for mapping fuels and estimating consumption at scales ranging from individual trees to the globe.

The emerald ash borer, which is not a native insect in the United States, spreads very fast in the eastern United States but very slowly in Colorado.

Species mixing in pine-oak forests can help to buffer trees from drought stress, but this positive effect is dependent on the ecosystem and species being studied.

Forests provide tremendous economic value to communities and the nation. They provide timber, safe clean drinking water, recreation opportunities, and countless other benefits. However, these values are missing or undercounted in the nation's economic statistics (for example, in GDP).Forest Service researchers developed the first ever environmental-economic statistics for the United States. Nat...