Plant Ecology
Plants define forest and grassland systems, shaping hydrologic systems and nutrient cycling, providing the basis for food systems and shelter for wildlife, and often driving local economies. National forests and grasslands represent an immense variety of vegetation types and plant communities, including tropical forests, arid desserts, temperate forest ecosystems, grasslands, coniferous forests, wetlands, and more. Each represent a highly complex system in which plants, climate, geology, and wildlife dynamically interact.
Forest Service plant ecologists study the distribution and abundance of plants and the interactions between plants and environmental factors and organisms. In doing so, they play a critical role in influencing decisions on how to best sustain healthy and resilient forests across the U.S. by providing the science to drive management strategies, conservation planning, invasive species and drought response, and beyond.
The Forest Service undertakes research in plant ecology because:
- Native plants provide enormous economic, ecological, genetic, and aesthetic benefits. The use of native plant material (seeds, cuttings, plants) in vegetation projects plays an important role in the maintenance and restoration of native plant gene pools, communities, and ecosystems, and can help reverse the trend of species loss in North America.
- Flowering plants and their pollinator partners are essential for crop production and sustaining our food systems. For example, bees pollinate more than 75% of flowering plant species, including 35% of agricultural crops. Forest Service scientists are working to understand how land management activities impact pollinators and how restoration and revegetation projects can help.
- Exotic and invasive plant species threaten native species and ecosystems. Removed from their natural enemies, invasive plants are able to establish and thrive in their new surroundings, leading to sometimes drastic changes in native plant communities.
- National forests and grasslands are often the last refuges of rare and endangered plants, such as the Bear Poppy. The Forest Service protects rare plants and their habitats by carefully managing activities on public lands where these special plants occur.