Experimental Forests and Ranges

The USDA Forest Service’s experimental forests are dedicated to long-term research on ecosystem processes, silviculture and forest management options, wildlife habitat characteristics, and forest growth and development. Twenty-one official experimental forests—as well as two cooperating experimental forests—are administered by the Northern Research Station. On several of the experimental forests, research and monitoring have been carried out for many decades and have produced long-term, irreplaceable data sets that are valuable in environmental science. Many scientists from the Northern Research Station and cooperating scientists from many educational institutions, government agencies, and foundations conduct research on these experimental forests in the Northeast and Midwest.

Experimental forests are canvasses on which some of the most inventive minds in Forest Service Research history have worked out their ideas. Replicated studies, maintained over decades, allowed us to first describe our region's resources and then to develop the stewardship principles we practice today.