Wildlife, natural disturbance & forest management in the southern Appalachians - Brown Bag at Bent Creek EF

You must register to attend. Participation is limited to 50 people. The event will be held in person in Asheville, North Carolina. The event is part of a series of free in-person lunch talks at Bent Creek Experimental Forest.

Join us to hear Katie H. Greenberg discuss wildlife and the disturbance history of the southern Appalachian hardwood forests. For millennia, humans have had a major influence on disturbance-dependent wildlife species by creating, maintaining, or greatly expanding specific, unique types of early successional and young forest plant communities. Fire in particular was used by Native Americans, and later European settlers to clear for cultivation and settlements or create habitats for game; field abandonment led to development of old fields and forests in different stages of succession. 

Greenberg will present an overview of research results addressing effects of wind disturbance, wildfire, prescribed fire, repeated burns, and regeneration harvests on breeding birds, reptiles and amphibians in southern Appalachian hardwood forests. In the southern Appalachians, relying only on disturbances that are not human-caused may not be the most productive way of conserving diverse wildlife communities.   

Greenberg received her M.S. from the University of Tennessee and her Ph.D. from the University of Florida, where she studied the ecology of sand pine scrub in Ocala National Forest. Her current research focuses on developing information and tools for forest managers and planners. Research areas include (1) effects of prescribed fire and wildfire, mixed-oak regeneration harvests, and other forest management practices on reptile, amphibian, and breeding bird communities; (2) production of forest food resources, such as native fleshy fruit and hard mast, in relation to forest types and silvicultural disturbances; (3) long-term monitoring of amphibian populations in longleaf pine-wiregrass sandhills in relation to forest health and climate change.  She has co-edited books on early successional habitats, natural disturbances, and fire ecology and management in U.S. forests. 

Visit the registration page.