Treesearch

The South’s production of pulpwood decreased from 52.9 million cords in 2023 to 52.1 million cords in 2024. Roundwood production remained constant at 38.2 million cords and accounted for 73 percent of the South’s total pulpwood production. The use of wood residue decreased 5 percent to 13.9 million cords in 2024. Alabama and Georgia led the South in total production, with 9.1 and 8.7 million cords, respectively. In 2024, 66 mills were operating and drawing wood from the 13 Southern States.

Old growth forests in coastal Alaska and British Columbia represent some of the most expansive temperate rainforests on Earth, supporting high biodiversity, substantial carbon stocks, and the cultural heritage of Indigenous communities. Despite their importance, spatially consistent information on the distribution of old growth and mature forests in this region remains limited. We addressed this gap by integrating data across two national forest inventory programs with remotely sensed predictors. Forest inventory plots were classified by forest type and successional status (old growth,...

Ecosystems carry memory through the material remains of organisms. Foundation species—trees, grasses, corals, and oysters—while alive are central to ecosystem structure, and the remains of these organisms continue to influence ecological processes after death. We conducted, to our knowldge, the first continental-scale exploration of how dead foundation species influence living conspecifics, leveraging long-term experiments and observations (2 to 32 years) from 10 ecosystems (five terrestrial and five marine) across the US Long Term Ecological Research Network. We found that material...

Beech leaf disease (BLD), caused by the nematode Litylenchus crenatae ssp. mccannii (LC), poses a severe threat to American beech (Fagus grandifolia) across eastern North America. The disease causes wholesale anatomical, morphological, and physiological alterations, including symptoms such as leaf banding and bud abortion; the latter eventually leads to beech mortality, especially of younger trees. This outcome severely affects regeneration and diminishes the important ecosystem services provided by this keystone species. To advance our understanding of the disease, we hypothesized that...

Evaluation Monitoring is a component of the Forest Health Monitoring program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. The overarching goal of Evaluation Monitoring projects is to assess changes in forest health, often at a finer scale than standard monitoring activities. After a project is completed, investigators provide an overview of the scope, methods, and findings. Previous Evaluation Monitoring project summaries are searchable on the Forest Health Monitoring website. This report includes summaries of four recently completed projects: “Using Climate and Remote Sensing...

Aspects of red spruce’s climatic niche and its relation to the biogeography of the species are covered in Chapter 1. Our emphasis here is on red spruce’s interaction with its biophysical environment in terms of a changing climate, what this might illuminate about the nature of its climate sensitivities, and how it may respond to future climate change. We approach this from an interdisciplinary viewpoint that integrates perspectives across biological, temporal, and spatial scales not often discussed together in the same work. We first briefly summarize key features of red spruce’s climate...

The first efforts to restore red spruce (Picea rubens) ecosystems in the central and southern Appalachians began nearly 100 years ago, following broad scale declines that resulted from industrial logging activities and associated wildfires. While many localized efforts have occurred over the last century, the scale of red spruce restoration has dramatically increased over the last two decades. In the mid-2000s, the Central Appalachian Spruce Restoration Initiative (CASRI) was formed to bring restoration partners together, followed by establishment of the Southern Appalachian Spruce...

Developing interest in using silviculture to achieve a broad array of objectives such as maintaining or restoring ecological function, increasing adaptive capacity, and providing timber products in the same forest stand has increased the appeal of irregular shelterwood methods. Despite growing application in Canada, Europe, and other regions of the United States, use of irregular shelterwood is limited across the Central Hardwood Forest Region, USA. Obstacles to broader implementation include a need for intermediate treatments to address existing challenges to oak regeneration, unfamiliarit...

Heavy metal contamination in water systems driven by industrialization and urbanization is a primary concern for society. The development of efficient remediation methods to reduce heavy metal contamination in water is necessary. Biochar has emerged as a promising adsorbent for heavy metals due to its unique physicochemical properties. This study investigated the effect of biochars manufactured from 12 different wood species on lead ion (Pb(II)) removal capacity in aqueous solutions. The 12 different wood species include two softwoods and 10 hardwoods. The physicochemical properties and...

Forest inventory and monitoring is critically important to the long-term success of forest ecosystems, particularly given increasing levels of disturbance from wildfire, insects, disease, and human activity. Since its inception under the McSweeney-McNary Forest Research Act of 1928, and following revisions in the 1998 Agricultural Research, Extension, and Education Reform Act and 2014 Agricultural Act (“Farm Bills”), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program has conducted continuous monitoring of the Nation’s forest resources,...