Treesearch

Climate change is contributing to unprecedented rates of ecological transformation worldwide. Shifts in species composition and habitat have implications for ecosystem function and human relationships. The 1964 Wilderness Act was passed to preserve undeveloped large landscapes in their “natural” condition and for the continued use and enjoyment of people. Nevertheless, wilderness is still vulnerable to the direct and indirect impacts of climate change. Using active management to respond to climate change challenges in wilderness is complicated by the very protections afforded to wilderness...

National Forests in the United States provide a broad range of goods and services, safeguard biological diversity, and contribute to the resilience of ecosystems, societies, and economies. Given differences in land use history and forest management approaches between National Forests and neighboring ownerships, we investigated whether they differ across a spectrum of forest health indicators, from biomass stocking to structural diversity to invasion by non-native plants. We used Nationwide Forest Inventory (NFI) plot data from within National Forest System (NFS) lands across the conterminou...

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...

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...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program provides this resource update yearly as an overview of forest resources in Minnesota. These estimates are derived from field data collected across a systematic network of fixed-radius forest monitoring plots located on both public and private land. New updates are provided annually as a subset of plots within the State are remeasured. Each year, field crews visit and measure a subset of all FIA plots across the entire State (the size of the subset varies by State and year). Combining all...