Treesearch

Approximately 170,000 ha have been logged on the Tongass National Forest since the early 20th century, resulting in a vast network of young, and even-aged Sitka spruce–western hemlock stands. Many of these stands are in a stem exclusion phase, with dense overstories that competitively shade out understories. In 2001, a USDA Forest Service planning committee convened to develop multiple resource treatments to examine the effects of precommercial thinning, resulting in a collaborative, long-term project to improve knowledge and catalyze the Tongass-Wide Young Growth Studies (TWYGS) project....

The Goosenest Adaptive Management Area was established in 1994 on the Klamath National Forest with the intent of evaluating late-successional forest characteristics. A large-scale experiment was established in the late 1990s to evaluate a range of management strategies. Treatments include combinations of mechanical thinning and prescribed fire. Observations 6 and 14 years after establishment were analyzed to evaluate effects on large tree component of the stand as well as species distribution and coarse woody debris. Thinning treatments accelerated growth of retained trees and modified...

Research and management collaboration is essential to address changing forest conditions across the United States and to deliver expected benefits of healthy forests to the public. Collaboration across the research and management mission areas in the USDA Forest Service occurs at the project, regional, and national levels, and addresses multiple challenges such as specific management needs, resource allocation, and strategic planning. An increase in collaboration internally and externally was recently called for in "Toward Shared Stewardship across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment...

The USDA Forest Service has been developing an ecosystem services framework to highlight forest values provided by public lands and to build partnerships with stakeholders to implement projects. In addition to describing ecosystem services provided by forest landscapes, this framework examines the potential tradeoffs among services associated with proposed management activities. This paper briefly describes results ranging from national programs to forest plan assessments to project scale applications that enhance the provision of ecosystem services and sustainable forest management at...

Many fire-adapted forests across the United States where fire has been excluded have in-filled with shade-tolerant species, reducing the characteristic spatial heterogeneity. We used 1929 stem maps of historical forest conditions in the Sierra Nevada to develop a thinning prescription designed to restore a pattern of tree clumps, individual trees, and gaps. This "high variability" (HighV) thinning treatment was evaluated in a replicated experimental design along with a more standard regular “leave” tree spacing "low variability" (LowV) thinning treatment, and an unthinned control, all with...

Wildfire regimes respond to atmospheric variability on multiple time scales from interannual variations of drought to daily fluctuations of humidity and wind. Synoptic weather patterns effectively link both short- and long-term atmospheric variability, and thus, understanding fire-prone synoptic patterns is an integral part of fire management programs. Different analysis procedures of varying complexity have been used to identify the most common synoptic weather patterns conducive to wildfires. In this study, we examine the utility of three synoptic-pattern classification methodologies,...

The Interagency Forestry Team of Ohio (Team) was established in 2008 to combine efforts and facilitate a common vision toward promoting healthy forests, especially oak-dominated forests, among federal and state agencies via a shared stewardship approach. The focus area is a 17-county region of southeastern Ohio that was selected for a Joint Chiefs’ Landscape Restoration Partnership Project for 2015–2017 (Fig. 1). The 2016 National Land Cover Database (Yang et al. 2018) estimates Ohio at 34.0 percent forested, and 41.8 percent of this forest resides within the 17-county area. Within this...

The Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS) and Intermountain Region (R4) of the USDA Forest Service are actively improving the science-manager relationship paradigm with an exciting new effort: the RMRS–R4 Science Partner Program. These programs complement existing grassroots science-manager relationships by improving coordination and learning at the project and programmatic levels as well as deploying science resources where needed. We showcase a model for helping the Forest Service achieve its goal of leveraging best available science toward beneficial land management outcomes at...

The Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change (ASCC) project is a collaborative effort that has established a series of experimental silvicultural trials across a network of different forest ecosystem types throughout North America. Scientists, land managers, and a variety of partners have co-developed a series of experimental sites as part of this multiregion study to research long-term ecosystem responses to a range of climate change adaptation approaches (Swanston et al. 2016). Silvicultural treatments at each study site were developed by using a modified process from Swanston et al....

Three years after the founding of the USDA Forest Service, Director Raphael Zon and Chief Gifford Pinchot initiated a plan to formally designate areas for research and demonstration. In addition to providing important scientific information needed by the Forest Service to practice silviculture, Zon and Pinchot envisioned that these areas would serve as the "meeting grounds" of researchers and managers to help catalyze, develop, and maintain management-research partnerships for the agency. For more than a century, many of them have served these purposes admirably. However, questions remain...