Understory

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Forest Service Research and Development (R&D) is a world leader in forestry research. Integral to the mission of the Forest Service since the agency’s inception in 1905, R&D studies the most pressing natural resource management issues of our day, generating science findings and tools that help sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of our national forests and grasslands—and ultimately enhance the rigor and impact of the entire agency.

Current research projects under FireBGCv2

America’s forests and grasslands are integral to global efforts to address current and future impacts of climate change. Healthy forest and grassland ecosystems are vital to the well-being and livelihoods of all Americans. These ecosystems provide drinking water for millions of people influence the global carbon balance, supply food, support rural and urban jobs, provide places to recreate, and are home to diverse fish and wildlife populations. Climate change is already having substantial impacts on these systems, which are increasingly stressed by severe wildfires, invasive species, diseases,...

Climate change, high-severity wildfire, and drought threaten the resilience of forests and communities in the Sierra Nevada. The area burned by high-severity wildfires annually is increasing, and prolonged droughts coupled with beetle outbreaks have the potential to result in massive tree mortality, leaving extremely large areas of dead trees. These factors, along with fire suppression and unsustainable logging practices, shaped the forests we know today, which are less resilient to wildfire and drought than pre-European settlement forests. Despite significant efforts since the early 1990s to ...