Forest Management Commons^™

Visualizing 25 Years Of Change In The Glades Oak Savanna, Zoe Fieberg

Summer Research Showcase

Oak savannas represent one of the most threatened ecosystems in Minnesota due to changing land use management, particularly absence of fire (Davis, 2001). Frequent burns kill fire-sensitive mesophytic tree species, reducing the dominance of woody understory and allowing for restoration of the oak savanna environment. The GLADES (Grid for Landscape Analysis and Demographic Study) site was established in 1988 in East Bethel, Minnesota to study the effect of frequent burning on oak savanna restoration. Through the use of standardized methods of photography, we compared canopy differences across GLADES between 2001 and 2026. Preliminary observations revealed increased canopy density and reduced …

Quaking Aspen On Cedar Mountain, Utah: Status And Update, Jaycee Cappaert, Larissa L. Yocom, Paul C. Rogers, Darren J. Mcavoy, R. Justin Derose

Wildland Resources Student Research

Quaking aspen forests are important communities in the western United States where they provide preferential food and habitat for animals, limit wildfires from spreading, and have favorable aesthetics, among other things. Their putative decline is an issue for ecology and management. We remeasured the aspen population on Cedar Mountain, Utah, to assess changes to its condition since it was originally measured in 2008 and laid the groundwork for continued aspen monitoring on Cedar Mountain. Our objectives were to compare current metrics of stand structure and composition, mortality, crown dieback, bole damage, regeneration, and recruitment, to those of the original inventory. …

New Paradigm Of Forestry And Grassland Research Driven By Artificial Intelligence, Zhang Huaiqing, Jiaojun Zhu, Yang Liu, Tingdong Yang, Tian Gao, Jing Zhang, Xueyan Zhu, Yan Chen, Xian Jiang, Zeyu Cui, Jingwei Tan, Kexin Lei

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

Addressing the current limitations in forestry and grassland research, particularly in cross-scale system cognition, complex process mechanism representation, and multi-scenario simulation, this study proposes an artificial intelligence-driven paradigm reconstruction framework, to shift the research model from experience-oriented approaches toward data- and intelligence-driven integration. On this basis, the study systematically establishes a multidimensional mapping between artificial intelligence and forestry and grassland research across research objects, processes, and objectives, and clarifies their intrinsic coupling mechanisms and technical pathways. Furthermore, it develops a foundational capability system to support the new paradigm from four key dimensions: data, computing power, models, and applications. By examining …

Sensitivity Of The Mangrove Forest In The Joal-Fadiouth Marine Protected Area (Senegal) To Climate Variability (Rainfall And Temperatures), Eugenie Marie Mossane Sene, Elhadji Faye, Sylvie Brizard Zongo, Hippolyte Ditona Tsumbu, Jean-Claude Micha

Journal of Bioresource Management

Mangroves provide coastal communities with a multitude of ecosystem services. This is the case in Joal-Fadiouth. A study on its mangrove dynamics revealed a decline in area between 1974 and 2004, followed by a gradual trend after it acquired Marine Protected Area (MPA) status in 2004. Given the importance of this mangrove, the research focused on analyzing its evolution associated with rainfall and temperature variability. To do this, Spearman’s Rho correlation coefficient was performed between mangrove areas in 10-year increments from 1974 to 2024 and values of climate parameters studied for each increment, with n (number of pairs) = 6. …

Distribution And Impact Of Cogongrass (Imperata Cylindrica) In Northern Mississippi, Carl R. Pulver V, Ryan E. Burke, Elizabeth Esser, Evan Moore, Ashley Schulz

Endeavors: Mississippi State Undergraduate Research Journal

Cogongrass (Imperata cylindrica) is a non-native, rhizomatous grass that has invaded the southeastern United States. It forms dense mats that outcompete native plants, alters decomposition and microbial assemblages, and has highly flammable litter that alters fire behavior, affecting native plant communities. Though surveys for cogongrass have been conducted in southern Mississippi, the degree of cogongrass infestations in northern Mississippi has remained unclear and concerning. This study aimed to update cogongrass location data for the state and identify problem areas to guide state invasive plant management efforts. To provide a starting point, previously documented cogongrass locations were synthesized from natural history …

Exploring The Relationship Between Tree Dbh And Lichen Cover On Coast Redwood, Grace M. Personeus, Sierra Gittleman, Alisa A. Zarattini

IdeaFest: Interdisciplinary Journal of Creative Works and Research from Cal Poly Humboldt

We investigated the relationship between Diameter at Breast Height (DBH) and lichen cover on coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) to see if larger trees had higher percentages of cover. We measured cover using 10 cover classes on the southeastern and southwestern sides of trees in a secondary growth forest. We found a significant relationship between DBH and cover, yet no significant difference between the two sides measured. We suggest that further research with a larger sample size and more varied age classes will provide further insight into the relationship.

Exploring The Effects Of Pest-Induced Hemlock Mortality On Growth In Neighboring Trees, Sidney L. Booher

McNair Culminating Research Projects

Trees provide many important products and services to humans. In particular, tree growth is critical to carbon storage, air and water quality, and helps determine demographic processes like population growth and reproductive success. Importantly, tree growth is sensitive to both abiotic (environmental) and biotic factors and is vulnerable to ecological disturbances. Understanding how tree populations respond to disturbances, like invasive pests, is therefore crucial to formulating timely and effective forest management practices.

Here, I used tree ring analysis to investigate how competition for water between neighboring trees changes following the decline of Eastern and Carolina Hemlock(ECH) trees due to the …

Planting Oak Seedlings For Forest Regeneration, Ryan Bohannon

Forestry and Natural Resources

Oaks are an important component of forests across the Southeast and are favored for a variety of objectives, including the provision of wildlife habitat and timber. Planting oak seedlings can be an effective practice for promoting successful oak regeneration in managed forests. This publication provides forest landowners and managers with practical recommendations for oak enrichment planting, including species and seedling selection, seedling care, planting techniques, and post-planting practices to promote survival and growth.

Deforestation Dynamics In The Amazon: Impacts, Socio-Environmental Drivers And Restoration Pathways, Maria Natalia Rodriguez

Master's Projects and Capstones

The Amazon, which is the largest tropical rainforest in the world, experienced 542,581 km² of forest loss between the years 2000 and 2020. The process of deforestation endangers the ecological system results which maintain ecosystem connectivity and the Earth's climate system. The Amazon rainforest supplies essential ecological services which include maintaining soil fertility, storing carbon, purifying water and climate stability. The fundamental ecosystem of this area faces new threats because of increasing forest destruction. The research study adopts a combined methodology that uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) with a comprehensive literature review to study Amazon deforestation patterns and its driving …

Basics Of Forest Certification: A Primer For Forest Owners, Miah Maye Pormon, Joan U. Ureta, Marzieh Motallebi, Barry Graden

Forestry and Natural Resources

Forest certification promotes sustainable forest management, enhances market access for forest products, and improves ecosystem services. This article addresses forest owners’ hesitations in certifying their forest lands by providing information on the importance and requirements of the three biggest certification systems in the Southern U.S. This study can serve as a resource to raise awareness towards forest certification systems and encourage greater participation among forest landowners.

Integrating Incentive Design And Spatial Prioritization For Climate-Smart Forestry Adoption In South Carolina, United States, Miah Maye Pormon

All Dissertations

Forests provide essential ecosystem services, including carbon sequestration, water regulation, timber production, and habitat provision. However, increasing development pressures and land-use changes threaten forest persistence and long-run ecosystem service provision. Climate-smart forestry (CSF) practices, such as improved forest management and extended rotation, offer opportunities to enhance carbon storage, forest resilience, and economic livelihoods. The effectiveness of these practices depends on forest owners’ participation and the strategic allocation of financial resources or incentives. This dissertation develops an integrated framework that combines behavioral economic analysis and mapping to improve the design of current incentive programs. The first chapter employs the Contingent Valuation …

Forest Overstory Mortality & Recruitment Patterns Eight Years Following Wildfire In The Southern Appalachians, Ruth Cumberland

All Theses

In this study, we investigated patterns of forest overstory mortality and recruitment eight years after wildfire in a large wildfire site the Southern Appalachians, a topic that has not been thoroughly investigated to date. With evidence that pre-fire drought promotes post-fire mortality through impaired physiological function and increased fuel consumption, unknown patterns following wildfire are important to study under shifting climate and land-use conditions. In Chapter 1, three areas of interest were investigated: (a) functional group mortality response to wildfire effects, (b) temporal differences in early (1-3 years) and late (5-8 years) periods of delayed forest overstory mortality patterns following …

Ai-Driven Multispectral Drone Monitoring For Afforestation In Arid Environments, Hesham Morgan, Ali Elgendy, Brandon Tran, Tamer Ismail, Mohamed M. Moursy, Yehya Kh. Shehadeh, Ahmed Elgharib, Ahmed Abdullah Al-Dughairi, Ali El Mubarak, Khaled Allam Harhash, Hesham El-Askary

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Monitoring large-scale afforestation projects in arid and semi-arid environments requires accurate, high-resolution, and repeatable methods to assess tree survival and growth. In this study, we integrated unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) multispectral imaging with an advanced object detection framework to evaluate vegetation establishment in the Shuayb Al-Budai afforestation site, part of the Imam Turki bin Abdullah Royal Natural Reserve, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Multispectral datasets were acquired using a MicaSense Altum-PT sensor and processed through a masked Region-based Convolutional Neural Network (RCNN) with two backbone architectures: ResNet-101 and VGG19-BN. The Mask R-CNN–ResNet-101 model achieved superior performance, with an overall accuracy …

Forest Characteristics And Avian Community Differences Among Cerulean Warblers (Setophaga Cerulea) Use Types, Dustin Kohler

ATU Scholars Symposium

Avian species are often used to measure the health of an ecosystem, in part because the specific forest structure can significantly impact the avian community. A heterogeneous landscape can support a more diverse avian community and benefit specialist species like the Cerulean Warbler (Setophaga cerulea), a rapidly declining, neotropical migrant that can be found in large deciduous forests. The Ozark Mountains of northwestern Arkansas represent a small core area for the species, but at all sites in the upland Ozarks where Cerulean Warbler research has been conducted, there are fewer individuals than there were twenty years ago; some …

Use Of Basal Tree Cavities By Sylvilagus Aquaticus In Central Arkansas, Heath R. Williams

ATU Scholars Symposium

Basal tree cavities are hollow structures at the base of tree trunks utilized by many wildlife species, including small mammals, furbearers, and bats. Dumyahn and Zollner (2010) demonstrated that swamp rabbits (Sylvilagus aquaticus) use basal tree cavities and speculated that they may be used for thermoregulation at the northern limits of their geographic range or as alternative escape routes. To further investigate swamp rabbit use of basal tree cavities, we placed camera traps approximately 1 m from the entrance of the cavities (n = 43) in various Wildlife Management Areas in central Arkansas. Along with control sites without cavities (n=25), …

Testing The Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis On Anthropogenic Pressure In Central Alabama, Gavin Terrell

Theses

Biodiversity is fundamental to maintaining ecosystem structure and function globally. Prior to the late 20th century, ecological theory generally predicted that biodiversity would be highest in systems experiencing minimal disturbance. However, Joseph H. Connell challenged this view with the Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis (IDH), which posits that species diversity peaks at intermediate levels of disturbance and declines under conditions of both low and high disturbance. Although widely cited, the applicability of the IDH to natural systems remains debated, particularly in the context of anthropogenic disturbances and when diversity is measured beyond species richness alone.

This study evaluated the predictions of the …

Status Of Soils In Protected Areas With Different Management Objectives In Lowland Rainforest, Southwest Nigeria, Bolanle Lisa Olajiire-Ajayi, Adeniyi Sulaiman Gbadegesin, Omotosho Ayodele Ogidan

Journal of Bioresource Management

Understanding soil properties is fundamental to sustaining the ecological integrity of protected forest ecosystems. This study examined the influence of two management categories; Strict Nature Reserve (SN) and Natural Park (NP) on soil physicochemical properties within the lowland rainforest of southwestern Nigeria. Fourteen composite soil samples, six from SN and eight from NP, were analyzed for texture, bulk density (BD), pH, organic carbon (OC), total nitrogen (TN), available phosphorus (AP), exchangeable bases (Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺, K⁺, Na⁺), and cation exchange capacity (CEC); base saturation (BS) was also determined. Both management categories exhibited sandy loam to loamy sand textures, typical of gneissic …

Stemflow Dynamics In The Jamari National Forest (Brazilian Amazon): Ii. Solute Concentrations And Flux Dynamics, Jeferson Alberto De Lima, John T. Van Stan Ii, Karolina Lewińska, Agnieszka Dradrach, Jakub Ceglarek, Kelly Cristina Tonello

Biological, Geological, and Environmental Faculty Publications

Trees can redirect large volumes of rainwater to the base of their stems. This stemflow not only redistributes water but also channels canopy-derived solutes to the forest floor. Building on research showing canopy geometry and bark properties govern stemflow volumes, we examined how those same traits modulate the biogeochemical side of this flux. Over a 12-month period in Jamari National Forest (Brazil), we quantified stemflow volume and solute chemistry for 19 trees grouped by diameter at breast height (D: < 10, 10-20 and > 20 cm), crown area (CA: < 30, 30-60 and > 60 m(2)) and bark texture (smooth, fissured and rough). Small-stemmed, smooth-barked trees produced the greatest stemflow …

Evaluating Benthic Macroinvertebrate Communities In Streamside Management Zones In Private, Working Forests, Haley Vaglienti

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Forestry operations can alter riparian vegetation and increase sediment and nutrient inputs to streams, affecting water quality and aquatic biota. Forestry best management practices (BMPs) including streamside management zones (SMZs) are designed to mitigate those effects by reducing sediment delivery and moderating temperature, flow, and nutrient regimes. We assessed ecological integrity at 24 intermittent stream sites with SMZs in private, working forests across the Piedmont and Southeastern plains of Georgia. At each site, we conducted physical habitat evaluations and characterized benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages. Sites represented a gradient of habitat conditions, SMZ widths, and pine stand ages, allowing for comparisons of …

A Frog, A Toad, And A Salamander Walk Into A Forest: How Timber Harvest And Environmental Conditions Impact Amphibian Species Abundance In The White Mountain National Forest, William T. Brandenburg

Honors Theses and Capstones

Balancing the needs of humans and wildlife is one of the primary goals of conservation. Understanding how species respond to resource extraction is essential to achieve long-term population stability. This is especially relevant for amphibians, which are particularly sensitive to environmental disturbances due to habitat loss and degradation. As such they are often used as indicator species. This study leverages 20-years of amphibian abundance data from surveys in different silvicultural treatments to understand how American toads (Anaxyrus americanus), wood frogs (Lithobates sylvaticus), and red-backed salamanders (Plethodon cinereus) respond to changes in forest structure, weather, …