Southern Research Station Headquarters - Asheville, NC
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[Images] Five photos of different landscape

Compass Issue 8
Download Issue 8 PDF

Compass is a quarterly publication of the USDA Forest Service's Southern Research Station (SRS). As part of the Nation's largest forestry research organization -- USDA Forest Service Research and Development -- SRS serves 13 Southern States and beyond. The Station's 130 scienists work in more than 20 units located across the region at Federal laboratories, universites, and experimental forests.



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Issue 8

Ecosystem Services

Ecosystem Services Ecosystem services can be defined simply as the benefits provided by forested landscapes. In addition to supplying wood products, fuel, medicine, and recreation, forests:

• Filter and clean both water and air

• Absorb and detoxify pollutants

• Provide habitat to a huge diversity of life forms

• Take up carbon dioxide and produce oxygen

• Regulate climate by sequestering carbon

• Maintain the health of soil

You can learn more about ecosystem services at: www.fs.fed.us/ecosystemservices/.

Back to: Constructing Wetlands to Improve Coastal Water Quality





Graduate student Sadie Drescher monitored the capacity of soil to process nitrogen as part of her research on constructed wetlands.
Graduate student Sadie Drescher monitored the capacity of soil to process nitrogen as part of her research on constructed wetlands.
(Photo by Larry Korhnak, University of Florida)

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