Month: August 2016

Story Maps: A New Approach to Communicating about Forests

by Zoё Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
The U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS) Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) unit is increasing the interactivity and reach of forest science by using FIA and other data to create story maps on topics that range from southern forest products to white-nose syndrome. Developed on Esri’s ArcGIS Online platform, story maps are stand-alone web-based…  More 

A Stoplight Tool to Enhance Communication of Forest Landscape Restoration

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
Today finds U.S. Forest Service scientist John Stanturf in Portland, Oregon, sharing the “spotlight tool” — a framework he and international collaborators developed to assess forest restoration projects in relation to climate change adaptation and mitigation — with communicators from all over the world participating in a joint workshop of the UNECE-FAO and the International Union of…  More 

Winter Prescribed Fire and Litter-Roosting Bats

by Sarah Farmer, SRS Science Communications  • 
Rather than hibernating in caves, some bat species in the southeastern U.S. get through the coldest parts of winter by roosting under fallen leaves, twigs, and other dead plant material on the forest floor. Although this leaf litter protects bats from the cold, it could also put them at risk of being injured or killed…  More 

Managing Forests to Conserve Bat Populations Affected by White-Nose Syndrome

by Anna Walker, SRS Science Communications Intern  • 
In March 2016, scientists found bats infected with white-nose syndrome (WNS), a fungal disease that’s killed millions of North American bats across the eastern United States, in Washington state, over 1,000 miles from the nearest confirmed infection site in eastern Oklahoma. Because most bat species in the U.S. eat phenomenal numbers of insects, bats are important to agriculture and to forests and…  More 

Can Urban Forest Settings Influence How Well Children with Autism Manage?

by Zoё Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
In late July, USDA Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the four recipients of the 2016 USDA Forest Service’s National Urban and Community Forestry Challenge grants. One of the four, the winning proposal from Georgia State University (GSU), investigates the impact of natural environments such as urban and community forests on symptom expression in children with…  More 

The Forest Health Advisory System

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
Do you want to know what pests are affecting the health of the trees on the national lands you visit or live near? The Forest Health Advisory System developed by U.S. Forest Service Forest Health Protection highlights potential future activities of more than 40 major forest pests and pathogens across 1.2 billion acres of U.S. forestland.…  More 

Serra Hoagland’s Milestone Achievements

by Teresa Jackson, SRS Partnerships  • 
Serra Hoagland, biological scientist with the U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS), graduated from Northern Arizona University (NAU) in May with a Ph.D. in forestry. In addition to receiving her Ph.D., she received the honor of being the first Native American to receive a doctoral degree in forestry from NAU, and is only the third…  More 

Annual Report Keeps a Finger on the Pulse of U.S. Forest Health

by Stephanie Worley Firley, Eastern Threat Center  • 
Everyone can understand the importance of a yearly checkup for monitoring one’s general health and wellbeing. Regular “checkups” are also necessary to gauge the overall health and monitoring needs of U.S. forests, so managers, scientists, and decision makers look to the U.S. Forest Service’s annual Forest Health Monitoring (FHM) national report to gain insights into…  More 

Controlling Cogongrass

by Stephanie Worley Firley, Eastern Threat Center  • 
Has cogongrass invaded your land? The first step — and the easiest — is identifying the plant itself, which the U.S. federal government and multiple states list as a noxious weed. Cogongrass has some features that make it fairly easy to identify. Compared to the deep green hues of other grasses typically found in the South, the…  More 

Cogongrass Can Be Stopped

by Zoё Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
Over the past decade, U.S. Forest Service researchers have been working with university cooperators to find some way to slow down or stop the relentless spread of cogongrass. In late 2014, Auburn University researchers reported results that demonstrated, for the first time, that patches of cogongrass can be eliminated completely within three years — showing…  More