Category: Forest Inventory & Analysis

Assessing the Health of U.S. Forests

by Lars Pomara, Eastern Threat Center  • 
Forests are complex ecosystems. They are constantly changing as a result of tree growth, variations in weather and climate, and disturbances from fire, pathogens, and other stressors. The USDA Forest Service Forest Health Monitoring (FHM) program tracks these ongoing changes — every year, across the nation — as a forest health check up. The 2018…  More 

Uncovering Urban Forests

by Naomi Cohen-Shields, SRS Science Communications Intern  • 
The scope of forest-pest risk analysis research is often limited to natural forests. Neglected are those tree communities called urban forests: trees within the boundaries of a city or populated area. Urban trees see a significant proportion of the impacts from invasive pests. Their unnatural distribution and close proximity to transported goods and other means…  More 

Government-Academic Partnership Gathers Tick Data

by Megan Bequette, SRS Science Communications Intern  • 
As an intern with the USDA Forest Service, I’ve had my fair share of run-ins with ticks. My first trip into the field took me deep into a relatively untamed forest. The other three interns tagging along were surprisingly serene about the bounty of insects and spiderwebs everywhere; I was constantly swatting away bugs and…  More 

Call for Abstracts: the 2019 FIA Stakeholders Science Meeting

by Teresa Jackson, SRS Public Affairs  • 
The USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis Program (FIA) and NCASI are pleased to announce that registration is now open for the 2019 FIA Stakeholders Science Meeting to be held November 19-21, 2019 in Knoxville, Tennessee. The meeting will bring together international forest scientists, managers, and stakeholders to share insights on contemporary issues, science…  More 

Regional Participants Gather at the Fourth Experimental Forest Workshop

by Megan Bequette and Naomi Cohen-Shields, SRS Science Communications Interns  • 
About 30 USDA Forest Service scientists gathered in Raleigh, North Carolina this month for the fourth workshop in a series about reinvigorating the SRS network of Experimental Forest and Range sites. The group included 17 SRS scientists, in addition to FIA, EFR sabbatical recipients, university collaborators, and two partners from the Southern Region of the…  More 

The State of U.S. Forests

by Sonja Oswalt, SRS FIA Forester  • 
The U.S. forest products industry accounts for approximately four percent of the nation’s total manufacturing GDP, producing over $200 billion in products every year. To keep tabs on the condition and status of America’s forest resources over time, the USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis Program compiles the official estimates for all public and private forest lands in…  More 

How Tree Diversity Affects Invasive Forest Pests

by Jennifer Moore Myers, SRS Science Communications  • 
“Invasive insects and diseases pose both ecological and economic threats to our forest ecosystems,” says Qinfeng Guo, USDA Forest Service research ecologist. Guo is the lead author of a broad-scale study of U.S. forest data that examines the relationship between the number of native tree species and the number of nonnative forest pests. Across their…  More 

Trees in Protected Areas

by Remi Shaull-Thompson, SRS Science Communications Intern  • 
Conservation goals range anywhere from aesthetics to survival. Among the most important of those is ensuring that an ecosystem is resilient to disturbances and provides as many different functions as possible. According to an assessment by a USDA Forest Service cooperating researcher, those qualities can be quantified using two metrics: rarity and evolutionary distinctiveness. Rarity…  More 

Workshop on Southern Experimental Forest Network

by Jennifer Moore Myers, SRS Science Communications, and Stephanie Laseter, EF network coordinator  • 
More than 20 representatives from SRS Experimental Forests (EF), Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA), SRS leadership, and partner sites met on April 30 in Little Rock, Arkansas. “Their primary objective was to build on previous efforts, such as the field tours, and develop an implementation framework and plan for the network,” says Stephanie Laseter, EF…  More 

Family Forests Are the Ties That Bind the Landscape

by Stephanie Worley Firley, Eastern Threat Center  • 
Family forests have an enormous capacity to provide ecosystem services such as clean air and water, timber and nontimber forest products, wildlife habitat, and scenic beauty and recreation — benefits that stretch far beyond property lines. According to USDA Forest Service research, sustaining these services depends on not only the condition of individual family forests…  More