Tag: Disturbance

Foraging in the Future

by Sarah Farmer, SRS Science Communications  • 
Foraging can be as casual as searching for wild blackberries in a suburban backyard. At least a quarter of the U.S. population has foraged in this way. “Forests provide food, medicine, and other sundry items for subsistence and income,” says USDA Forest Service scientist Jim Chamberlain. Blackberries, blueberries, Christmas trees, firewood, fungi, grasses, greenery, mosses,…  More 

Coweeta Technicians Travel to Puerto Rico

by Katie Bower, Coweeta LTER Research Technician  • 
Electric blue squares dotted the urban landscape. From the descending plane, USDA Forest Service visitors thought they might be swimming pools. Alas, they were tarps covering the roofs of homes and keeping leaks at bay on rainy days. These tarps were the first sign of lingering damage from Hurricanes Irma and Maria. Broken roads, twisted…  More 

Women in Science: Callie Schweitzer

by Julia Kirschman, SRS Bent Creek Experimental Forest, Technology Transfer Specialist  • 
The Women in Science series features women scientists from across the Southern Research Station (SRS)–their education, career paths, challenges, achievements, and inspirations. Meet SRS scientist Callie Schweitzer, a research forester with the Upland Hardwood Ecology and Management Research Unit in Huntsville, Alabama. She received her doctorate and master’s degrees in Forest Resources and Ecology from Pennsylvania State University.…  More 

Exotic Plants May Dominate After a Fire, But Not for Long

by Stephanie Worley Firley, Eastern Threat Center  • 
Land managers expect that exotic invasive plants will quickly move in following a disturbance, especially after a fire. Though exotics initially might have an edge over native plants on burned ground, this may not always be so as time goes on, according to a U.S. Forest Service study. Qinfeng Guo, a research ecologist with the…  More 

Fire Frequency & Hardwood Regeneration

by Jennifer Moore Myers, SRS Science Communications  • 
The mighty oak is a critical component of southern forests—for wildlife habitat, acorn production, and hardwood timber—but forests are changing, and its future is uncertain. A long-running U.S. Forest Service experiment studied the use of prescribed fire to control competition from shade-tolerant tree species like red maple, American beech, and blackgum. The study area, located on…  More 

Into the Rhizosphere: Soil Fungi and Carbon Dynamics

by Sarah Farmer, SRS Science Communications  • 
Underneath the Earth’s surface, water, nutrients, and chemical signals are shuttled through a sprawling network between tree roots and soil fungi. “Many forest trees depend on their associated soil fungi for nutrients, as the fungi are better at absorbing nitrogen, phosphorous, and other nutrients,” says U.S. Forest Service ecologist Melanie Taylor. “The trees return the…  More 

Forests, Water, Climate, and Management

by Sarah Farmer, SRS Science Communications  • 
Across the globe, forests cover about a quarter of all land and are important sources of clean water. A new book, edited by U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS) scientist Devendra Amatya, examines the interactions between forests, water, climate, and management. The book, Forest Hydrology: Processes, Management and Assessment, was recently published by the…  More 

Here Today or Here to Stay?

by Stephanie Worley Firley  • 
Some disturbances come and go, leaving forests no worse for the wear. Hailstorms, insect defoliations, and light prescribed fires, for example, commonly occur early in the growing season, but, because of the timing and nature of these disturbances, trees and other vegetation may quickly regrow leaves after the damage is done. In such cases, even…  More 

Disturbance Affects Relationship between the Nitrogen and Carbon Cycles

by Sarah Farmer, SRS Science Communications  • 
Carbon and nitrogen are always on the move. Both elements are versatile – they are constantly being converted from one form to another, and are required by all living things. “Because plants, animals, and microbes also require fixed ratios of the two elements, carbon and nitrogen’s chemical cycles are inherently linked,” says U.S. Forest Service…  More 

Creating Young Forests to Benefit Wildlife

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
There’s a tendency to think of the hardwood forests of the South as pristine, undisturbed, and unchanging. But forests are constantly changing, which is a good thing for disturbance-dependent species that require open structural conditions created immediately after forest disturbances or at some point early in the process of recovery. Historically and still today, windstorms,…  More