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Northern Research Station
11 Campus Blvd., Suite 200
Newtown Square, PA 19073
(610) 557-4017
(610) 557-4132 TTY/TDD

You are here: NRS Home / Scientists & Staff / Melissa Thomas-Van Gundy
Scientists & Staff

Melissa Thomas-Van Gundy

Title: Research Forester
Unit: Ecological and Economic Sustainability of the Appalachian Forest in an Era of Globalization
Address: Northern Research Station
P.O. Box 404
Parsons, WV 26287
Phone: 304-478-2000 ext. 114
E-mail: Contact Melissa Thomas-Van Gundy

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Education

  • MS 1992 - State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, resource management/silviculture
  • BS 1989 - Davis and Elkins College, pre-forestry

Civic & Professional Affiliations

Society of American Foresters, Ecological Society of America

Current Research

  • Fire regimes of the central Appalachians
  • Central Appalachian silviculture
  • Fire as a silvicultural tool in oak forests
  • Witness trees of the Monongahela National Forest
  • Red spruce recovery and restoration

Why is This Important

Use of prescribed fire likely to increase and knowledge of fire history will help in determining where to return this disturbance regime.

In a part of the country without the benefit of General Land Office surveys, witness trees represent a snap-shot in time of species distributions. I hope to use the GIS based witness tree database to describe and categorize land-vegetation relationships of the area. Red spruce forests support rare species and are in slow recovery from era of exploitative forestry. Monongahela Forest Plan places emphasis on recovery and restoration of red spruce and spruce-hardwood forests. Research is needed to help define and achieve goals.

Future Research

I hope to continue to work at two scales, stand and landscape, as I build a body of work that includes both traditional silviculture and landscape ecology. I am interested in carrying on the long-term silvicultural studies of the Fernow Experimental Forest. I am also interested in the use of prescribed fire as a silvicultural tool to aid in oak regeneration and as a landscape-scale disturbance.

Featured Publications

  • Adams, Mary Beth; Edwards, Pamela J.; Ford, W. Mark; Johnson, Joshua B.; Schuler, Thomas M.; Thomas-Van Gundy, Melissa; Wood, Frederica. 2011. Effects of development of a natural gas well and associated pipeline on the natural and scientific resources of the Fernow Experimental Forest. Gen. Tech. Rep. NRS-76. Newtown Square, PA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station. 24 p.
  • Adams, Mary Beth; Ford, W. Mark; Schuler, Thomas M.; Thomas-Van Gundy, Melissa. 2011. Effects of natural gas development on forest ecosystems. In: Fei, Songlin; Lhotka, John M.; Stringer, Jeffrey W.; Gottschalk, Kurt W.; Miller, Gary W., eds. Proceedings, 17th central hardwood forest conference; 2010 April 5-7; Lexington, KY; Gen. Tech. Rep. NRS-P-78. Newtown Square, PA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station: 219-226.
  • Thomas-Van Gundy, Melissa; Strager, Michael. 2011. Site characteristics of American chestnut, oak, and hickory witness trees on the Monongahela National Forest, West Virginia. In: Fei, Songlin; Lhotka, John M.; Stringer, Jeffrey W.; Gottschalk, Kurt W.; Miller, Gary W., eds. Proceedings, 17th central hardwood forest conference; 2010 April 5-7; Lexington, KY; Gen. Tech. Rep. NRS-P-78. Newtown Square, PA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station: 208-218.
  • Thomas-Van Gundy, Melissa. 2010. Red spruce as witness tree on the Monongahela National Forest. In: Rentch, James S.; Schuler, Thomas M., eds. 2010. Proceedings from the conference on the ecology and management of high-elevation forests in the central and southern Appalachian Mountains. 2009 May 14-15; Slatyfork, WV. Gen. Tech. Rep. NRS-P-64. Newtown Square, PA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station: 242.
  • Thomas-Van Gundy, Melissa. 2010. Red spruce restoration modeling in LANDIS. In: Rentch, James S.; Schuler, Thomas M., eds. 2010. Proceedings from the conference on the ecology and management of high-elevation forests in the central and southern Appalachian Mountains. 2009 May 14-15; Slatyfork, WV. Gen. Tech. Rep. NRS-P-64. Newtown Square, PA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station: 229.

Additional Online Publications

Last Modified: 02/15/2012