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Northern Research Station

Featured Scientist

Todd Hutchinson thinks about forests past and present

Forest managers and researcher review board cut from trees harvested after prescribed fire.

Featured Research

When a timber demonstration project became an impromptu class on fire ecology

Featured Partnership

If a tree falls in a forest, and someone is around, should it be removed?

US Forest Service Northern Research Station

April Feature - Earth, Wind, and Fire

Last month was all about water, and in April we focus on the other three elements: Earth, wind and fire. Meet a scientist who is fascinated by the traces of past forests that remain on the landscape; learn about a study that delivered an unexpected lesson on fire ecology, and see why a partnership is recommending that some trees uprooted by wind should be left on the forest floor.

Rooted in Research

Leaving It Messy: Using Tip-up Mounds to Promote Tree Species Diversity

When a tree falls in the woods, should it be removed? In managed forests, common practices call for cleaning up and removing timber following a blowdown. But when Northern Research Station research forester Christel Kern sees the root mass of a fallen tree, she's more likely to see it as an opportunity. Her work is described in a 2019 Forest Ecology and Management article entitled Mounds Facilitate Regeneration of Light-Seeded and Browse-Sensitive Tree Species After Moderate-Severity Wind Disturbance.

Forestcast

Our new podcast brings you stories, interviews, and special in-depth anthologies of the science that's examining and explaining how forests affect our lives, and how we affect our forests.