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You are here: NRS Home / Units / Institute for Applied Ecosystem Studies / Research Focus / Climate Change

Institute for Applied Ecosystem Studies

Improve Forest Management Guidelines in Changing Climate and Atmosphere

As we progress further into the 21st century, challenges facing natural resource management will be superimposed upon the resource demands of an increasing human population and a rapidly changing global climate. Our research scales up stand level results from climate change experiments to larger land areas, allowing us to analyze the impacts of climate change on tree population genetics.

Identifying critical feedback processes among forest growth, atmosphere, and climate

• Tracing the movement of an invasive insect using stable isotopes
• Estimating fine root biomass with DNA fingerprints

Determining changes in forest productivity and stocking that have already occurred from carbon dioxide and ozone pollution

• Northern Forest Ecosystem Experiment: Aspen Regeneration and Carbon Cycling
• Effects of elevated concentrations of atmospheric CO₂ and tropospheric O₃ on foliar biochemical indicators of environmental change and their relationship with site productivity

Improve forest management guidelines in changing climate and atmosphere

Evaluating the resiliency and adaptation potential of northern forest conifers to changing climates, specifically as they relate to growth and yield

• Effects of Climate Change on the Productivity and Ecological Genetics of White Pine
• The DREAM Project - Desired Regeneration through Assisted Migration