Our Mission
Our mission is to provide basic ecological understanding, management guidelines, and policy-relevant information to sustain forest ecosystems in an environment changing rapidly through the direct and interacting effects of changes in climate, air quality, deer impacts, fire regimes, invasive species, land use, and human values.
Our Research Areas
Our focus is on sustaining biological diversity, economic and ecological productivity, forest health and vitality, and contributions to carbon cycles. Much of our research is conducted in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and adjacent states in mixed oak, Allegheny hardwood, and northern hardwood forests, but our work has national and global implications.
Our research approach is to understand and manage: We develop basic ecological understanding through observational and manipulative studies, then develop guidelines that help policy makers and managers sustain these forests. We focus our research on sustaining forests in a changing environment on five broad problem areas:
- Sustaining Mixed Oak, Allegheny, and Northern Hardwood Forests
- Fire Behavior and Effects Research under the National Fire Plan
- Managing Forests Affected by Invasive Species
- Understanding, Predicting, and Managing the Impact of Climate Change on Forests
- Contributing to Stewardship through Long-term Research including Research Conducted on the Kane and Vinton Furnace Experimental Forests
Recent Publications
- Royo, Alejandro ; Vickers, Lance ; Long, Robert ; Ristau, Todd ; Stoleson, Scott ; Stout, Susan L. 2021. The Forest of Unintended Consequences: Anthropogenic Actions Trigger the Rise and Fall of Black Cherry. BioScience
- Quigley, Kathleen M.; Kolka, Randall ; Sturtevant, Brian R.; Dickinson, Matthew B.; Kern, Christel C.; Miesel, Jessica R. 2021. Restoring open canopy pine barrens from the ground up: Repeated burns correspond with increased soil hydraulic conductivity. Science of The Total Environment
- De Vriendt, Laurent ; Thiffault, Nelson ; Royo, Alejandro A.; Barrette, Martin ; Tremblay, Jean-Pierre 2020. Moose Browsing Tends Spruce Plantations More Efficiently Than a Single Mechanical Release. Forests
- Flower, Charles E.; Pinchot, Cornelia C.; Knight, Kathleen S.; Woeste, Keith ; Slavicek, James M. 2020. Back from the Brink: Forest Service Efforts to Create Dutch Elm Disease Tolerant Trees for Use in Urban and Rural Restoration. In: Publication: Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-252. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service. Southern Research Station
- Pinchot, Cornelia C.; Royo, Alejandro A.; Schlarbaum, Scott E.; Peters, Matthew P.; Sharp, Ami M.; Anagnostakis, Sandra L. 2020. The effect of site quality on performance of American Chestnut (Castanea Dentata) seedlings bred for blight (Cryphonectria Parasitica) resistance. In: Publication: Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-252. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service. Southern Research Station
Last Modified: 11/08/2019