 United
States Department of Agriculture -
Forest Service |
 Southern Research Station200 Weaver Boulevard P.O. Box 2680 Asheville, NC 28802 |
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 Photo Credit: Bill Lea |
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Forest Vegetation Management Article Wins Silvicultural Prize
ASHEVILLE, NC - An article co-edited by Jim Miller, research ecologist with the Southern Research Station (SRS) Insects, Diseases, and Invasive Plants unit based in Auburn, AL, has won the Silvicultural Prize awarded by Forestry: An International Journal of Forest Research published by Oxford University Press in London. Co-editor Phillippe Balandier from the Team of Applied Ecology of Woodlands based in Clermont-Ferrand, France, will accept the prize in London in April.
The Silviculture Prize is awarded annually to the author or authors of the best silviculture paper published in Forestry during the previous 3 years. The winning paper, “Designing forest vegetation management strategies based on the mechanisms and dynamics of crop tree competition by neighboring vegetation,” presents a conceptual model of the competition among common plant forms in forests such as forbs, small shrubs, large shrubs and mid-story trees, and main-story trees. The article includes an overview of how forest vegetation management practices influence these components; a synthesis of the literature provides the basis for guidelines for managing forest vegetation to optimize tree crop performance while safeguarding diversity.
The winning article is the result of one of the five synthesis projects that Miller organized for the Forest Vegetation Management session at the 5th International Weed Science Society Congress held in South Africa in 2004. The results were co-edited by Miller and Collet for a special issue of Forestry (Volume 79 (1), 2006).
In addition to the co-editors, authors included: Catherine Collet from the INRA Laboratoire d’Etude des Ressources Forêt-Bois, Champenoux France; Phillip Reynolds from the Canadian Forest Service, Ontario, Canada; and Shepard M. Zedaker from the Department of Forestry at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA. SRS forestry technician Erwin Chambliss, also stationed in Auburn, constructed the graphics for the article.
The full text of the prize-winning article is available at http://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/21710.
In addition to numerous scientific publications, SRS researcher Miller is the author of Nonnative Invasive Plants of Southern Forests: A Field Guide for Identification and Control, an important resource which has been distributed widely since its first printing in 2003. The guide is available online in pdf format at http://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/gtr/gtr_srs062/.
For more information:
James H. Miller at 334-826-8700 ext. 36 or jmiller01@fs.fed.us
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