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Forest and Woodland Ecosystems Research
The Forests and Woodlands Ecosystems Research Program of the Rocky
Mountain Research Station acquires, develops, and delivers the scientific
knowledge basis for natural resource management activities for sustaining
and restoring forests and woodlands landscape health, biodiversity,
productivity, and ecosystem processes in the Intermountain West, the
Rocky Mountains, and the Southwest. The scope of the program includes
subalpine, aspen, mixed-conifer, and ponderosa pine forests, and pinyonjuniper
and oak woodlands as well as ecotones with shrublands, grasslands,
and deserts. Increasingly these forests and woodlands are being
impacted by large scale urbanization and human developments, uncharacteristically
large and severe wildfires, insect and disease outbreaks,
exotic species invasions, and drought, and interactions of multiple stressors
at local, landscape, and regional scales. These forests and woodlands
are the critical source of water, natural resources, esthetic and recreation
amenities, and wildlife habitat in the West. The research program addresses
the basic ecology of forest and woodland vegetation and soils and
related ecosystem biota and processes as the basis for understanding the
function, composition, and structure of these complex ecosystems. The
program further develops vegetation and fuels management and restoration
strategies as well as quantitative tools to guide management and restoration
planning and treatment implementation. The program provides
understanding of the complex interactions of management treatments
and other ecosystem disturbance processes temporally and spatially. Disturbance
mechanisms include resource management and use; wildland
fire; complexes of native bark beetles and defoliating insects and disease
outbreaks; invasive plants, insects, and diseases; drought; and climate
change. Researchers in the program are located at laboratories in Idaho,
Montana, Utah, Colorado, and Arizona, and collaborate with scientists in
other agencies, academic institutions, public organizations, and land and
resource managers nationally, and internationally and throughout the
Station territory.
Program Website
This program
does not have an official website.
A general idea
of the program's research can be garnered from the links below. They represent the
major research projects (aka RWUs) incorporated into the program.
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Congressional Notebook
