Silviculture, Fire, Forest Health and Biodiversity

Silviculture fire forest health

Silviculture, Fire, Forest Health and Biodiversity

This research focuses on manipulating vegetation to achieve management objectives including restoration, intensive timber production, fire ecology and fire management and forest ecosystem health. Projects include the effects of stand structure on fire behavior, interaction of fires and forest pests, forest certification, regeneration of mixed conifer and ponderosa pine stands in central and eastern Oregon, N-fixing, stream responses to riparian cover management and forest nursery management. 

Faculty Research Programs

The Vegetation Management Research Cooperative consists of private companies, public land management agencies, and scientists from Oregon State University that are working together to conduct applied forest regeneration research. The goal of this research is to design management systems that integrate the best available science with the practical needs of our cooperators in order to successfully establish Pacific Northwest forests.

Our goal is to create sustainable and resilient natural systems in which people engage with the Earth with reciprocity. Indigenous peoples have stewarded natural resources for millennia through their knowledge and traditional practices. The TEK Lab explores, facilitates, and honors the synergies between TEK, Western science, and other ways of knowing.

This research focuses on Swiss needle cast, a foliage disease specific to the Douglas fir caused by a fungal pathogen. Symptoms include chlorotic needles and decreased needle retention, resulting in sparse crowns and reduced diameter and height growth. The mission of the SNCC is to conduct research to enhance Douglas-fir productivity and forest health in the presence of Swiss needle cast and other diseases in coastal forests of Oregon and Washington.

Silviculture and Wildland Fire Lab

This research is lead by John Bailey, the Maybelle Clarke MacDonald Professor of Teaching Excellence in Silviculture and Fire Management. His research focuses on using traditional and experimental silviculture practices to achieve a spectrum of objectives in a landscape, including commodity production, habitat creation, fire risk reduction and ecosystem restoration.

The Forest Animal Ecology Lab is headed by Assistant Professor Jim Rivers. The research questions he pursues are grounded in both basic and applied principles, and nearly all are investigated through empirical field studies of wild populations in forested ecosystems. Some of the lab's current projects include studies that are examining bee community response to biofuel harvest, testing the demographic response of early seral birds to herbicides, and evaluating the impacts of supplemental feeding on the behavior and physiology of songbirds.

The mission of this research is to understand and quantify the interactive effects of silvicultural activities and site conditions on maintaining and improving the productivity, health,and sustainability of intensively managed, planted forests in the Pacific Northwest.

Vegetation Management Research Cooperative

The Vegetation Management Research Cooperative consists of private companies, public land management agencies, and scientists from Oregon State University that are working together to conduct applied forest regeneration research. The goal of this research is to design management systems that integrate the best available science with the practical needs of our cooperators in order to successfully establish Pacific Northwest forests.

Swiss Needle Cast Cooperative

This research focuses on Swiss needle cast, a foliage disease specific to the Douglas fir caused by a fungal pathogen. Symptoms include chlorotic needles and decreased needle retention, resulting in sparse crowns and reduced diameter and height growth. The mission of the SNCC is to conduct research to enhance 

Silviculture and Wildland Fire Lab

This research is lead by John Bailey, the Maybelle Clarke MacDonald Professor of Teaching Excellence in Silviculture and Fire Management. His research focuses on using traditional and experimental silviculture practices to achieve a spectrum of objectives in a landscape, including commodity production, habitat creation, fire risk reduction and ecosystem restoration.

Forest Animal Ecology Lab

The Forest Animal Ecology Lab is headed by Assistant Professor Jim Rivers. The research questions he pursues are grounded in both basic and applied principles, and nearly all are investigated through empirical field studies of wild populations in forested ecosystems. Some of the lab's current projects include studies that are examining bee community response to biofuel harvest, testing the demographic response of early seral birds to herbicides, and evaluating the impacts of supplemental feeding on the behavior and physiology of songbirds.