Stuart's recent visit to a globally rare habitat type in Wisconsin

What does it mean to see the forest for the trees when the trees, well, aren’t there? For the Forest Service, this question brings both the past and the future into focus as they work on restoring historically open habitats in a corner of Wisconsin’s Northwoods. The signature answer that binds past conditions, present management activities, and future outcomes is: fire.

 “We’re trying to emulate nature as much as we can wherever we can in all of these treatments,” Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest silviculturist John Lampereur told me when we met in late April amongst the nascent Pine Barrens that he’s helping restore.

Pine barrens are a globally rare habitat type, and remnants in Wisconsin resemble heaths or savannahs, characterized by diverse shrubs, a grassy base layer, scant canopy, recurrent fire, and – the most exciting part – prolific blueberry patches.

Click here to read the full story. 

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New undergrad in our lab!

I’m so excited to announce that we have a new scientist in our lab. Meet Teagan!

Teagan is an undergraduate student of Biochemistry and Spatial Data Science, originally from Atlanta, Georgia. She is an AP Scholar (12 scores of 5/5!!), UO Stamps Scholar (our top undergraduate scholarship at UO!), and UO Presidential Scholar.

Learn more about her here:

https://www.melissalucash.com/teaganfurbish

Teagan Furbish

Teagan Furbish

Videos about our DoD grant

Our lab collaborated with DoD, NC State, Harvard Forest, and WalkWest to create videos about Fort Bragg. Each one is about 4 min in length and they are great for kids and adults alike!

DOD Case Study - Video One - Fort Bragg Ecosystem

DOD Case Study - Video Two- Fort Bragg's Red-cockaded Woodpecker

DOD Case Study - Video Three - The Value of Fire on Fort Bragg

DOD Case Study - Video Four - Fort Bragg's Ecosystem Forecast

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