I joined the College of Forestry and Conservation faculty in August 2007 as Director of the Applied Forest Management Program (AFMP), a research and demonstration program of the Montana Forest and Conservation Experiment Station based at the University of Montana. The AFMP’s mission is to develop and promote knowledge and techniques for the sustainable active management of Montana’s forestlands. Previously I was Assistant Professor of Silviculture at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California (2001-2007). My current research program is focused on applied aspects of forest stand dynamics, and on the development of operational tools for the ecologically-appropriate silvicultural management of forest structure, composition, and health of western forest ecosystems.
My primary research themes are consistent with the AFMP’s current Research Initiatives, and include:
• Forest Renewal: Regeneration Dynamics and Reforestation Strategies.
Rationale: Attention to the reforestation phase is fundamental to sustainable forest management, yet the formulation of best reforestation practices is inhibited by significant and persistent gaps that exist in our understanding of basic relationships in seedling recruitment and growth. A clearer understanding of these relationships, as well as the treatments that can be applied to influence them, is necessary to develop optimum practices for reforestation.
Current studies focus on ponderosa pine seedling recruitment processes and influences; growth of ponderosa pine seedlings beneath variable-retention cuts; operational treatments for intensive coppice management of redwood sprout clumps.
• Forest Protection: Silviculture and Dynamics of Canopy Fuels
Rationale: The relationship of stand structure to crown fire potential is quite clear, but questions exist about appropriate treatment strategies to enhance sustained resistance to crown fire initiation and spread. Treatments typically fail to adequately consider changes to fuel dynamics and potential fire behaviors that occur in the years and decades following treatment as stands develop. In some cases, an interpretation of existing knowledge of forest stand dynamics for fire behavior and fuel treatment contexts is necessary to determine the efficacy and persistence of silvicultural hazard fuel treatments. In other cases, new research is necessary to determine the effect of such treatments on forest fuel dynamics.
Current studies focus on assumptions in modeling fire behavior for fuels treatment planning; reconciling the discordant objectives of fuels management and old-growth forest restoration; modeling crown fuel dynamics in response to hazard fuels treatments.
• Forest Restoration: Silvicultural Techniques to Restore Degraded Forests
Rationale: Principles of silviculture and forest stand dynamics have direct application in meeting forest objectives focused primarily on ecological attributes. Such applications are most apparent in forested parks and reserves, but can also be relevant in commercial and multi-use timberlands, such as family forestlands managed for diverse values, or production forests managed within the confines of a registered Habitat Conservation Plan. In many cases, novel adaptations of traditional silvicultural practices offer the greatest opportunity to promote in degraded forests those desirable elements of pre-settlement or pre-disturbance forest structure and composition.
Current studies focus on thinning as a tool for restoration of late-successional structure and composition to upland mixed redwood stands; development of efficient techniques for variable-density thinning in young, even-aged mixed stands; assessment of threats to old-growth fire-dependent ecosystems, and potential for silvicultural techniques to promote their vitality, resiliency, and resistance to allogenic disturbance.
Future projects will advance these themes and establish linkages between them with an increasingly interdisciplinary approach.
Graduate students are sought that possess interest in these fields and the quantitative skills and communication skills necessary to make significant research contributions. If you are considering graduate school at Montana, please feel free to inquire (by phone or email) about current vacancies in this graduate lab and your suitability as a candidate. Visiting scholar (sabbatical) and post-graduate inquiries are welcomed as well.
