Forest Ecology

How do forests grow and change over time? How do various kinds of disturbance, natural and anthropogenic, affect the structure and composition of forests? Is there such a thing as sustained yield? Is the New Forestry just a new way of doing the same old thing harvesting timber? What are the consequences of various fire management strategies? If oil prices cause a massive shift to biomass fuels, can our woodlands meet the demand? What about forest ecosystems makes them unique and what common principles apply to trees as well as other organisms in their environment? We will explore these and other questions through reading and discussion of two books and research articles. Fieldwork will be central to our learning and we will get out into the woods and explore examples of the phenomena we have studied in class. As the semester develops we will narrow our focus to a few research-based questions, to be pursued either as a group, in small teams or as individuals.