University of Minnesota researchers are investigating and preparing for how climate change may impact our forests, protecting our forests from invasive species, and developing management practices that benefit ecosystems, landowners and the public.
Below is a sampling of ongoing MAES research projects related to Minnesota’s forests. This list does not encompass all forestry research at the University of Minnesota.
Enhancing forest inventory and monitoring: combining remote sensing and forest field observations to improve national, state and stand-level forest inventories
Chad Babcock
This research is developing statistically rigorous strategies to enhance forest inventory at scales ranging from the national to stand level. By augmenting traditional field-based inventories with lidar and optical remote sensing from air and space we can improve forest inventory by increasing estimation precision if we use appropriate methods. Since remote sensing can improve precision, this can lead to a reduction in the number of field plots needed to conduct inventories. We can also generate more precise estimates for smaller forest areas without increasing the number of field plots. These improvements can lead to more useful forest inventories, allowing for better informed forest management and decision making at lower costs.
Examining economic and policy strategies for enhancing family forest stewardship
Mike Kilgore
Families are the single largest forest ownership category in the United States. Collectively owned by more than 10 million individuals, families, trusts, and estates, they represent 43% of the nation's forest land area. To encourage the owners of these forests to increase the quantity and quality of economic, environmental, and amenity goods and services, different regulatory measures, financial incentives, tax policies, payments for limited property rights, and market-based incentives are used by governments and to a much lesser extent private and non-profit organizations. This research assesses the effectiveness of these various policy and economic tools. Research is also exploring the potential to use new and innovative tools that have, to date, received limited application in forestry, as well as those used in other countries to promote stewardship of private forests for timber and nontimber outputs.
Exploring how stand development can be utilized to explore changing conditions to develop alternative silvicultural practices
Marcella Windmuller Campione
As complex interactions between a changing climate and disturbance regime influence current and future composition, forest managers and researchers are challenged to develop management strategies which build or maintain resistance and/or resilience in forest communities. This research evaluates traditional versus alternative silvicultural systems in two economically and ecologically important forest systems in Minnesota: lowland conifers and pines. Findings will provide important information on how alternative silvicultural strategies and tools may increase ecological and economic resistance and resilience to an uncertain future due to climate change.
Advancing forest wildlife habitat modeling, forest inventory, and growth and yield strategies in Minnesota
John Zobel
What are the impacts of forest management on wildlife habitat? What forestry models are better to use in some situations versus others? How do we best manage forests types that have been historically neglected, but now are recognized for their ecological importance? This research addresses these questions by refining a wildlife habitat model for assessing the impacts of current and proposed forest management in Minnesota and making it publicly available. Researchers are also evaluating the available growth and yield information for important commercial species in Minnesota and the Lake States region and developing inventory strategies and growth and yield information for undermanaged forest types in Minnesota and the Lake States (in particular northern hardwoods).