research « College of Forestry

A McIntire-Stennis supported project

PROJECT
A common assertion made about forest policy is that policies are shaped by science. Oregon State University Professor Michael Paul Nelson is examining how accurate that belief is – and investigating how values factor into forestry policy decision-making. To do this, Nelson will analyze the soundness of the arguments that shaped different forest policies and the values that informed those arguments.

People often seek evidence or information to guide them toward good outcomes when making decisions. However, preconceptions can influence the way that people see the world. These preconceptions can influence what information people seek and how people use the information available to them. Nelson will explore preconceptions and how people filter information and blend scientific facts, and the impact of long-term versus short-term data in that filtering.

In addition to understanding how science and values influence decision-making, Nelson will specifically examine how people conceptualize and understand mature and old-growth forests. To do this, he is using a “mental models” approach. Mental models are a framework from cognitive psychology for understanding how individuals arrange and relate their beliefs, knowledge, and experience on a specific topic ( Jones et al., 2011).

Understanding how decision-makers conceptualize and understand the scientific information presented will help advance our understanding of how values and science interact to inform forest policy.

IMPACT
This research project will explore how science and values interact and influence natural resource or forest management decisions as well as how people filter and blend scientific information to understand and conceptualize topics.

COLLABORATION
Oregon State University will collaborate with many partners while conducing this research, including the National Science Foundation Long Term Ecological Research program, the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest, the United States Geological Survey, National Ecological Observatory Network, Oregon Climate Change Research Institute, and the United States Forest Service, including the Pacific Northwest Research Station and the Willamette National Forest.

About McIntire-Stennis
The McIntire-Stennis program, a unique federal-state partnership, cultivates and delivers forestry and natural resource innovations for a better future. By advancing research and education that increases the understanding of emerging challenges and fosters the development of relevant solutions, the McIntire-Stennis program has ensured healthy resilient forests and communities and an exceptional natural resources workforce since 1962.

A McIntire-Stennis supported project

PROJECT
Marbled murrelets can serve as an important indicator species for both healthy forests and healthy marine environments, as this small seabird gets its food sources from marine waters but commutes many miles inland to late-successional and old-growth forests to breed.

Murrelets are found along the coasts from Alaska to Central California. Their population has declined significantly from historic levels and they are now listed as a “threatened” species under the federal Endangered Species Act in California, Oregon and Washington. The reasons for their decline are due largely to the loss of older forests needed for breeding, and much remains unknown about this bird and the factors that influence populations. This knowledge gap has made it difficult to develop best practices for protecting murrelet nesting habitat, particularly around how different management activities will affect the marbled murrelet and its habitat within working forest landscapes.

The knowledge gap has been further challenged by the cryptic breeding behavior of the murrelet, which is difficult for researchers to track and observe.

Oregon State University Assistant Professor Jim Rivers is leading a research project to build knowledge about marbled murrelets, so conservationists and forest managers can better understand the factors that limit reproduction in coastal forests. This research will provide more certainty about how murrelet breeding ecology is influenced by factors such as ocean warming and timber harvest practices within actively managed forest landscapes. This information could help forest managers implement measures to conserve murrelet populations, while also practicing active forest management that allows for timber production.

The team of researchers has been conducting field investigations to collect data and observations about the murrelets’ breeding behavior, habitat and nesting needs, and the greatest threats to their reproductive success.

IMPACT
This research will provide foundational knowledge about the marbled murrelet population and its habitat needs in its listed range. In turn, this will help inform forest management and conservation decisions to better protect this threatened species – while also allowing for timber harvests and other forest management activities in Oregon. This research will also offer insights into how to enhance ecosystem health across landscapes, including forest and marine biodiversity.

COLLABORATION
Oregon State University is partnering with many other groups on this project, including the USDA Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Oregon Department of Forestry, The National Council for Air and Stream Improvement, the forest industry, and the environmental community.

A McIntire-Stennis supported project

PROJECT
The development of modern engineered wood products has presented an opportunity to use more sustainable building materials in construction projects. Products like cross-laminated panels (CLT) and glulam (GL) have proven to be a more environmentally-friendly option than traditional construction materials like steel and concrete – and global demand for these products has increased as people look for ways to mitigate climate change.

However, in order to seize the opportunity to leverage these products on a larger-scale, it is crucial to evaluate their performance and their suitability for use in buildings. This assessment should involve observing their behavior in full-scale scenarios and real-world buildings to evaluate their durability and structural integrity over time.

Oregon State University Associate Professor Mariapaola Riggio is researching the constructive features and environmental performance of mass timber products to gain a deeper understanding of their effective use in constructing durable and eco-friendly buildings.

Riggio is specifically looking at how mass timber systems handle a variety of hydrothermal conditions, like wood moisture content, air humidity, and temperature, to see whether the long-term behavior of the materials and buildings is affected by different conditions. For this purpose, Riggio has been monitoring crucial parameters such as the wetting and drying behavior of mass timber products, time-dependent deformations of mass timber systems under varying climatic conditions, and vibrational behavior of mass timber floors, during various stages of a building’s life, from construction to occupancy. Riggio uses case-study sites in the U.S., alongside laboratory work, to conduct this research.

This research equips wood products manufacturers and designers with key data and information that they can use to design and produce innovative, high-performing mass timber buildings.

IMPACT
There’s a huge economic opportunity in mass timber – but there needs to be greater confidence in the use of these products to fully explore that opportunity. This research project helps provide valuable insights about the safe, durable, and efficient use of emerging mass timber systems so there is a better understanding and greater confidence about the long-term performance of CLT panels and mass timber buildings.

A McIntire-Stennis supported project

PROJECT
Landslides can have major environmental, societal, and economic impacts – and they often occur in conjunction with extreme events, like heavy precipitation, wildfires and earthquakes.

In mountainous, forested terrain across the West, like in Oregon, shallow landslides often remain a persistent hazard that can impact things like aquatic ecosystems and the structure of a forest. But despite the prevalence of this hazard, much remains unknown about the interplay between a landslide disturbance and the forest structure and events like heavy rainfall and wildfires.

Oregon State University Professor of Forest Engineering Ben Leshchinsky is leading a team to uncover more information about landslides in forested environments – which will help provide new insights into how the dynamics of a forest and its vegetation affects the size and rate of landslides. This group is developing models to predict the susceptibility of future slides in mountainous, forested regions – and to understand how the structure of a forest in these areas impacts the size and rate of landslides. Their model will evaluate the importance of forest vegetation on landslide size and rate.

The team is also creating an inventory of historic landslide activity, which will include data about how a range of conditions and triggering events have affected each slide. The researchers will use this data to better understand how factors like slope vegetation influence the likelihood of a slide and the amount of sediment transported in a landslide. Understanding more about slope stability and susceptibility will also provide valuable insights into how extreme events like wildfire and heavy rainfall might initiate slope failure – especially through their impact on the root strength of the vegetation that holds a slope together.

IMPACT
This research will provide valuable insights into how vegetation influences landslide hazard and sediment transport in forested environments, and how events like storms and wildfires may influence these rates. The team is analyzing data from 7,000 landslides in Oregon to examine how the landslide was affected by rainfall conditions, topographic factors, and vegetation conditions. The new model will provide insights into when vegetation helps control the size of a landslide – and when it does not.

COLLABORATION
Oregon State University researchers are collaborating with a number of agencies on this project including the Oregon Department of Forestry, the United States Forest Service, the United States Geological Survey, Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries, and Oregon Department of Transportation.

A McIntire-Stennis supported project

PROJECT
Across the West, forests and communities interact with and are affected by issues that emerge from wildfires, state policies, and rural economic conditions.

This research project, led by Oregon State University Assistant Professor Mindy Crandall, aims to better understand the dynamic relationships that exist between forests and communities in the West – and uncover more information about active forest management. Generating more knowledge about these connections will help support decisions related to how we might best manage forests to provide ecosystem services, like carbon sequestration, and economic value to rural communities while dealing with wildfire risks.

Crandall is investigating how wildfires are affecting rural communities, inspired by large, catastrophic wildfires that have decimated human and forest communities. Crandall and collaborators with the U.S. Forest Service are looking into the relationship between socioeconomic factors and wildfire occurrence – and mapping the risk of wildfire to vulnerable communities.

Crandall is also looking into how the state regulates private forest practices and how forest landowners and stakeholders are impacted by and involved in, these decisions. She is examining how citizens’ involvement on advisory committees led to the development of political identity and she is documenting the state-level policies that affect private landowners across the United States.

Lastly, Crandall is examining the relationships between the forest industry and rural communities, where forests have been a major source of income and jobs for decades. Crandall wants to better understand the future of the forest industry and how it may play a role in supporting viable rural communities – especially as forests are increasingly managed for things like carbon sequestration. Along with collaborators, she is investigating how work in the new forest economy is distributed spatially and to disadvantaged populations, and how rural communities may be affected by transitions in forest management practices.

IMPACT
This research project will help inform forest management practices and policy decisions in the face of competing demands and increasing wildfire risk.

COLLABORATION
Crandall is collaborating with other groups, institutions and agencies including the United States Forest Service, Humboldt State University, University of Maine, University of Connecticut, James Madison University, University of Oregon, the Western Rural Development Center, and the Rural Voices for Conservation Coalition.

A McIntire-Stennis supported project

PROJECT
Early seral, or young forests are an important part of the landscape and ecological makeup of the Pacific Northwest. Understanding how contemporary post-fire forest management on federal lands and the intensification of forest management on private lands affects young forests is critical for characterizing their biodiversity. Recent fire years and a growing demand for wood and fiber amplify the need to understand variability in early seral forest biodiversity in the region.

Oregon State University Associate Professor Meg Krawchuk and Doctoral student Graham Frank are researching what happens to biodiversity in young forests as a result of different types of stand-replacing events, including intensive forest management, high-severity wildfire, and post-fire salvage logging.

Krawchuk and Frank are using a suite of biodiversity indicators including pollinator bees, carabid ground beetles, bird communities, plant communities, and forest conditions to compare biodiversity at various sites in young Douglas-fir forests in southwestern Oregon. They are quantifying how biodiversity changes over time in the three disturbance treatments – by looking at stands of different ages, from under six years old up to 20 years old. Recent years of extensive fire in the Pacific Northwest underscore that forest industry professionals must increasingly make decisions about early seral forest management in the context of post-fire environments, in addition to green tree harvesting. These decisions are relevant to the Sustainable Forestry Initiative certification, which requires managers to demonstrate how practices contribute to maintaining biological diversity. This project will help inform forest practitioners and decision-makers about biodiversity in young forests, with a particular focus on understanding the degree to which plantation forestry emulates its nearest natural counterpart – wildland fire.

IMPACT
This research project will provide forest managers with information about how different types of stand-replacing disturbances affect biodiversity in young forests. This will offer valuable insights for making decisions about how to manage both industrial and federal lands.

COLLABORATION
Oregon State University is collaborating with forest industry partners in the region, the United States Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, and The National Council for Air and Stream Improvement.

David Hamilton is a Ph.D. student studying forest engineering and his research topic is electric logging trucks. He is beginning his third year and is an international student from Vancouver, BC, Canada. He is currently the CTO of a start up, Mauka Forestry Consulting, a forestry & GIS consulting company based out of Vancouver, Canada. This summer, he traveled to Merrit, BC, to collaborate with Edison Motors, the inventors of the first electric logging truck. This collaboration led him to write a paper on mapping electric logging truck range as a proof of concept for his tool using their truck schematics.

What is the focus of your Ph.D.?
Recent policy shifts have resulted in USA Pacific states encouraging the adoption of heavy-duty electrical vehicles (EVs). The state of California has mandated that by 2035 all heavy-duty non-freight vehicles must produce zero emissions. Similarly, Oregon has passed the Clean Trucks Rules requiring an increasing percentage of heavy-duty trucks to produce zero emissions, starting in 2024. To meet these policy requirements, automotive manufacturers have begun the mass production of EVs. This led to a 68% rise in global EV sales from 2017 to 2018. However, market penetration of heavy-duty EV trucks is still low compared to passenger EV penetration levels in the United States. Range anxiety driven by battery size limitations (capacity to weight ratio) and a lack of charging infrastructure is one factor hindering the adoption of EVs. I developed multiple tools for mapping electric log truck range across a forest landscape. The purpose of my tools are to help alleviate range anxiety amongst policy makers, truck manufacturers and buyers.

What did you work on this summer?
This summer I collaborated with OSU’s innovation team to develop a patent based on my research for the university. I was also awarded the dean’s international travel award to go to Canada and collect international educational harvest footage. While in Canada I traveled to Merrit, BC, to collaborate with Edison Motors, the inventors of the first electric logging truck. This collaboration led me to write a paper on mapping electric logging truck range as a proof of concept for my tool using their truck schematics.

What are the next steps?
This fall, John Sessions and I were awarded OSU’s $15,000 Accelerator Innovation and Development grant to improve my tool and implement it across a major forest owner’s land base. To achieve this, I will be collaborating with Edison motors and their clients in Canada and the USA. This grant will also fund a trade show booth along with Edison to promote collaboration and industry awareness. In September, Edison also deployed the first fully electric logging truck.

What do you do when you aren’t working on your Ph.D.?
My hands can rarely keep still when I’m not working on my Ph.D. I enjoy painting, playing music and games. I’m particularly fond of painting acrylic paintings and miniatures, the guitar and role-playing/strategy games. I also participate in the Corvallis Guitar Folk Society, lead the forestry grad student band, undercut, and plan various on and off campus social events. However by far my favorite activity is playing with my dog, Tango.

Assessing post-fire land management practices to improve recovery of soil health, vegetation and ecosystem services.

With the dramatic increase in wildfire activity in the western United States, post-fire land management has also increased to recoup economic value from burned forests, improve forest safety and expedite recovery and restoration of soil health, vegetation and forest and aquatic ecosystem functions.

However, limited research on post-fire land management strategies — like emergency stabilization, salvage logging or herbicide application — has led to uncertainty about the effectiveness of available management practices, particularly in relation to soil and water.

Professor Kevin Bladon is leading research to quantify the effects of wildfire and post-fire land management practices on soil physical properties, biogeochemical processes and vegetation recovery. He and his team hope to facilitate improved policy and management decisions that will reduce soil erodibility, improve soil nutrient availability and encourage vegetation regeneration in areas impacted by wildfires.

“Our research is occurring on the west side of the Oregon Cascade Mountains in collaboration with a range of landowners who have each approached post-fire land management differently,” Bladon said. “Our preliminary data has led to unexpected and conflicting results,” he added, “which indicates the need for additional research to inform the development of better decision support tools for land managers.”

A version of this story appeared in the 2021-2022 College of Forestry Biennial Report.

Forest birds with short, round wings more sensitive to habitat fragmentation
Tropical forest birds tend to have wings that are short and round relative to their body length and shape. Professor Matt Betts, the Ruth H. Spaniol chair of renewable resources, and Christopher Wolf, a postdoctoral scholar, found these birds are more sensitive to habitat fragmentation than species common in temperate forests. This study, published in “Nature Ecology and Evolution,” provides solid evidence for the idea that forest birds in the lower latitudes struggle to relocate when their habitat breaks up because they weren’t required to evolve in ways that promote movement to new areas. Birds from temperate forests, like jays, robins and migrant warblers tend to be better movers as they have long, narrow wings that are better suited to long-distance flight.

Bees flock to clearcut areas but decline as forest canopy regrows
Doctoral Student Rachel Zitomer and Associate Professor of Wildlife Ecology Jim Rivers studied 60 intensively managed Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) stands of multiple ages, including within the OSU Research Forests. They found that bee abundance and species richness declined rapidly with stand
age, decreasing by 61% and 48%, respectively, for every five years since timber harvest. This research is one of the first attempts to study how native bee communities change over time in the Oregon Coast Range. Management activities that keep the forest canopy open for a longer period during the initial stage of stand regeneration may enhance bee diversity in landscapes dominated by intensively managed conifer forests.

Temperature, more than drought, caused heat dome tree damage.
In June 2021, the Pacific Northwest had multiple days of record setting, triple-digit temperatures resulting in widespread tree scorch. A team led by Professor Christopher Still attributes the damage more to the temperature than to drought conditions, citing evidence that leaf discoloration and damage are consistent with direct exposure to solar radiation in combination with extreme air temperatures. A previous article had concluded that the trees’ problems were the result of drought and a failure in the trees’ hydraulic system. The coastal Douglas-fir and western hemlock plantation forests saw the most extensive impacts from the heat dome, and they experienced low levels of drought compared to the Willamette Valley and the western slopes of the Cascade Range, which experienced less foliar damage.

Woodpecker adapts to both burned and unburned forests
Research led by Doctoral Student Mark Kerstens and Associate Professor Jim Rivers sheds new light on the Black-backed Woodpecker. This species is known for its strong association with recently burned forests. It is also a species of conservation concern due to habitat loss stemming from post-fire management practices in those same forests. Kerstens and Rivers studied breeding Black-backed Woodpeckers in southern Oregon to evaluate whether nest survival and post-fledging survival differed between green and burned forests. The woodpeckers in green forests were equally successful at breeding as those in recently burned forest, although densities of nesting pairs in green forest were lower than those in burned forest. Certain types of green forest, particularly mature lodgepole pine, and practices that promote pyrodiversity—landscape-level spatial and temporal variability in fire effects—as well as connectivity between green and burned forest within fire-prone landscapes are likely to provide the greatest conservation benefit for this species.

Research explores how wildfire can help restore forests
Graduate Research Fellow Skye Greenler and Assistant Professor Chris Dunn studied the dry forests of Eastern Oregon, which evolved amid frequent, low-severity fires. To explore the potential for fire alone to restore these dry forests, they developed a novel method to predict the range of fire severities most likely to restore historical conditions. They found moderate severity fires can help restore resilient forest conditions, but multiple burns or treatments are required to fully restore historical conditions.

TDI continues to advance mass timber technologies
TallWood Design Institute (TDI) has received a $1 million dollar grant from the National Science Foundation to research innovations in mass timber architecture, engineering and construction in the region. The National Science Foundation awarded the grant as part of its “Regional Innovation Engines” program. Advancing Mass Timber technology promotes environmental resilience and U.S. global competitiveness through the increased use of sustainable mass timber products and their applications in
buildings, including affordable housing.

Moisture is key to soils’ ability to sequester carbon
Soil is the Earth’s second biggest carbon storage locker after the ocean, and a research collaboration has shown that moisture levels are key to locking in carbon. Previously it was thought that temperature and the mineral content of the soil would have a larger effect on how long carbon stayed in the soil. The findings are important for understanding how the global carbon cycle might change as the climate grows warmer and drier. Professor Jeff Hatten was a co-author of the study, and Doctoral Student Adrian Gallo analyzed many of the 400 soil core samples from 34 sites.

A version of this story appeared in the Fall 2023 issue of Focus on Forestry, the alumni magazine of the Oregon State University College of Forestry.

Editor’s Note: On Aug. 5, 2023, after this story went to print, the Lookout Fire was sparked by lightning in the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest. It will be some time until the full extent of the damage is determined. Meanwhile, regular updates on the fire are being posted on the HJ Andrews Forest website.

Celebrating 75 years of the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest

Some things happen in an instant. Other things take their time, gradually evolving over the years. The work on the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest Long Term Ecological Research Program is more of a take-your-time kind of thing — like 75-year kind of time.

Managed by Oregon State University in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service, the Andrews, as it’s affectionately known, is a 16,000-acre ecological research site east of Eugene in Oregon’s western Cascades. First established in 1948 as a U.S. Forest Service Experimental Forest, the Andrews is committed to long-term, place-based research and celebrates its 75th anniversary this November.

“Most ecological research lasts for only two or three years,” says Matt Betts, a professor of landscape ecology and the lead principal investigator. “At the Andrews, we’ve studied tree growth and death in the same stands for 52 years, examined fish populations in the same section of stream for 37 years and measured climate and streamflow for 65 years across the forest.”

This kind of long-term research is incredibly rare and extraordinarily valuable because it’s nearly impossible to understand an ecological system on a two-to-three-year time scale. In fact, research results from short-term studies are often overturned by long-term studies.

However, this same commitment to long-term research can also be a challenge. How do you stay excited about looking at the same thing in the same place for 50 years?

Associate Professor and Co-Principal Investigator Catalina Segura says she never feels like her hydrology research at the Andrews is repetitive. “The ability to ask diverse questions in this same place keeps the excitement alive,” Segura says. “The overlapping research adds to the thrill, and on an emotional level, I have a deep love for the Andrews.”

Segura is not the only one. The love for the Andrews Forest runs deep and wide. And not just with scientists and researchers. The Andrews has a robust humanities program welcoming writers, artists, musicians and philosophers to explore the meaning of the ancient forest ecosystem.

“Though our data goes back 75 years, the legacy of the Andrews is found in its people,” says Betts. “We have a global, intergenerational alumni group and even now, have over twenty graduate students and postdoctoral fellows doing research, studying a range of topics from tree canopies and climate resilience to groundwater and streamflow to environmental psychology and social science.”

The collaborative nature of the Andrews extends its legacy goes beyond the College of Forestry. Posy Busby, a microbiologist and associate professor in the department of botany and plant pathology at the College of Agricultural Sciences and Brooke Penaluna, the lead scientist with the U.S. Forest Service, are also co-principal investigators, with a long history of research at the Andrews.

“The Andrews is a special and unique place because it makes you feel alive and curious about the world,” says Penaluna. “It’s also particularly special because of the people that make up its partnership, including Pacific Northwest Research Station, the Willamette National Forest, and the College of Forestry.”

A version of this story appeared in the Fall 2023 issue of Focus on Forestry, the alumni magazine of the Oregon State University College of Forestry.

College of Forestry

At Oregon State University

Category Archives: research

Science, values, and forest policies in the Pacific Northwest

Impacts of management on forest biodiversity

Impact of environmental factors on mass timber building materials

Tracking landslide rates in forested environments

Active forest management in the fire-adapted West

Biodiversity and forest management in young Douglas-fir forests

What I did this summer: David Hamilton

Post-fire: recovery

Research updates – Fall 2023

A lasting legacy

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