OOS 64 - Forest Inventory Data for Global Change Ecology: Opportunities, Challenges, and Innovations

Organizer(s)

• DP

  Daniel Perret

  ORISE Postdoctoral Fellow
  United States Forest Service, United States

Co-Organizer(s)

• HZ

  Harold Zald

  Research Forester
  USDA Forest Service
  Corvallis, Oregon, United States

Forests globally are undergoing rapid transformations as a result of changing climates, disturbance regimes, and human pressures. Building a predictive understanding of these transformations is critical for maintaining the many important functions forests provide; however, this requires information of a scope and scale surpassing most ecological datasets. National forest inventories, like the United States Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program, can provide these data resources. The FIA program is an incredibly rich source of ecological information, comprising more than 355,000 permanent and standardized forest plots containing upwards of 19 million individually marked and tracked trees. While the FIA program was designed for determining the status and trends of forest resources in the US, it is now increasingly being used to answer a wider variety of questions related to global change. Many of these new research questions and applications require balancing the scale and scope of FIA data collection with the specific research questions being addressed. Despite the expertise and creativity necessary to do this, research interest in the database is high and continues to grow.

The overarching goal of this session is to increase the visibility of forest inventory data resources and their use in ecological research, by highlighting recent innovative uses of the FIA database for a wide breadth of ecological inquiry related to global change. Talks in this session cover a range of fields, questions, and analytical methods – from macroecological perspectives on species’ range shifts, to disturbance impacts on tree demography, to modeling microclimatic refugia, to estimating forest carbon storage in the future. We further aim to foster discussion around the challenges involved in using FIA data, as well as opportunities for future innovation. To that end, this organized session will be paired with a subsequent workshop titled “Analyzing ecological change with the Forest Service FIA database”. The workshop will present resources, tools, and R code for basic change estimation using the FIA database, as well as teach participants how to avoid common mistakes and pitfalls.

Presentations:

• 3:30 PM – 3:45 PM PDT

  The trailing edge is everywhere: the transient risk of extinction hidden inside climate envelope forecasts
  

  Presenting Author: Margaret E K Evans – University of Arizona

  Co-author: Sharmila M N Dey – Harvard College

  Co-author: Kelly A. Heilman, PhD – Oak Ridge Associated Universities

  Co-author: R Justin DeRose, PhD – Utah State University

  Co-author: Stefan Klesse, PhD – Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow, and Landscape Research WSL

  Co-author: Daniel L. Perret – United States Forest Service

  Co-author: Emily L. Schultz, PhD – Colorado Mountain College

  Co-author: John D. Shaw, PhD – US Forest Service
• 3:45 PM – 4:00 PM PDT

  Lichen and moss bioindicators of air quality in the U.S. Forest Inventory: from forests to high elevation wilderness and urban neighborhoods
  

  Presenting Author: Sarah Jovan – USDA Forest Service

  Co-author: Adrienne Kovasi – USFS Six Rivers National Forest

  Co-author: Chris Zuidema – USFS ORISE Fellow

  Co-author: Monika Derrien – USFS Pacific Northwest Research Station

  Co-author: Susan Will-Wolf – University of Wisconsin – Madison

  Co-author: Linda Geiser – USFS Washington Office

  Co-author: Karen Dillman – USFS Tongass National Forest
• 4:00 PM – 4:15 PM PDT

  Dynamics of standing and downed woody biomass in post-bark beetle forests in the Rocky Mountains, USA
  

  Presenting Author: Erin Berryman, Rocky Mountain Research Station – United States Forest Service

  Co-author: Todd Hawbaker – U.S. Geological Survey
• 4:15 PM – 4:30 PM PDT

  Anticipating the demographic response of woodland tree species to climate change using forest inventory data
  

  Presenting Author: Robert K. Shriver – University of Nevada, Reno

  Co-author: Emily L. Schultz, PhD – Colorado Mountain College

  Co-author: Charles B. Yackuliic – US Geological Survey

  Co-author: David M. Bell – USDA Forest Service

  Co-author: John B. Bradford – USGS Southwest Biological Science Center
• 4:30 PM – 4:45 PM PDT

  Life-stage-partitioned forest inventory data reveals U.S. tree species are undergoing multi-directional geographic range shifts in contemporary environments
  

  Presenting Author: Bailey P. McLaughlin – University of Maine, Orono

  Co-author: Brian J. McGill – University of Maine, Orono
• 4:45 PM – 5:00 PM PDT

  Forest disturbance effects on water yield in the western US: A review and large-sample analysis combining forest inventory and curated hydroclimatic data
  

  Presenting Author: Sara A. Goeking – USDA Forest Service, RMRS-FIA

  Co-author: David G. Tarboton – Utah State University