Pacific Northwest Research Station

Vegetation Monitoring Science and Applications Team (VeMSA)

Moderate fires were common in the west (Yosemite NP, CA).

Andrew Gray, Team Leader
Forestry Sciences Laboratory
3200 SW Jefferson Way
Corvallis, OR 97331
Phone: (541) 750-7252

About Us

Our mission: The Vegetation Monitoring Science and Assessment Team (VeMSA) develops and applies comprehensive, regional-scale resource information to improve the management and understanding of forests and rangelands. Most of the team's research is focused on improving monitoring techniques and developing new applications for the Forest Inventory and Analysis Program (FIA). The team is based at the Anchorage, Corvallis, and Portland Forestry Sciences Laboratories, but team scientists and staff conduct research projects across the range of PNW-FIA states (Alaska, California, Hawaii and the Pacific Islands, Oregon, and Washington), as well as on topics that are national and international in scope.

Research Focus Areas

Thinning and burning is a common practice in interior forests (Colville Nation, WA).

Carbon cycle
Consequences of alternative management strategies on regional carbon stores and flux.
Long-term changes in carbon stores and causes of flux.
Developing unbiased equations for calculating volume, biomass, and carbon.

Climate change
Predict tree distribution, growth, and mortality in relation to regional climatic gradients.
Climatic associations of understory plants and lichen communities.

Monitoring techniques
Improving variance estimators with alternative methods of incorporating remote sensing.
Improving forest health metrics with a national vegetation diversity indicator.
Improving forest health metrics with a national lichen community indicator.
Improving estimates of tree canopy cover from standard inventory measurements.

Urbanization is reducing forest area on the west coast (outside Sequim, WA).

Land use
Changes in land use and housing density: effects of land use policies and impacts on forest management and ecosystem services.

Urban forest characteristics and social and ecological values.

Fire
Improving predictions of wildfire severity from stand structure and composition and fire weather conditions.
Management to reduce fire hazards and potential availability of biomass for wood products and energy production given management objectives and constraints.

Forest Health
Invasive plant distribution and abundance and associations with forest conditions and history.
Predicting impacts from nitrogen pollution on forests through lichen monitoring.
Effects of insect outbreaks and diseases on forest characteristics and species health.

Team Members and Research Interests

Fires affect large areas in the west (Mt. Jefferson Wilderness, OR).

Science Staff

David Azuma. Research Forester: Sampling and inventory statistics, land use change, fire effects
Jeremy Fried. Research Forester: Forest management effects on carbon flux and fuels, fire effects
Andrew Gray. Research Ecologist: Disturbance ecology, invasive plants, carbon flux, land-use change
Sarah Jovan. Research Ecologist: National FIA lichen indicator, nitrogen pollution, biodiversity
John Mills. Research Forester: Urban forests, forest resource projections
Vicente Monleon. Research Mathematical Statistician: Sampling and inventory statistics, forest health
Robert Pattison. Research Ecologist: Forest and tundra ecology, invasive plants
Bethany Schulz. Research Ecologist: National FIA vegetation indicator, invasive plants, biodiversity

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