Experimental Forests & Ranges
What Ecological Conditions Do the Sites Represent?
The Experimental Forests and Ranges provide samples of many ecological and environmental conditions across the United States. The terrestrial vegetation can be represented by Holdridge life zones (pdf), forest types (pdf), and Bailey's ecoregions (pdf). For more information about units shown on these maps and samples...
Most Experimental Forests are large enough to contain significant stream systems and several dozen contain experimetnal watershed study sites with multiple paired basins.
Administration and Links to Sites
Operations of Experimental Forests and Ranges are directed by local research teams for the individual sites, by Research Stations for the regions in which they are located, and at the level of the Forest Service. This national page permits you to link directly to web pages of individual Experimental Forests and Ranges (site page) by name or map link. Each site is described in a common format of the publication General Technical Report 321. Many sites have more elaborate web pages, including accessible datasets, which can be reached from the common-format site description web pages.
Study Themes at Experimental Forests and Ranges
- develop of systems for managing and restoring forests, rangelands, and watersheds;
- investigate the workings of forest and stream ecosystems;
- characterize plant and animal communities;
- observe and interpret long-term environmental change
- and many other themes.
Intersite Research -- The Big Picture
Experimental Forests and Ranges support many forms of multi-site research, monitoring, and data sharing that address questions at regional and larger scales. Examples include:
- Long-term litter decomposition experiment installed at many sites.
- Scores of experimental watershed studies with common management treatments and publicly-accessible data in a central archive.
- Monitoring and analysis of carbon dynamics at selected Experimental Forests and Ranges - see Birdsey et a.l 2004.
- Publications on multi-sites studies of streamflow (Jones and Post 2004), vegetation change (Acker et al. FEM 1998).
Other Forest Service Long-Term Research Properties
The Forest Service manages many other, related long-term field research properties and programs that support the research, education, and monitoring needs of the nation. These properties include:
- Research Natural Areas
- RNAs in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin (Northern Research Station)
- RNAs in Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota (Rocky Mountain Research Station)
- RNAs in California (Pacific Southwest Research Station)
- RNAs in Washington and Oregon
- Forest Health Monitoring – Intensive Monitoring Sites
- And one-of-a-kind places, like Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument
Embedded Within Other Research Networks
Properties that include non-USDA Forest Service sites, such as:
Location: http://www.fs.fed.us/research/efr/about/index.shtml
Updated: March 5, 2008 12:18 PM