Natural Resource Assessment and Analysis

Staff/Personnel

Merrill R. Kaufmann, Ph.D.
Research Plant Physiologist

mkaufmann@fs.fed.us
970-498-1256 -- Fax: (970) 498-1212
USDA-FS, Rocky Mountain Research Station
240 West Prospect Road, Fort Collins, CO 80526

Biosketch / Research Interests

Dr. Kaufmann is the Rocky Mountain Research Station's team leader for ecosystem management research in the Colorado Front Range. He is the senior author of "An Ecological Basis for Ecosystem Management," the most widely distributed Forest Service research publication. Since the mid-1990s, he has worked extensively with land managers to blend new basic science on historical ecosystem structure into management actions that restore sustainable ecological conditions.

Dr. Kaufmann's work on fire behavior and the historical ecology of unlogged and ungrazed ponderosa pine forests in the Colorado Front Range has shown that the widely accepted model of "open, park-like" stands of ponderosa pine in much of the Southwest and West Coast does not apply where a mixed severity fire regime occurs. He frequently provides lectures, training, field trips and other activities regarding Colorado Front Range forest ecology and fire history, historical ecology, and ecosystem management. He serves on the Advisory Team for The Nature Conservancy's Fire Learning Network and on several forest restoration project steering committees.

Dr. Kaufmann has authored over 110 scientific papers, edited three proceedings, and produced a video on ecosystem management. He has been interviewed about fire behavior, forest structure, and management practices on national television and radio and by national magazines and regional and local newspapers.

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Educational Background

B.S., Forest Management, University of Illinois, 1963.

M.F., Forestry, Duke University, 1965.

Ph.D., Forestry, Duke University, 1967.

Appointments

• Research Forest Ecologist (GS-15), USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fort Collins, CO; 1996-present; Team Leader for Front Range Ecosystem Management Research, 2003-present
• Regular Faculty, Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, Colorado State University; 2002-present.
• Principal Plant Physiologist (GS-13&14), USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, Fort Collins, CO; 1977-1996.
• Assistant and Associate Professor, University of California, Riverside; 1967-1977.
• Chair, International Union of Forestry Research Organizations, Whole Plant Physiology Working Party; 1991-1999.

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Selected Publications

Hall, S. A., I. C. Burke, D. O. Box, M. R. Kaufmann, and J. M. Stoker. 2005. Estimating stand structure using discrete-return lidar: An example from low density, fire prone ponderosa pine forests. Forest Ecology and Management 208: 189-209.

Kauffman, M., A. Shlisky, and P. Marchand. Good Fire, Bad Fire: How to think about forest land management and ecological processes. U.S. Government Printing, 2004.

Colorado Forestry Advisory Board. 2004 Report on the Health of Colorado's Forests: Special Issue Ponderosa Pine Forests. Colorado State University Publications, 2005.

Kaufmann, M., P.Z. Fulé, W.H. Romme, and K.C. Ryan. 2004. Restoration of ponderosa pine forests in the interior Western U.S. after logging, grazing, and fire supression. In Restoration of Boreal and Temperate Forests. CRC Press LLC. 31:482-503.

Kaufmann, M., A. Shlisky, and B. Kent. 2003. Integrating scientific knowledge into social and economic decisions for ecologically sound fire and restoration management. Proc. 3rd International Wildland Fire Conference, Sydney, Australia, October 2003.

Kaufmann, M. R., L. S. Huckaby, P. J. Fornwalt, J. M. Stoker and W. H. Romme. 2003. Using tree recruitment patterns and fire history to guide restoration of an unlogged ponderosa pine/Douglas-fir landscape in the southern Rocky Mountains after a century of fire suppression. Forestry (UK) 76: 231-241.

Fornwalt, P. J., M. R. Kaufmann, L. S. Huckaby, J. M. Stoker and T. J. Stohlgren. 2003. Non-native plant invasions in managed and protected ponderosa pine/ Douglas-fir forests of the Colorado Front Range. Forest Ecology and Management 177: 515-527.

Kaufmann, M. R., P. J. Fornwalt, L. S. Huckaby, and J. M. Stoker. 2001. Cheesman Lake - a historical ponderosa pine landscape guiding restoration in the South Platte Watershed of the Colorado Front Range. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. Proceedings RMRS-P-22 p. 9-18.

Huckaby, L. S., M. R. Kaufmann, J. M. Stoker, and P. J. Fornwalt. 2001. Landscape patterns of montane forest age structure relative to fire history at Cheesman Lake in the Colorado Front Range. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. Proceedings RMRS-P-22, p. 19-27.

Kaufmann, M. R., L. S. Huckaby, and P. Gleason. 2000. Ponderosa pine in the Colorado Front Range: long historical fire and tree recruitment intervals and a case for landscape heterogeneity. In Neuenschwander, L. F., et al., editors. Crossing the millennium: integrating spatial technologies and ecological principles for a new age in fire management. University of Idaho and International Association of Wildland Fire. Moscow, Idaho. Vol. 1, p. 153-160.

Kaufmann, M. R., C. M. Regan, and P. M. Brown. 2000. Heterogeneity in ponderosa pine/Douglas-fir forests: age and size structure in unlogged and logged landscapes of central Colorado. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 30: 698-711.

Kaufmann, M. R. and D. Hessel. 2000. Cheesman Lake - a historical ponderosa pine landscape guiding restoration in the South Platte Watershed of the Colorado Front Range. Colorado Water 17: 15-18.

Brown, P. M., M. R. Kaufmann, and W. D. Shepperd. 1999. Long-term, landscape patterns of past fire events in a ponderosa pine forest of central Colorado. Landscape Ecology 14: 513-532.

Kaufmann, M. R., R. T. Graham, D. A. Boyce, Jr., W. H. Moir, L. Perry, R. T. Reynolds, R. L. Bassett, P. Mehlhop, C. B. Edminster, W. M. Block, and P. S. Corn. 1994. An ecological basis for ecosystem management. USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mtn. For. and Range Exp. Sta. Gen. Tech. Rep. RM-246. 22 p.

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Professional Affiliations

• Ecological Society of America

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