Forest ThreatNet

Researchers deliver science and build collaborations that cross borders

EFETAC scientists were busy in 2007! Researchers shared science through numerous presentations to scientific, professional, and educational organizations. Additionally, each EFETAC team interacted with a broad spectrum of international researchers. Here are a few highlights— 

Threat Assessment

•Ecologist Qinfeng Guo’s travels to China secured collaborative research opportunities resulting from invasive plant data collection, a symposium presentation at EcoSummit 2007 in Beijing, a lecture at the Inner Mongolia University, and a workshop presentation at the Institute of Geography and Resources at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

•Ecologist William Hargove was involved in the statistical design of INDOFLUX, a new national carbon eddy-covariance flux network for India. INDOFLUX will fill an information void in the global FLUXNET carbon monitoring network. 

Forest Health Monitoring (FHM)

•Kurt Riitters, landscape ecologist, entered into a formal collaboration agreement with the European Union’s Land Management and Natural Hazards Unit of the Institute of Environment and Sustainability in Ispra, Italy, in an effort to harmonize global assessments of forest spatial patterns.

•As one of two invited U.S. forest inventory and monitoring experts, research forester and FHM team leader Bill Bechtold shared research with Korean Forest Service officials at a forest health monitoring symposium in Seoul, South Korea, supporting the Korean government’s interest in establishing a forest health monitoring program.

•Bill Smith, biometrician, consulted with the Norwegian Institute for Agricultural and Environmental Research staff about sampling and risk assessment procedures he developed in the U.S. to detect Phytopthora ramorum (sudden oak death), recently detected in Norway.

•Fred Cubbage, North Carolina State University professor and EFETAC collaborator, visited and presented to Chilean forestry faculty at Universidad de Concepción, Universidad de Austral, and Universidad de Chile in Santiago, giving an overview of forest health and sustainable forestry. 

Southern Global Change Program (SGCP)

•Research hydrologist Ge Sun recently provided technical assistance on a new collaborative project focusing on Payment for Environment Services in Vietnam. The project explores a mechanism for financing biodiversity conservation management and generating tangible economic benefits for the rural poor.

•SGCP team leader Steve McNulty presented at the 23rd Session of the North American Forest Commission (NAFC) in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada, to help North American forest management agencies better understand climate change and how to best allocate management resources to minimize negative climate change impacts.

•Johnny Boggs, biological scientist, presented research findings from a long-term nitrogen fertilization study at the 39th Air Pollution Workshop and Symposium in Guadalajara, Mexico.