SRS Strategic Framework - Southern Pine

Sustainability and Productivity of Southern Pine Ecosystems

New Booklet on Southern Pine Ecosystem CCT

This Cross-Cutting Theme (CCT) will be aimed at providing ecologically sound, economically viable, and socially acceptable management alternatives for the vast southern pine and pine-hardwood complex. Forest landowners need harvesting, regenerating, and managing alternatives that are low-cost and effective without compromising productivity or environmental quality. The fundamental questions to be addressed are: 1) what information is needed to ensure this complex is sustainable? and, 2) how will we provide alternatives that are suitable for a variety of public and private ownerships? Of the commercial forests in the South, over 80 percent are in natural pine and pine-hardwood stands--more than two-thirds of which are held by nonindustrial private forest landowners who often have multiple objectives but limited capital to invest in managing their stands. These and other forest landowners need harvesting, regenerating, and managing alternatives that are low-cost and effective without compromising productivity for future generations.

Kinds of Research

This CCT is very broad and encompasses a large portion of the Southern Research Station program, as well as that of southern university and industry collaborators. All of our scientific and technical expertise will be represented in the subcategories included in this CCT: sustainable forest productivity; enhancing productivity; fundamental science/ecosystem processes; longleaf pine ecosystem restoration; forest health; social and economic valuation; forest operations/utilization; nontimber resources (water, wildlife, fisheries, recreation). The key questions posed in this effort are: 1) what are the gaps in knowledge needed to ensure southern pine and pine-hardwood ecosystems can sustainably meet human needs at the desired levels; and, 2) how will we fill these gaps?

Proposed Outcomes

1. Integrated models that predict the effects of alternative vegetation management and harvesting treatments on plant succession, floral and faunal diversity, soil, water, game species, timber growth and properties, and ecosystem structure and function.
2. Guidelines for management of pine and pine-hardwood forests that simultaneously meet varied landowner objectives and sustain productive, functional ecosystems.
3. Guidelines for restoring longleaf pine and other ecosystems, including the use of prescribed fire for economical restoration of native plants and animals.
4. Operational models for mitigating smoke hazards and documentation of the long-term effects of burning season and frequency on tree growth, coarse woody debris and snags, and composition and structure of understory vegetation, and wildlife.
5. Documentation of temporal trends in resource conditions and implementation of monitoring to evaluate the influence of management practices on long-term productivity.
6. Documentation of the socioeconomic, legal, tax, institutional, and demographic effects of alternative management practices, land use changes and associated forest fragmentation.
7. Guidelines based on cutting-edge science and technology that maximize fiber/timber production on selected ownerships to enhance domestic output, regional/national economies, and global competitiveness.

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