PINEMAP - Pine Integrated Network: Education, Mitgation and Adaptation Project

PINEMAP is one of three Coordinated Agriculture Projects (CAP) recently awarded by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). The purpose of these CAPs is to encourage agriculture and forestry producers to increase carbon sequestration and adapt practices to reduce the impact of climate variation. PINEMAP, a 5-year, $20 million project, focuses on planted pine forests in the Atlantic and Gulf coastal states from Virginia to Texas, plus Arkansas and Oklahoma, that are managed by industrial and non-industrial private landowners.

Research will focus on loblolly pine (Pinus taeda), which accounts for about 80 percent of planted forests in the region. The project’s overarching goal is to create, synthesize, and disseminate the knowledge necessary to enable southern pine landowners to:

• better manage forests to increase their ability to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere;
• more efficiently use nitrogen and other fertilizer inputs; and
• adapt forest management approaches and the planting of improved tree varieties to decrease risks from climate variability.

These outcomes will be achieved through integrated research and outreach programs for forest landowners and managers, and through formal educational programs for students. Important features of these programs include:

• develop breeding, genetic deployment, and innovative management systems to increase carbon sequestration and adapt forest management practices;
• investigate interactive effects of policy, biology, and climate on forest management;
• develop and implement extension programming to transfer new management and genetic technologies to private industrial and non-industrial landowners; and
• create educational resources and training programs to educate middle and high school students, teachers, and undergraduate and graduate students about the relevance of forests, forest management, and climate impacts.

PINEMAP is coordinated and managed by the University of Florida; project collaborators include:

• 8 regional university-industrial-governmental forestry research cooperatives,
• 10 southeastern land grant universities,
• the USDA Forest Service, and
• state climate offices and the multi-state Southeast Climate Consortium.

Developing Tools for Ecological Forestry and Carbon Management in Longleaf Pine

A project funded by the Department of Defense’s Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP)

SERDP is charged with addressing ecological restoration through research and technology to improve the environment on military installations while supporting the long-term sustainability of DoD’s training and testing ranges. SERDP identified a need for basic and applied research that supports the transition of DoD forest management toward an ecological forestry model that will balance military mission support with the maintenance of native biodiversity, sustainable yield of forest products, and enhancement of forest carbon sequestration with a view toward offsetting facility carbon emissions. Our goal is to develop the research knowledge necessary to meet this need through the creation of a carbon management model that can be used by DoD to facilitate optimal allocation of resources to improve integrated natural resource management plans designed to restore native longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) ecosystems, protect the environment, manage carbon and maintain flexibility in mission training.

This project will directly address the SERDP research needs by: (i) characterizing and modeling the forest carbon cycle of longleaf pine ecosystems based on measurements on three DoD installations across the historical range of the species, (ii) elucidating sources and sinks of carbon and changes through time in managed and natural successional pathways, (iii) comparing the influence of land use changes on carbon and other ecosystem services, and (iv) identifying silvicultural practices that improve life-cycle carbon management.

The overall goal of this project is to complete the development of an even-aged longleaf pine model and a single-tree longleaf pine stand model that can accurately and robustly simulate carbon dynamics in response to the range of management actions that occur on DoD bases across the longleaf pine range, including calibration with extensive field measurements and validation.

The specific objectives of this project are to:

1. Develop a forest carbon cycle model that can be used to evaluate ecological forest management techniques in southeastern U.S. longleaf pine forests and in systems where restoration of longleaf pine ecosystems is the goal. The carbon model will be driven by two linked pine forest carbon cycle models:
a. An even-aged longleaf pine model (LLM-EA) which will enable simulation of scenarios for young (0-50 years) planted stands being managed for transition toward uneven-aged structures with silvicultural tools such as thinning and prescribed fire.
b. A single-tree-based longleaf pine model (LLM-ST) which will enable simulation of older (40 to > 200 years) stands which are managed with silvicultural tools such as single tree or group selection harvests and prescribed fire.

2. Support calibration and validation of the LLM-EA and LLM-ST by:
a. Quantifying carbon pools in longleaf pine ecosystems including carbon in above and belowground biomass, shrubs, the herbaceous layer (including wiregrass versus non-wiregrass systems), soils (including black carbon), litter, decomposing tap roots and standing and downed woody debris;
b. Developing allometric equations for longleaf pine trees in stands covering the native range including coastal and interior systems;
c. Collecting data on three installations (Camp Lejeune, Fort Benning and Fort Polk) representing the range in longleaf pine distribution and both coastal and inland physiographies and in stands with a range of management histories.

3. Address biodiversity by simulating forest structural attributes important to wildlife habitat. The LLM-ST is spatially explicit and can model tree size and distribution, and the LLM-EA can generate diameter distributions and estimates of understory biomass. The models will simulate the processes that interact to provide the necessary conditions to sustain pine savanna biodiversity. Another key habitat attribute is coarse woody debris. Both models will be able to produce explicit estimates of coarse woody debris through mortality and coarse wood detrital biomass.

4. As an initial guide for resource managers, prepare a suite of simulations demonstrating how land use practices and silvicultural prescriptions including prescribed burning influence the life-cycle carbon balance of longleaf pine ecosystems, biodiversity and sustained ecological yield of forest products over short (<10 years), intermediate (<50 years) and long-term horizons.

PI: Lisa Samuelson (Auburn University)
Co-PIs: Tim Martin, Wendell Cropper (University of Florida), Kurt Johnsen (USFS SRS)

Project Duration: March 1, 2011 – February 28, 2016
Funding: $2.4 million