ENV 660a () / 2024-2025

Forest Dynamics

Credits: 3 Fall 2024: Tu,Th, 10:30-11:50, SPL 56

All YSE students are guaranteed a space in this class. To assure a small class size and quality learning environment enrollment by non-YSE students will be by permission only. Please email the instructor to apply for this class if you are not a YSE student.

This course introduces the study of forest stand dynamics — how forest structures and compositions change over time with growth and disturbances. Understanding the dynamic nature of forest stands is important for creating and maintaining a variety of critical ecosystem services sustainably and synergistically, including sustainable supplies of wood products, biodiversity and wildlife habitats, water, fire protection, and others. Through readings, lectures, discussions, and field trips we explore forest development processes and pathways, concentrating on the driving mechanisms and emergent properties including natural and human disturbances. We make use of New England forests as living laboratories while discussing how similar forest patterns and processes are played out throughout the temperate, tropical, and boreal worlds. This class is a core component of the M.F. degree but is explicitly designed to be accessible to anyone interested in an in-depth exploration of forest ecosystems.

ENV 660 is a prerequisite for:
ENV 661: Analysis and Development of Silvicultural Prescriptions