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The Northern Research Station delivers science solutions for a sustainable future, pursues collaborative research-based solutions for complex challenges, and informs land management decisions. These research highlights are just a small part of the excellent work done by the Station's researchers this year.

Recreational boats are important vectors of spread of aquatic invasive species (AIS) among waterbodies of the United States. To limit AIS spread, state and county agencies fund watercraft inspection and decontamination stations at lake access points. Researchers present a model for determining how a state planner can efficiently allocate inspection resources to county managers, who independently decide where to locate inspection stations.

Once common across eastern North America, the American elm is deeply ingrained in our nation's history. However, a large portion of the tree population was affected by Dutch Elm Disease beginning in the 1930s. Today, short-lived elms can still be found in forests, but because they tend to be much smaller, they no longer play such an important ecological role. A multifaceted collaborative effort is underway to restore the stately and once dominant American elm to persist on the landscape of the nation's forests.

Photosynthesis feeds trees and has a significant benefit for people, too, namely the removal of carbon from the atmosphere and into live tree biomass through a process called “sequestration.” But USDA Forest Service scientists and a colleague found that increased tree mortality from the impacts of nonnative insects and diseases results in the transfer of carbon stored in live trees into dead material, much of which will eventually return to the atmosphere by decomposition. This threatens the estimated 76 percent of carbon sequestration in North America that comes from forests.

Contains invited papers, short contributions, abstracts, and working group summaries from the Beech Bark Disease Symposium in Saranac Lake, NY, June 16-18, 2004.

The spongy moth, (Lymantria dispar), formerly known as the "gypsy moth," continues to spread throughout North America, threatening deciduous trees and impacting humans. This non-native, foliage-feeding insect currently occupies only about one-third of its possible host distribution in the United States. Efforts to reduce its impact and spread represent one of the largest and most successful federal and state agency integrated pest management programs against a forest pest.

This new General Technical Report (GTR), published by the Northern Research Station, synthesizes information about the Slow the Spread Program, its accomplishments, and provides a framework for future landscape-level integrated pest management.
See related resource: National Slow The Spread (STS) Program

Citation: Coleman, Tom W.; Liebhold, Andrew M., eds. 2023. Slow the spread: a 20-year reflection on the national Lymantria dispar integrated pest management program. Gen. Tech. Rep. NRS-212. Madison, WI: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station. 130 p. https://doi.org/10.2737/NRS-GTR-212.