Ecological Forestry in the Longleaf Pine Ecosystem: Linking Research, Adaptive Management, and Outreach for Conservation

The integration of scientific understanding, conservation values, and silvicultural systems is critical to ecologically sustainable forest management. The longleaf pine ecosystem is one of the rarest forest types in North America and, until recently, one of the least well understood in terms of its basic ecology. Models of management based on natural disturbance that utilize single tree selection are unique in their ability to maintain the conservation values of the longleaf ecosystem while generating moderate economic returns. However, many in the forestry community have been reluctant to embrace this approach to management because of misunderstandings about the basic ecology and demographics of longleaf pine forests. The Joseph W. Jones Ecological Research Center has been conducting basic and applied research on the longleaf ecosystem since 1993. Information from the Center’s research program on spatial and temporal patterns of natural disturbance, productivity, fire ecology, regeneration dynamics, and competitive processes have fed into a deeper understanding of how these forests function. This information has helped to support and refine an ecologically-based approach to management and silviculture in longleaf forests. The Jones Center’s outreach program has synthesized information from programs in basic and applied research, as well adaptive management, into workshops and publications. These efforts seek to broaden the understanding of ecological management of longleaf forests by practicing natural resource professionals. We will present a case study that links ecological research, natural history, adaptive management and outreach to further conservation of the longleaf pine ecosystem