Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Pennsylvania
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

Forest vegetation conditions are affected by a number of factors, such as deer browsing, light conditions, soil characteristics, competing vegetation, and seed sources. All these factors are considered by foresters when making forest management decisions but not in a formal manner. In addition, there is controversy regarding which factor may have the greatest influence on future forest conditions. This project will formalize decision models to learn about the relative effect of key factors that influence future vegetation conditions on state forests. In addition, management experiments will be identified that may help learn faster about the response of forest vegetation conditions to management actions.