Courses offered by the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies are described below. The letters “a” and “b” following the course numbers indicate fall- and spring-term courses respectively. Bracketed courses will not be offered during the academic year.

Project courses embrace individually assigned advanced field or laboratory work, or literature review, on topics of special interest to the student; credits and hours for these projects are determined for each student in consultation with the instructor.

Courses throughout the University are generally open to students enrolled in the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, subject to limitations on class size and requirements for prerequisites. Courses numbered 500 and above are graduate courses.

The sequence of numbers does not reflect level of advancement.

Forestry

Forest Biology

F&ES 52001b Local Flora (505b)
F&ES 50002b Fire: Science and Policy (524b)
F&ES 52003b Forest Ecosystem Health (551b)
F&ES 50104b Seminar in Ecological Restoration (584b)
F&ES 53005b Agroforestry Systems: Productivity, Environmental Services, and Rural Development (592b)
F&ES 52006a Anatomy of Trees and Forests (600a)
[F&ES 50107b] Research Methods in Anatomy and Physiology of Trees (601b)
F&ES 52008b Physiology of Trees and Forests (610b)
F&ES 50009b Tree Biotechnology Issues (916b)

Forest Management

F&ES 50011b Managing Resources (602b)
F&ES 52012a Global Resources and the Environment (605a)
F&ES 52013b Principles in Applied Ecology: The Practice of Silviculture (700b)
F&ES 50114a Management Plans for Protected Areas (701a)
[F&ES 50115b] Rapid Assessments in Forest Conservation (702b)
F&ES 52016a Forest Dynamics: Growth and Development of Forest Stands (703a)
F&ES 50117a Analysis of Silvicultural Problems (704a)
[F&ES 50118a] Seminar in Advanced Silviculture (705a)
F&ES 50119a,b Field Trips in Forest Resource Management and Silviculture (708a,b)
F&ES 50020a Invasive Species: Ecology, Policy, and Management (710a)
F&ES 50021a Financial Analysis for Land Management (727a)
F&ES 50023a Forest Management Operations for Professional Foresters (803a)

Forestry

Forest Biology

F&ES 52001b, Local Flora. 3 credits. A field course that studies the flora of the Northeast at various local ecosystems one afternoon each week. Students are required to make a labeled collection of woody plants, prepare brief written site descriptions of each ecosystem visited, and carry out a small project and write a paper related to the local flora. Four-hour field trip weekly. Website Thomas G. Siccama.

F&ES 50002b, Fire: Science and Policy. 3 credits. This course examines the ecological, social, and policy implications of forest and grassland fire. Topics include the historical and cultural role of fire, fire behavior, fire regimes, fire ecology, the use of fire in ecosystem restoration, fire policy in the United States and elsewhere, and controversies around suppressing fires and post-fire rehabilitation practices. Conditions permitting, the course also involves implementing a prescribed fire to achieve management goals in restoring meadow and oak savanna at Yale Myers forest. Ann E. Camp.

F&ES 52003b, Forest Ecosystem Health. 3 credits. This course is an introduction to the biotic and abiotic agents affecting the health of forest ecosystems, including insects, pathogens, parasites, exotic invasive species, climate change, and acid deposition. The course emphasizes the ecological roles played by these agents, discusses how they affect the sustainability of forest ecosystems, and identifies when and how management can be used to return forests to healthier conditions. The course provides students with the necessary background to determine if stressors are negatively impacting management objectives, to identify the probable stress agents, and to decide what, if any, actions should be initiated to protect forests from further damage. The course includes several field trips. Ann E. Camp.

F&ES 50104b, Seminar in Ecological Restoration. 3 credits. The purpose of this course is to summarize theoretical and practical ecological knowledge on how to restore or rehabilitate degraded landscapes. Degraded primary forests, secondary forests, and degraded forestlands usually exist in a complex mosaic that is constantly changing. Each of these conditions, however, has characteristics that must be taken into account when developing restoration strategies. Topics include: Concepts and principles of landscape restoration. Types of disturbances, effects at the ecosystem level. Forest succession and ecosystem rehabilitation. Soil formation and development. Strategies for rehabilitation of soil's physical and chemical properties. Reforestation of degraded lands: functions, ecological and socioeconomic considerations. The use of plantations as catalyzers or accelerators of forest succession in degraded landscapes. Wetlands: inland and coastal restoration. Techniques to control invasive species. Agroforestry systems as a tool for recovery and conservation of biodiversity in managed landscapes. Biological and economic enrichment of overlogged and secondary forests. Pasture degradation and restoration for productivity, sustainability, and biodiversity. Reclamation of mine spoils. Forest fires. Who does restoration? Community participation and challenges to implementation of restoration projects. In addition, seminar presentations by visitors and students and discussion sessions deal with particular aspects of landscape restoration. Prerequisite: F&ES 32007a or 32006a. Three hours lectures per week, three field trips. An optional field trip to Costa Rica to visit forest restoration projects in progress. Florencia Montagnini.

F&ES 53005b, Agroforestry Systems: Productivity, Environmental Services, and Rural Development. 3 credits. Focuses on factors influencing sustainability of agroforestry systems, the role of agroforestry in rural development, and the environmental services that agroforestry can provide, such as biodiversity conservation, carbon sequestration, and restoration of degraded ecosystems. Topics include: Environmental variables in agroforestry: light and water. Soil productivity and sustainability in agroforestry. Nutrient cycling and nutrient use efficiency. Agroforestry components: multiple-purpose trees, nitrogen-fixing trees. Economic aspects. Examples of subsistence-oriented and commercial agroforestry: shifting agriculture and improved fallows, home gardens, agrosilvopastoral systems, and alley-cropping. Environmental services of agroforestry: biodiversity conservation and carbon storage. Social functions of agroforestry: agroforestry as a tool for rural development. Agroforestry in semi-arid ecosystems. Agroforestry in the highlands. Agroforestry and fuelwood production. Agroforestry extension and education. Current trends in agroforestry research. In addition, seminar presentations by students and discussion sessions deal with particular aspects of agroforestry of interest to students. Three hours lecture per week, two or three half-day field trips. Florencia Montagnini.

F&ES 52006a/MCDB 660a, Anatomy of Trees and Forests. 3 credits. This first course in a four-course sequence focuses on two aspects of plant life: (1) basic processes that drive plant systems, such as fertilization, embryogeny, seed development, germination, seedling establishment, maturation, and senescence; and (2) basic structure and function of plants (such as root systems, leaf formation and development, height, and diameter growth). Differences between different groups of seed plants are analyzed from structural, functional, ecological, and evolutionary standpoints. Special attention is given to woody plants and their importance in the biosphere and human life. Wood and bark structure and formation in tropical and temperate trees are discussed from the standpoints of evolution and ecophysiology. Plant cell types are discussed in the context of how they evolved and their molecular and structural adaptations in terms of strength, storage, and water and solute transport. Prerequisites: general biology or botany or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor. Graeme P. Berlyn.

[F&ES 50107b, Research Methods in Anatomy and Physiology of Trees. 4 credits. Advanced investigative techniques with emphasis on instrumentation, experimental design, execution, and analyses. After a series of class experiments and demonstrations are completed, each student selects a personal project under the direction of the instructor and prepares a minidissertation complete with literature review, materials and methods, results, and discussion. Weekly seminars and progress reports on the projects are required. Prerequisites: F&ES 52006a and 52008b and permission of the instructor. Four hours lecture/laboratory. Limited enrollment. Next offered spring 2008. Graeme P. Berlyn.]

F&ES 52008b, Physiology of Trees and Forests. 3 credits. Topics in mineral nutrition and cycling; mycorrhizas; symbiosis; nitrogen fixation; photosynthesis; water relations; ecophysiology; and the physiology of trees and forests, primarily at the individual tree level with extensions downward to the cellular and biochemical level and upward to the stand and ecosystem level. Other topics include the ecology and adaptation of species and forests, both temperate and tropical. Two one-and-one-half-hour lectures per week. Graeme P. Berlyn.

F&ES 50009b, Tree Biotechnology Issues. 3 credits. Changes in plant genetics have been hastened by domestication at the hands of farmers and plant breeders. Recently such changes have been rapidly advanced by biotechnologies. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have caught the attention of the scientific community, the private sector, regulatory agencies, and the general public. However, their adoption has not taken place without controversy. Major battles are being waged over genetically engineered crop plants. What is on the horizon for GMOs in forest and plantation trees and the products derived from them? This course examines the basic science, philosophy, and social and policy issues shaping the future of tree biotechnology. The course has four primary objectives: (1) To provide students with a firm understanding of the science behind GMOs. (2) To provide students with an understanding of decision making in the GMO creation process. Discussions center on targeting traits, genetic interventions, selection and evaluation steps, multiplication, and release and introduction. (3) To provide students with an understanding of the assessment process to determine the relative safety of biotechnology, using case studies of biotechnology risks and risk assessment. (4) To provide students with an integrated understanding of the national and global policy and regulatory issues concerning plant biotechnology. Richard A. Jones.

Forest Management

F&ES 50011b, Managing Resources. 3 credits. The challenge of resource management is to provide the many commodity and non-commodity objectives people demand from the terrrestrial ecosystems across time and space. This management can be cost-effective and applicable to many places with the proper integration of management and social scientific knowledge. Students master the scientific basis, methods (and reasons for the methods), and technical tools for landscape (forest) management. The course covers managing an ecosystem with concerns about water; agriculture; grazing; wildlife; timber; recreation; people; and wind, fire, avalanche, and flood hazards. The class examines the basic issues and describes tools and techniques for analyzing and managing. A case study of a specific area is used for many of the analyses. The course covers systems concepts; decision analysis; area, volume, and other regulatory systems; silvicultural pathways; growth models; wind and fire hazard analyses; habitat and biodiversity analyses; water management models; carbon sequestration pools and changes; cash flow; operations scheduling; portfolio management; monitoring; and continuous quality improvement and adaptive management. Class includes lectures and exercises in which students integrate these subjects. Chadwick D. Oliver.

F&ES 52012a, Global Resources and the Environment. 3 credits. The world's climate, soils, water, plant and animal species, mineral and organic resources, and people are neither equally nor randomly distributed throughout the earth; and each has changed and will continue to change. Both the distribution and change can be understood (at least to some extent) based on "uniform processes" that occur repeatedly throughout the world. Students can better understand behaviors of one aspect of the environment at one location if they have a global overview of many aspects and their behaviors and interactions. The course has three objectives: (1) To give students an understanding of the present global distri-bution and changes with time of the resources, people, and other factors including climates, geomorphic areas, water, species, human communities and populations, agriculture, forest products, inorganic commodities, and energy. (2) To give students an understanding of how to access and utilize information on global resources. (3) To give students an understanding of important issues and management approaches, including species protection and extinctions, resource depletion and sustainability, catastrophic events, soil and water maintenance and degradation, atmospheric change and carbon sequestration, populations and life styles, resource substitution and economics, consumption, recycling, and substitution patterns and potential changes (through lectures, readings, analyses, and case studies). Chadwick D. Oliver.

F&ES 52013b, Principles in Applied Ecology: The Practice of Silviculture. 4 credits. The scientific principles and techniques of controlling, protecting, and restoring the regeneration, composition, and growth of natural forest vegetation and its plantation analogs. Analysis of biological and socioeconomic problems affecting specific forest stands and design of silvicultural systems to solve these problems. Applications are discussed for management of wildlife habitat, water resources, urban resources, timber and nontimber products, and landscape design. Recommended: some knowledge of soils, ecology, plant physiology, human behavior, and resource economics. Four hours lecture. One hour tutorial. Seven days fieldwork. Mark S. Ashton.

F&ES 50114a, Management Plans for Protected Areas. 6 credits. A seminar that comprises the documentation of land use history and zoning, mapping and interpretation, and the collection and analysis of socioeconomic, biological, and physical information for the construction of management plans. Plans are constructed for lands managed by the Nature Conservancy, Massachusetts Trustees of Reservations, private industrial and nonindustrial landowners, town land trusts, city parks and woodlands of New Haven, New York, and Boston, and the Appalachian Mountain Club. Prerequisites: F&ES 52013b or 52016a; F&ES 32114b; F&ES 84002b; or permission of the instructor. Eight days fieldwork. Limited enrollment. Mark S. Ashton, Thomas G. Siccama.

[F&ES 50115b, Rapid Assessments in Forest Conservation. 3 credits. An advanced interdisciplinary course concerned with assessing the protection and management of biologically diverse, complex forested ecosystems that produce various goods and services. Examples of independent case analyses concern landscape management of biogeographic regions in the Pacific Northwest, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Belize, central and southern Mexico, and the Panama Canal Watersheds. Students are encouraged to travel on extended class field trips to these regions. Prerequisites: F&ES 52013b or 52016a; F&ES 32114b; F&ES 84002a; or permission of the instructor. Three hours lecture. Eight days fieldwork. Limited enrollment. Mark S. Ashton, Susan G. Clark.]

F&ES 52016a, Forest Dynamics: Growth and Development of Forest Stands. 3 credits. This course introduces the study of forest stand dynamics—how the structure and composition of different forest types change over time (from regeneration to old growth). Understanding the dynamic nature of forest stands is important for creating and maintaining a variety of critical wildlife habitats on the landscape, managing for sustainable supplies of wood products and other forest values, or predicting the risks and managing the effects of natural and anthropogenic disturbances. Through lectures, discussions, and field trips we explore forest development processes and pathways, concentrating on the biological mechanisms driving forest structural change and the roles of natural and human disturbances in initiating and altering stand development trajectories. We make use of New England forests as living laboratories, while discussing how similar patterns and processes of forest development are played out in forests around the globe. Ann E. Camp.

F&ES 50117a, Analysis of Silvicultural Problems. 3 credits. An advanced course exploring the silvicultural options for problem stands. Problems can be both biological (fire, pathogens) and social (multiple value conflicts, property rights). Solutions are sought through synthesis and analysis of relevant literature for case studies. Quantitative silvicultural and economic techniques are used for comparative evaluation of solutions. Prerequisites: F&ES 52013b or 52016a; F&ES 84001a or 84002a; or permission of the instructor. Mark S. Ashton.

[F&ES 50118a, Seminar in Advanced Silviculture. 2 credits. This course considers selected topics in silviculture for students with previous instruction in silviculture. Two hours lecture. Mark S. Ashton.]

F&ES 50119a,b, Field Trips in Forest Resource Management and Silviculture. 1 credit. Seven- to twelve-day field trips to study the silviculture and forest management of particular forest regions. In previous years, classes have visited Slovenia, Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom, British Columbia, and, in the United States, the southern Coastal Plain and Piedmont, and the Allegheny, Appalachian, Adirondack, and Green mountains. Mark S. Ashton, Ann E. Camp.

F&ES 50020a, Invasive Species: Ecology, Policy, and Management. 3 credits. Invasive species are disrupting both ecosystems and economies at all scales from local to global. A clear understanding of the nature of the problem, the ecology and biology of theinvasive species, the influence of globalization of trade, and advances in management strategies is critical for land managers, scientists, and policy makers. In this lecture/discussion/seminar we focus on current issues surrounding invasive species (both plants and animals) at various spatial and temporal scales in terrestrial, aquatic, and marine eco-systems. Emphasis is on the biology and ecology of invasive species along with a basic understanding of their economic impacts and public policy options to address prevention and management of invasive species. The course includes several local field trips with scientists and land managers. Ann E. Camp, Mary Tyrrell.

F&ES 50021a, Financial Analysis for Land Management. 3 credits. This course provides a framework and techniques to address financial decisions in forest, rangeland, and renewable resource management. Major topics include timber markets, basic investment analysis calculations (IRR, NPV, etc.), risk and selection of interest rates, inflation, taxation, forest finance, and resource valuation and appraisal. Techniques applicable to the individual tree, the stand, and the total property are presented. The course is oriented to applications for land management and not to theory. Includes an overview of the developing fields of carbon offsets, green payments, and conservation land acquisitions. A substantial applied course project is required. Prerequisites: F&ES 84002a or 86044a and F&ES 52013b or permission of the instructor. (F&ES 50011b and 52013b are very helpful.) Three hours lecture. Weekly problem sets. Lloyd Irland.

F&ES 50023a, Forest Management Operations for Professional Foresters. 3 credits. This course covers the operational aspects of managing forestland, including a range of topics essential to the professional practice of forest management. The course focuses on operational aspects of regeneration, intermediate tending, and harvesting (planning, layout, implementation, and post-operation evaluation), Best Management Practices, regulatory and wetlands considerations, and socio-economic dimensions of field operations. Included is a workshop on ethical and professional responsibilities of forest managers. Classes feature field trips to view forestry operations, including a five-day trip to an important timber-producing region of the northeastern United States early in the term. The course is limited to twenty students, with preference given to second-year students. Michael Ferrucci.