FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT NEWS A Newsletter for Department of Forest Ecology and Management Staff, Students, and Alumni

Vol. 3, No. 1 February 2000

News fromthe Chair

We recently recruited a young man by thename of Mark Rickenbach to fill theforest management extension specialistposition that Jeff Martin formerlyoccupied. He will arrive in a few monthsand we will profile him in our nextnewsletter. Mark will be a welcomeaddition to the faculty and to the stateforestry extension effort. We are alsocurrently recruiting for a forest productsextension specialist and hope to havesomeone aboard by next fall. It is interesting what one can learnfrom interviewing the candidates during asearch process. Most of them try to learnas much about their prospective employeras they can and ours did too by visitingour web site. What we learned during theinterviews is that our web site is not verygood! Actually, we pretty much knewthat – our graduate students had beentelling us the same thing – but hadn'tplaced the priority on improving it thatwe should have. We are slowly addingmore features and information so youshould notice changes if you visit itsporadically. The address is: http://forest.wisc.edu. I am learning what is meant by thatold Chinese curse, "May you live ininteresting times!" Wisconsin is on aJuly-June fiscal year, but the state legis-lature did not get around to passing abudget until very late in October. Thepay package was approved in late Janu-ary. One consequence of all this is thatall of the department's state budgetaccounts started at zero and have gonesteadily downhill from there. I haven'tgotten used to all the negative balances! Almost every day the newspapercontains one or more articles that focus

on an issue in natural resource management in Wisconsin or the nation,and often the articles relate to forests. The public's interest in and concern aboutnatural resources continues to increase andpeople want to be more involved inresource management decisions. Thisoffers some challenges for you who workout in the "real world," challenges thatmake dealing with negative budgetbalances seem simple by comparison. Isalute those of you who every day workto apply what you have learned throughyour education and your work experienceto resolve the complex issues involved inmanaging forests and related naturalresources. - Jeff Stier

AlumniUpdate

Steve Seybold (B.S. 1983) is nowAssistant Professor of ForestEntomology in the Departments ofEntomology and Forest Resources at theUniversity of Minnesota. In his newposition he teaches Forest and Shade TreeEntomology and conducts research onpine bark beetle pheromones, the lifehistory of insect vectors of oak wilt, and silvicultural management of the sprucebudworm in white spruce. After leavingMadison, Steve did an internship inSweden, obtained his Ph.D. in entomol-ogy at the University of California-Berkeley, and did postdoctoral work withthe USDA Forest Service Pacific SWResearch Station and at the University ofNevada, Reno.

Joe Kresse (B.S. 1973) is projectmanager for Weyerhaeuser TimberlandsInformation Services and Western Log System project manager in Federal Way,

WA. He reports that they are building new hand held data collection applicationsto go with their new resource manage-ment system and GIS. Following hisundergraduate degree at the UW-Madison,Joe went to the University of Oregon foran MBA in Forest Industries Manage-ment under Dr. Stuart Rich. Joe’s e-mailaddress is: joe.kresse@weyerhaeuser.com

StudentNews

Recognition

Volker C. Radeloff (Ph.D.-1998with David Mladenoff) has been selectedby the International Union of ForestryResearch Organizations (IUFRO) toreceive an Outstanding Doctoral ResearchAward. The award will be presentedduring the opening ceremony of the XXIIUFRO World Congress in KualaLumpur, Malaysia, in September. Volker works in the area of landscapeecology. His doctoral dissertation is titled"Patterns of Disturbance in the NorthwestWisconsin Pine Barrens: A Frame ofReference for Ecosystem Management."

In this issue

FEM Department News . . . . 2

FEM Faculty Bulletin . . . . . 2

Meet Peter Bloch . . . . . . . . . 2

Research Briefs . . . . . . . . 3-4

Tree Sale Nets Record Profit . 5

Mystery Photo . . . . . . . . . . 5

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Scholarship Recipients

Name Major ScholarshipDonald Behnke Recreation Resources Vicky Lee Hirsch Academic

Management Merit AwardAnne Hussa (Sr.) Forest Science Vicky Lee Hirsch Academic

Merit AwardBrooke Ivener (Sr.) Forest Science David N. Connor ScholarshipAlan Kirschbaum (Sr.) Forest Science W.G. Bleyer Conservation

ScholarshipJason Ludden (Jr.) Forest Science Earle D. Lyon Memorial

ScholarshipAaron Mielke (Soph.) Forest Science Vicky Lee Hirsch Academic

Merit AwardEtsuko Nonaka (Sr.) Forest Science Albert J. and Adelaide E.

Riker ScholarshipJedd Ungrodt (Sr.) Forest Science David N. Connor Scholarship

and Vicky Lee Hirsch Academic Merit Award

Shushuai Zhu (Ph.D.) Forestry John N. McGovern Scholarship

DepartmentNews

Forest Service Holds NationalLeadership Conference onMadison CampusOn October 26-28, 1999, the ForestService held its National LeadershipConference at the University ofWisconsin-Madison. The department wasdelighted to work with the ForestProducts Laboratory to host the meeting.Several of those attending havepreviously worked on Wisconsin'snational forests or are alumni of thedepartment, and for them it was a chanceto get reacquainted with Madison and theUW. At the end of the meeting, ChairJeff Stier introduced Forest Service ChiefMike Dombeck to undergraduate studentsJedd Ungrodt, Eric Weiss and Kevin Zei. The three, who are the SAF StudentChapter officers, presented ChiefDombeck with a memento of his visit tothe campus. Knowing that the Chief isan alumnus of a not-to-be-named sister campus in the UW System, the students were careful to select a neutral green and

red "Wisconsin Foresters" hat that he canalso wear when visiting his alma mater!

FacultyBulletin

Associate Professor Glen Stanosz(Plant Pathology/Forest Ecology andManagement/Environmental Studies) hasbeen appointed the William C. III andEugene P. Van Arsdel Professorship inTree Pathology.

Professor Raymond A. Young hasreceived the annual award of the JapanPhotopolymer Society for his workrelated to Plasma Modification ofMaterials. This work involves upgradingof forest products, such as paper andlignin, by treatment with activatedplasma gases. The award will bepresented to Dr. Young and two of hiscolleagues, Dr. Frank Denes and Dr.Sorin Monalache, in a ceremony at ChibaUniversity in Japan on June 29, 2000.

Meet Peter Bloch I will beteaching theFEM courseon Com-munities andForests everyother year,and theAgroforestrycourse(jointly withRay Guries)

in alternate years, and will participate inthe Social Forestry group. I expect tohave an active research program on themanagement of common-propertyresources in the context of the transitionto a market economy and governmentdecentralization. However, during thefirst six months of my FEM appoint-ment I have also been investigating theprospects for work in the U.S. as well,focusing on socioeconomic questionsconcerning private forest owners(somewhat from self-interest, since I ama quarter-owner of 35 acres of unmanagedforest in Vermont). I was born in New York, but movedto Chicago soon thereafter, remainingthere until age ten when my familymoved to the Boston area. I suppose thatit was the Midwestern interlude thatspared me a pronounced regional accent.Even though I have been a city boy allmy life, I became familiar with rural lifethrough long summer stays in Vermontand Maine with my family and at camp. I studied a bit of everything duringmy undergraduate years at Harvard, finallysettling on a major in French Languageand Literature because I loved to read17th, 18 th and 20th (but not most 19th)century literature. I worked as a biologylab technician at MIT. I passed the StateDepartment exam for entry into thediplomatic service, and did a master’s ininternational relations at the JohnsHopkins School of AdvancedInternational Studies. Because of theViet Nam war, however, I didn’t feel thatit was an appropriate time to representthe U.S. abroad. The economic aspectsof international relations interested me

FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT NEWS Page 3

most, so I decided to study Economicsand went to the University of California,Berkeley for a Ph.D. There I did researchon Brazilian employment and incomesunder a USAID-funded grant to my majorprofessor, and wrote my dissertation onthe explanation of differences in non-agricultural earnings. My postdoctoral career has focusedalmost entirely on economic developmentin the Third World, increasinglyconcentrating on rural issues because Irecognized their fundamental importance. I taught econometrics, labor economicsand economic development for three yearsat the University of Dakar in Senegal(lecturing in French), for three years atthe Fletcher School of Law andDiplomacy at Tufts, and for three years atGrinnell College in Iowa, before comingto UW-Madison where my wife received afaculty position in the Department ofCurriculum & Instruction, School ofEducation. After 2 years as a visitingprofessor in the UW Department ofEconomics, I joined the Land TenureCenter (LTC) in 1984 as a researchscientist. I am still there, but now halftime. I began as LTC’s designated specialistin French-speaking West Africa, doingwork in Senegal, Mali, Niger, andelsewhere on issues related to theconfrontation of national governments’land and natural resource laws andadministration on one hand and thecustomary practices of rural people on theother. In the last ten years or so myregional scope has widened, with work onsocioeconomic aspects of natural resourcemanagement – including forests – inmany countries including Sri Lanka,Guinea, Madagascar and Haiti, and onagrarian reform issues in several countriesof the former Soviet Union. Forest andpasture management issues have beencentral to much of my work, althoughmost of my publications have dealtprimarily with crop agriculture. In 1998 Iwas awarded Permanent PrincipalInvestigator status, a rare honor for amember of the UW academic staff.

ResearchBriefs

Forest productivity and landownership in the U. S. LakeStates – Jeff Stier, Dave Marcouiller(Department of Urban and RegionalPlanning) and Kwang-Koo Kim (graduatestudent in Urban and Regional Planning)used Forest Service FIA inventory data totest whether potential timber productivityvaries by ownership in 101 counties inthe U.S. Lake States of Minnesota,Wisconsin, and Michigan. They alsoexamined the relationship between landownership and the level of growing stockand net annual growth. They expected tofind that industrial lands had the highestproductivity, which is the situation in therest of the U.S. However, in the LakeStates the most productive sites are in thenational forests, which also carry averagelevels of growing stock that are higherthan those of other landowners. Industry-owned forestlands are generally of inferiorquality relative to other forest owners. Results of this study will appear in aforthcoming issue of the CanadianJournal of Forest Research.

Utilization of pine cones –Raymond A. Young, Thomas Eberhardtand Catherine Celimene. For the pastseveral years the Grainger Foundation hasfunded a project in the Department ofForest Ecology and Management onutilization of pine cone extractives. Thiswork was initiated from Mr. Grainger'sinterest in finding better uses for therenewable pine cones found in abundance

in forest and recreation areas. The projecthas been carried out under the direction of Professor Raymond A. Young and twopost-doctoral fellows, Dr. ThomasEberhardt and recently Dr. CatherineCelimene. Initial investigations onconversion of pine cones to compositeboards and papermaking fibersdemonstrated the intractable nature ofthese structures. Indeed the cones arevery resistant to degradation even on theforest floor. The approach taken was toextract the cones with organic solvents toevaluate the utility of the myriad ofchemicals contained in the "extractives." This was the first detailed chemicalanalysis ever performed on pine cones andvaluable insights on how nature preserveswoody tissue has been gained from theresults. Preservation of pine cones, andheartwood of trees alike, is achievedthrough a multiplicity of mechanismsinvolving a wide variety of toxicchemicals which are fungi specific, alongwith protection based on chemicalhydrophobicity. The use of the pine cone extractivesfor medicinal and pharmaceuticalpurposes has also been explored. Indeed,Japanese folklore medicine describes acure for throat cancer by drinking thewater from boiled pine cones. Several ofthe isolated chemicals were found toexhibit moderate levels of both anti-carcinogenic and anti-HIV behavior, asevaluated by the National Institute ofHealth; and further chemical derivatiza-tion of one of these compounds showedeven further enhanced anti-carcinogenicproperties. Although the efficacy of thecompounds was not sufficient to warrantadditional testing, further evaluation ofthe extractives and further manipulationthrough chemical modification could leadto new approaches for medicinal uses. Recent publications from the projectinclude:C. Celimene, J. Micales, L. Ferge and R.

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A. Young, "Efficacy of Pinosylvins against White-Rot and Brown-Rot Fungi", Holzforschung 53 (1999) 491- 497.

C. Celimene, D. Smith, G. Stanosz and R. A. Young, "In Vitro Inhibition of Sphaeropsis sapinea by Natural Stil- benes", submitted to Phytochemistry.

Global effects of acceleratedtariff liberalization in theforest products sector to2010 – Joseph Buongiorno, ShushuaiZhu and David Brooks (USDA ForestService, Washington D.C.). This studywas done on behalf of the Office of U.S.Representative Charlene Barshefsky andthe White House Council on Environ-mental Quality. The objective was toproject the effects of the elimination ofimport tariffs on the world forest sectorfrom 2000 to 2004, as proposed by theAccelerated Tariff Liberalization (ATL)agreement. The projections were done fortwo scenarios: 1) progressive tariffreduction according to the current GATTschedule, 2) complete elimination of alltariffs within the Asia-Pacific EconomicCooperation (APEC) countries. Theprojections were obtained with the globalforest products model (GFPM). Themodel gives market equilibrium projec-tions of quantities produced, consumed,imported and exported by each country(total of 180 countries), for 14 commod-ity groups, covering roundwood,sawnwood, wood-based panels, pulp andrecycled fibers, and paper and paperboard. The model also projects world equili-brium prices up to 2010. The resultsshow that by eliminating tariffs in APECcountries, the world production andconsumption for all products wouldchange little, less than 0.5 percent. Thetariff reduction effects would be muchmore significant for trade, and thecommodity composition of world tradewould shift from raw materials to moreprocessed products. The timber harvestwould change in a number of countries,but the net effect at the world scale would

be small. U.S. consumption andproduction of forest products wouldchange little, but the trade compositionwould change significantly. The U.S.would reduce its exports of logs andincrease its exports of some processedproducts. The U.S. timber harvest isexpected to be indistinguishable comparedto what would be the case in the absenceof the ATL.

Wisconsin'sKickapooRiverWatershed –Tracy Kuczenski,Don Field, PaulVoss (Depar-tment of RuralSociology),

Volker Radeloff, and Alice Hagen(Department of Rural Sociology, AppliedPopulation Lab). Forthcoming in theJournal of the American WaterResources Association. Recurrent callsfor integrated resource management urgethat an understanding of human activitiesand populations be incorporated intonatural resource research, management andprotection efforts. In this paper, wehypothesize that watersheds can be avaluable geography for organizing aninquiry into the relationship betweenhumans and the environment, and wepresent a framework for conducting suchefforts. The framework is grounded in theemerging field of landscape ecology andincorporates demographic theory and data.Employing Geographic InformationSystem (GIS) tools, we couple LandsatThematic Mapper™ land cover data with1990 decennial census-derived housingdensity data to demonstrate the operationof our framework and its utility for betterunderstanding human-landscapeinteractions. In our investigation of theKickapoo Watershed and two sub-watersheds, located in southwesternWisconsin, we identify relationshipsbetween landscape composition and thedistribution and social structure of humanpopulations.

“Four Decades of ForestScience” – Jeffrey C. Stier, AndrewOrlemann, and Thomas W. Steele(November 1999, issue of Journal ofForestry). In 1955, the Society of AmericanForesters’ (SAF), the University ofMichigan, and the USDA Forest Servicejoined forces to create a scientific journal“devoted to presentation and discussion ofthe results of original research.” Theresult was Forest Science. In this article, the authors conduct anin-depth analysis of the four-decade-oldscientific journal. The journal haspublished papers on a wide range ofsubjects in order to reflect the variety ofdisciplines involved in the field offorestry. The authors acknowledge this,and examine the publication patterns ofthe journal during the years 1955 to1998, Volumes 1 through 44. They alsocompare Forest Science to other similarjournals. The article examines authorshippatterns, including the countries of originof contributing authors, how manyauthors contribute to articles, and howoften certain authors contribute to thejournal. The trends in the kinds ofarticles published and in the number ofpages and articles that have appeared inthe journal are discussed. A discussion of the impact of thejournal on the field of forestry leads tothe conclusion that it’s impact increasedthroughout its first 35 years, but hassince been declining. In the past, ForestScience’s broad-base approach tosubjects attracted a large audience in thefield of forestry. But now that a greaternumber of papers from forest scientistsare going to more narrowly focusedscientific journals, the future of ForestScience and other broadly based journalsis uncertain. – Summarized by TobieBlack

Forestland ownership inOneida and Vilas counties,Wisconsin, 1975-1994 –William Klase and Raymond Guries

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(UW’s Land Tenure Center WorkingPaper No. 26). Privately owned forestsin the United States are being divided,roaded, and developed by increasingnumbers of second-home buyers, retirees,and recreation enthusiasts. Forestedparcels adjacent to or embedded in publicland are considered especially desirableand a premium is being paid for theaesthetic or recreational amenitiesassociated with such properties. Severaltrends suggest that the drive to acquireforestland for the construction of secondhomes in Vilas and Oneida counties isstrong and that the Northern HighlandAmerican Legion State Forest(NHALSF) continues to impactforestland prices. Forestland in Vilas andOneida counties was shown to react tomacroeconomic forces as if it were aluxury good (that is, declining salesduring a recession, increasing sales duringan economic upturn) and not simply atimber resource. Positive relationshipswere identified between the per-acre priceof forestland, the presence of highwayfrontage and parcel size for the years1975, 1980 and 1990. Forested parcelsadjacent to the NHALSF were shown tohave higher per-acre prices than parcelswithout frontage on the NHALSF. Thereduced supply of available parcels in andnear the NHALSF, as well as the highlydesirable nature of owning forestland with

frontage on publicland, has caused theprice of theremaining privatelyowned forestland inVilas and Oneidacounties to increasefaster than similarforestland in othernorthern counties ofWisconsin.

1999 Tree SaleNets RecordProfit

Despite the best of intentions, things do not always go as planned!

Another satisfied customer loads up his Christmas tree.The Forestry Clubhosted its 23rd annual Christmas tree saleDec. 3-5. About 20 undergraduateforestry majors pitched in to move 600balsam fir, Fraser fir, white pine, andScotch pine from the loading dock intothe Stock Pavilion, then out the frontdoors with eager customers. By Sunday afternoon only 15 trees remained, and this year the clubdecided not to let them go homeless. Thefollowing week the club officers deliveredthe extra trees to the Salvation ArmyCommunity Center on Madison’s eastside, where they were picked up byfamilies who could not otherwise affordthis often taken-for-granted holidayluxury. These trees might have been themost appreciated of this year’s sale, and

donating them is a tradition the clubhopes to continue in the future. For the third straight year, the saleyielded a record income. The club willuse the majority to subsidize clubmembers’ costs for this year’s springfield trip (657) and summer camp (655)classes. After setting aside funds for thedown payment on next year’s trees, theremainder of the budget will be used to

The picture to the left shows an event at one of our summer campswhen a confident young man set out to fell a tree and was somewhatembarrassed by the result. The haze you see curling up from the treeis smoke caused by the electrical wires that he felled along with thetree! Does anyone remember who the culprit was? Drop us a line ore-mail (forecol@calshp.cals.wisc.edu) and give us your guess. Hint: It is not a recent picture. We will tally the results and report them inthe next newsletter.

support club projects. On that note, the Forestry Club islooking to use its financial independenceto become a more vocal member of theDepartment of Forest Ecology andManagement community in comingsemesters. Ideas include sponsoring fieldtrips, guest speakers, training sessions,and supporting the development of amore active Society of American

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Foresters (SAF) chapter. Whilebecoming a stronger voice for theundergraduates, the club also hopes tobuild a sense of community among thefaculty, staff, graduate and undergraduatestudents. Anyone interested in becominginvolved in the club or helping organizean educational or community-buildingevent can contact club chair Jedd Ungrodtat: jungrodt@students.wisc.edu Thanks to everyone who helped makethis yet another fun and profitable sale! -Jedd Ungrodt

Think spring!

Department of Forest Ecology and Management1630 Linden Drive, Room 120University of Wisconsin-MadisonMadison, WI 53706-1598

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FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT NEWSProduction/Design: Mary Miron

FEM News is published by the Department of Forest Ecology and Management 1630 Linden Drive, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI 53706.

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