USU Researchers Studying Tens of Thousands of Trees to Help Predict Future Forest Growth

A team led by Jim Lutz, professor in Wildland Resources, is working through sun and storm this summer at Cedar Breaks National Monument in Southern Utah, checking up on trees.

Across the West, trees have been dying at higher rates, from things like bark beetles, invasive pathogens, fire and drought, all of which are exacerbated by warming temperatures. The team visits the Utah Forest Dynamics Plot, as it has every year for the last decade, to survey and measure 30,000 individual trees in the area.

If a particular tree is struggling, it’s noted. If it dies, technicians do a postmortem evaluation armed with a hatchet and a knife to determine the cause of the death. It's important to monitor the health and survival of all kinds of tree communities, Lutz said, and not just in Cedar Breaks.

“Trees, especially big ones, have a unique ecological role in every forest,” Lutz said, “one that people are really just beginning to appreciate.