Accidental modern ecology: How a national forest inventory gave rise to new avenues in ecological research

Background/Question/Methods

In the late 1990’s, burgeoning interest in consistent inventories of forest resources across the U.S. led to Congress authorizing the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service to conduct a consistent annual inventory of forests in every state (Forest Inventory and Analysis program; FIA).  An examination of recent studies that employ FIA information was conducted to evaluate the impact of such an inventory program to the ecological sciences. 

Results/Conclusions

Although the inventory effort was originally designed to monitor the management of U.S. forests, data from the program has been used in a variety of emerging ecological studies including regional evolutionary diversity, contemporary tree range shifts, and forest carbon dynamics.  Inventory attributes that have empowered the development of ecological sciences are: digitally available to the public online, a relational database of site/stand/tree attributes, sample/estimation methods well-documented and nationally consistent in both space and time.  The current state of FIA congressional authorizations/appropriations, as well as data availability and caveats, in the context of future avenues of ecological research is discussed.