Natural Resources Dean Robert Brown Receives Wildlife Society Fellow Award

Posted on October 1, 2009 by kmfaber2

News Release – October 1, 2009

Robert Brown acceptsf plaquereconizing his recognition as a TWS Fellow from Tom Franklin, President of The Wildlife Society Dr. Robert D. Brown, dean of the NC State University College of Natural Resources was recognized as a Fellow of The Wildlife Society (TWS) at the Society's 2009 annual meeting in Monterey, CA. The career award recognized Dr. Brown’s contributions to science and to The Wildlife Society.

After receiving a B.S. and Ph.D in animal nutrition, Dr. Brown served on the faculty of Texas A&I University in Kingsville and then as a research scientist for the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute at that institution. Dr. Brown’s research focused on the development of antler growth in deer as a model for osteoporosis in elderly humans and on comparative wildlife nutrition and physiology. He has published over 120 articles and has edited three books on such species as White-tailed, Axis and Sika deer, Nilgai antelope, Javalina, and Bobwhite quail, as well as on higher education and conservation policy.

In addition to his research and classroom teaching, Dr. Brown has served as Head of the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries at Mississippi State University and the Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences Department at Texas A&M University. There he also served as Director of the Institute of Renewable Natural Resources (IRNR) and Coordinator of the Gulf Coast Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit.

Dr. Brown served The Wildlife Society as Southwest Section Representative, then national Vice President, President-Elect, President and Past President. He chaired numerous TWS committees including a successful $ 3 million fund-raising campaign. He has also been President of the National Association of University Fisheries and Wildlife Programs, Chair of their Section on Fish and Wildlife and their Board on Natural Resources, and Chair of the External Review Panel of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative. He has served on the Board of the Texas Nature Conservancy and in an advisory capacity to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

In 2006, Dr. Robert Brown was appointed Dean of the College of Natural Resources at North Carolina State University, where he also serves on the Board of the North Carolina Forestry Association, the North Carolina Forestry Council, and the Center for Paper Business and Industry Science at Georgia Tech

College of Natural Resources to Host C.H.A.N.G.E. – 4th Annual Diversity Summit

Posted on September 25, 2009 by kmfaber2

NEWS RELEASE: September 23, 2009

What: C.H.A.N.G.E. 4th Annual Diversity Summit Webinar
When: October 13-15, 2009 from 10:30am – 2:00pm daily
Where: Webinar originates from the NC State African American Cultural Center at NC State University in Raleigh, North Carolina

Many companies and organizations in natural resources have embraced their diversity challenges, developing programs focused on recruiting underrepresented populations. But important though it is, recruiting is only the first step. Once they join your organization, how do you retain this new talent?

At the "Cultivating Higher Achievement in Generational Engagement" Webinar, the NC State Community for Diversity in Natural Resources will continue the discussion about understanding diversity as it relates to different identity groups as part of the 4th Annual Diversity Summit. The goal of this conference is to provide information about how to increase and improve diversity efforts in all areas of natural resources.

This year the summit will be delivered as a webinar. Embracing this new delivery method has the added benefit of allowing more people to participate. For more information about the agenda, speakers and registration – visit the Webinar website.

Summit sponsors are Weyerhaeuser and the NC State College of Natural Resources

Altered Chestnut Trees Succeed

Posted on September 24, 2009 by kmfaber2

blight resisitant chestnut sapling - image courtesy of the U.S. Forest Service From the News & Observer – September 24, 2009
by Martha Quillin, staff writer
Image courtesy of the U.S. Forest Service

In stands of tiny trees in North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia blooms the hope of restoring a mighty giant, as scientists try to bring back the American chestnut from near extinction.

Five hundred blight-resistant American chestnut saplings are thriving a year after they were planted in three national forests, a milestone in the long-term effort to re-establish the tree in its native habitat. Reviving the chestnut, decimated by a fungus, would reverse one of the worst ecological disasters in the nation's history, reviving a major source of food and lumber that forest animals and humans have missed for more than a century.

The cutting-edge genetic research that offers the promise of a blight-resistant hybrid could, if successful, also be used to stop the damage to U.S. forests by other exotic pests, such as bark beetles, the woolly adelgid and Dutch elm disease.
"If it works, there is a long line of similar ecological problems that are waiting for similar kinds of solutions," said Ron Sederoff, a professor in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at N.C. State. "There are 100 different threatened trees in our American forest, and each one has a disease or a pest that potentially could do as much damage as the blight did to the American chestnut."

Sederoff leads a project to map the genome of the chestnut tree so researchers can create trees that are nearly pure American chestnuts but have the handful of genes from the Chinese chestnut that make that tree resistant to blight. Meanwhile, others are doing a different kind of genetic research, cross-breeding different varieties of trees and growing them in labs, nurseries and test plots to see how they fare.

"Just developing a blight-resistant tree is not enough," said Bryan Burhans, who heads the American Chestnut Foundation in Asheville. The trees have to be planted in the forest to see if they can survive real-world conditions.

Researchers from the foundation, along with the U.S. Forest Service and the University of Tennessee, announced Wednesday that 500 trees planted in experimental plots in three national forests have done well in their first year in the wild. The trees were about a year old and 3 to 5 feet tall when planted. If they succeed in the long term, the trees will help experts determine whether they're on the right track.

The test planting is an important step in a reintroduction process that began more than 50 years ago, when a UT geneticist tried to propagate chestnut trees that wouldn't succumb to blight, Scott Schlarbaum, professor of forest genetics and director of the Tree Improvement Program at UT, said Wednesday.

This work, Schlarbaum said, is "the beginning of restoring an old friend to eastern North American forests."

American chestnuts can still be found; the blight attacks the tree's vascular system but doesn't affect its roots, so new trees continue to sprout. By the time they're 10 years old, though, the fungus strikes again.

It will be five to 10 years before researchers know whether the saplings will survive. Eventually, researchers hope to develop hybrids that are genetically related to native types from each area where they are planted, to give them the greatest chance of survival.

martha.quillin@newsobserver.com or 919-829-8989

Green Clean: Researchers Determining Natural Ways To Clean Contaminated Soil

Posted on September 18, 2009 by kmfaber2

NEWS RELEASE

Media Contacts:
Dr. Elizabeth Nichols, 919/513-4832
Caroline Barnhill, News Services, 919/515-6251

phytoremediation site Researchers at North Carolina State University are working to demonstrate that trees can be used to degrade or capture fuels that leak into soil and ground water. Through a process called phytoremediation – literally a green technology – plants and trees remove pollutants from the environment or render them harmless.

Through a partnership with state and federal government agencies, the military and industry, Dr. Elizabeth Nichols, environmental technology professor in NC State's Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, and her team are using phytoremediation to clean up a contaminated site in Elizabeth City, N.C.

Phytoremediation uses plants to absorb heavy metals from the soil into their roots. The process is an attractive alternative to the standard clean-up methods currently used, which are very expensive and energy intensive. At appropriate sites, phytoremediation can be a cost-effective and sustainable technology, Nichols says.

The Coast Guard site was planted with a mixture of fast-growing trees such as hybrid poplars and willows to prevent residual fuel waste from entering the Pasquotank River by ground water discharge. About 3,000 trees were planted on the five-acre site, which stored aircraft fuel for the Coast Guard base from 1942 until 1991. Fuels had been released into the soil and ground water over time. Efforts to recover easily extractable fuel using a free product recovery system – also called oil skimmers – had stalled so other remedial options were considered before choosing phytoremediation.

We knew that tree growth would be difficult on portions of the site due to the levels of fuels in the soil and ground water, but, overall, we thought the trees could keep this contamination from moving toward the river by slowing ground water flow, Nichols said. Trees need water for photosynthesis so they absorb water from the ground; that process can slow the amount of ground water flowing toward the river.

In the process of absorbing water from the ground, trees can take up fuel contaminants. Some contaminants will be degraded by trees during this process while others will be released into the air by tree leaves and stems. We wanted to demonstrate that the trees would first slow the movement of fuel toward the river, Nichols said.

Trees can also increase the abundance and diversity of soil microorganisms around their roots. Some of these soil microorganisms will degrade the fuel still remaining in the ground. This can be a slower process, but we also want to show that trees will remove the remaining fuel footprint over time, Nichols continued.

Initially, 500 hybrid poplar and willow trees were planted in 2006. Another 2,500 trees were planted in 2007. Our initial results are very encouraging, and amounts of fuel in the ground have decreased much faster than anticipated, Nichols said, but there is still much to learn about how trees can impact residual, weathered fuels over time. There are two areas on the site where trees do not do well, but, overall, tree growth and survival are impressive. The Coast Guard has recognized the value of phytoremediation from this study, and has established two additional phytoremediation systems at different locations on base. [see photos below of plantings over time]

The project received a $240,584 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resourcess (NCDENR) Division of Water Quality 319 program, and an additional $15,000 grant from British Petroleum North America to establish the demonstration site. Nichols worked with Brad Atkinson (NCDENR), Dr. James Landmeyer (U.S. Geological Survey), J.P. Messier (U.S. Coast Guard), and Rachel Cook, a graduate student at NC State, to design and implement the phyto-demonstration site. NC State was recently awarded an additional EPA/NCDENR 319 grant to continue monitoring the site for tree growth and fuel reduction, tree toxicity to fuels, changes to ground water levels and flow, and how fuel contamination is actually removed by trees.

– barnhill –

research site in 2007
research site in 2008
research site in 2009
Progression of plantings on phytoremediation site from 2007 to 2009.

Beratan Lends Her Sustainablity Science Expertise to Fort Bragg Community

Posted on September 3, 2009 by kmfaber2

From BRAC-RTF Website – August 28, 2009

Dr. Kathi Beratan, research assistant professor in the N.C. State University Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, has joined the BRAC RTF as a Policy Advisor and External Partnership Liaison.

Dr. Beratan will advise BRAC RTF staff in their regional planning and workforce development programs and provide specific guidance to BRAC partners, local governments, and non-profit organizations as they tailor strategies to implement recommendations from the Comprehensive Regional Growth Plan and develop programs for adopting sustainable business practices.

Read the complete BRAC-RTF Press Release