Saving the American Ash

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service (USFS) and the ecosystem-centered nonprofit American Forests, Dr. Jason Kilgore, a professor of biology at W&J, has led a team of forest ecology interns for the last five summers in monitoring the decline of EAB-affected ash trees in Allegheny National Forest (ANF), determining how the forest is responding to the loss of ash, and identifying EAB-resistant ash trees with the goal of re-populating these trees in the future.

The summer 2022 team, consisting of four W&J students—sophomore Ty Laughlin, juniors Jonathan Grabowski and John (Jack) Meck, and senior Andrew Edwards—spent June and July collecting three types of data from plots with ash trees on the ANF: Ash (7.8-acre plots where all ash trees are tagged and monitored); cVeg (or Complementary Vegetation plots where understory vegetation is identified and quantified); and Prism (variable-radius plots where the larger tree response to ash mortality is measured).

Read More: https://www.washjeff.edu/saving-north...

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Director, Editor: Matt Michalko
Camera A: Matt Michalko
Camera B: Cameron Haid
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