UW Professors and Smithsonian Add Teton Site to Global Forest Monitoring Network

Thanks to the hard work of two University of Wyoming professors and their field team of graduate students and technicians, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) has added a new forest site within the Teton mountain range to the Forest Global Earth Observatory (ForestGEO) network, which spans 29 countries.

The Grand Teton Forest Dynamics Plots, founded by Sara Germain, an assistant professor in UW's Department of Botany, and Tucker Furniss, an assistant professor in UW's Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, is the 85th site in the ForestGEO network, according to a release from STRI published Jan. 12. The article can be viewed here.

"Every forest is unique and responds to change differently," Furniss says in the release. "Our site is the first in the Rocky Mountain ecoregion -- and the first in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. Trees here endure extreme cold and grow on rocky, mountainous terrain. As the environment changes, they may be hit hard because they're already close to their limits."

The duo has spent years working in ForestGEO sites across the U.S. and feel like proud parents to have their own plot, Germain says in the release. One focus of Furniss and Germain's work studying the plots involves understanding causes of death in whitebark pine and other long-living trees in the area.

The broader goal of the ForestGEO network is to understand forest dynamics on a global level. The effort to study forests worldwide was born in the 1970s from an interest in tropical forests. Biologists wanted to understand how forests changed over time, but trees often have a longer lifespan than humans. The rarity of some tree species also required studying larger areas with enough of the same species and longer observation periods. Within the ForestGEO network, biologists have mapped and measured 12,000 species and more than 7 million individual stems in North and South America, Africa, Asia, Europe and Oceania.

For the past two summers, Furniss and Germain, as well as the students and technicians on their field crew, traveled six hours northwest from the UW campus to measure, map and identify upwards of 40,000 trees.

Graduate students who worked on the project in 2024 and 2025 included Kelly Goodwin and Sheryl Cramer, both master's student in UW's Department of Botany; Maddy Stone, a master's student in UW's Rangeland Ecology and Watershed Management Program; and Russell Wong, Britt Hays, Jared Friedman and Edward Chapman, all doctoral students in UW's Program in Ecology and Evolution.

The sites that make up the Grand Teton Forest Dynamics Plots include one 25-hectare plot at Bradley Lake and five satellite plots ranging in elevation from 6,500-10,000 feet. The plots span a gradient in elevation and forest type to capture the diversity of forest types in the Tetons. Together, with their field crew, they worked to identify, map and measure every woody stem less than or equal to 1 cm diameter -- and every whitebark pine tree down to the smallest seedlings -- at each of the sites.

The Grand Teton Forest Dynamics Plots are essential for studying forest ecosystems that are home to threatened and endangered animal species, including grizzly bears and Canada lynx. The trees in these forests are not as large as those in tropical forests or on the Pacific Coast, but these forests are home to some of the region's most ancient trees. The oldest tree they've found so far, a whitebark pine, is about 1,200 years old, Germain says.

Whitebark pine is an important and threatened species in the area, and Furniss and Germain are focused on understanding what causes these and similar long-lived tree species to die. These old trees are foundational components of fragile alpine ecosystems, making them an important concern for managers.

"We want to make sure that parks and protected areas are managed based on the best possible science, and we want to teach the next generation of students how to do rigorous forest research that can help support managers' efforts," Germain says in the STRI release.

Joining the ForestGEO network provides the opportunity to participate in a yearly, large international data workshop, Germain says.

"We're thrilled to join the network and to contribute this unique forest type … to help us better understand temperate forest dynamics," she says.

For more information, visit the Grand Teton Forest Dynamics Plot Network and the Grand Teton webpage on ForestGEO's website.