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SpacerEric K. Zenner
Title: Associate Professor of Silviculture
Phone: 814-865-4574
Email: eric.zenner@psu.edu
Website: http://silv.cas.psu.edu/
Address: The Pennsylvania State University
School of Forest Resources
305 Forest Resources Building
University Park, PA 16802
Education:
B.S., Forest Management, Fachhochschule für Forstwirtschaft, Rottenburg (1990)
Vordiplom, Ecology, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität (1992)
M.S., Forest Science, Oregon State University (1995)
M.S., Applied Statistics, Oregon State University (1998)
Ph.D., Quantitative Forest Ecology, Oregon State University (1998)
Academic Interests:
Silviculture; forest structure; old-growth forests; uneven-aged management; natural regeneration; vascular community ecology; forest-wildlife interactions
Courses Taught:
FOR 421 Applied Forest Ecology (Silviculture); FOR 521 Managing Forest Ecosystems (Advanced Silviculture)
Professional Affiliation:
Ecological Society of America, Society of American Foresters, Xi Sigma Pi
Recent Research/Educational Projects:

Describing the Structural Complexity of Unmanaged Forests
How do you characterize the structural complexity of a forested stand? One approach is to evaluate the relationship of a tree to its neighboring trees and determine the degree of difference (the gradient) in the magnitude of the diameter or height. Calculated across all trees in a stand, such an index has proven to be highly correlated with "old-growthness" in the western central Cascades of Oregon. This approach is now being tested in northern hardwood forests in Vermont and mixed hardwoods here in Pennsylvania.

Testing the Effects of Alternative Forest Management Practices
Recently a wide range of Best Management Practices have been proposed for forests in special management areas, such as riparian zones, but little work has been done to determine the impacts of these new approaches on important ecological conditions. An interdisciplinary project documents differences between riparian forests that have been managed in various ways in the past decade in conifer regeneration, soil nutrient absorbance and retention, and understory species composition and relative abundance.

Promoting Natural Regeneration
When natural regeneration occurs, where does it occur within a stand with respect to the overstory? How is it affected by overstory logging operations? Under what circumstances can it overcome deer browsing? One study evaluates the differences in structure between browsed and unbrowsed red pine stands, while another investigates the regeneration success of northern white cedar.

Selected Publications:

Zenner, E.K., J.M. Kabrick, R.G. Jensen, J.E. Peck, and J.K. Grabner. 2006. Responses of ground flora to a gradient of harvest intensity in the Missouri Ozarks. Forest Ecology and Management 222: 326-334.

Zenner, E.K. 2005. Development of tree size distributions in Douglas-fir forests under differing disturbance regimes. Ecological Applications 15:701-714.

Zenner, E.K. 2005. Investigating scale-dependent stand heterogeneity with structure-area-curves. Forest Ecology and Management 209:87-100.

Zenner, E.K., K.J. Puettmann, and J.A. Krueger. 2005. Early growth and vigor response of naturally regenerated eastern white pine (Pinus stobus L.) to overstory aspen density and pathological pruning. Northern Journal of Applied Forestry 22:27-34.

Zenner, E.K., J.M. Kabrick., J.K. Grabner, and R.G. Jensen. 2005. Are landscape-level effects more than the sum of stand-level effects in the Missouri Forest Ozark Ecosystem Project? Pp. 165-172. In: Peterson, Charles E.; Maguire, Douglas A. (eds.). Balancing ecosystem values: innovative experiments for sustainable forestry. Proceedings of a conference. USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-635. Portland, OR. 389 p.

Zenner, E.K. 2004. Does old-growth condition imply high live-tree structural complexity? Forest Ecology and Management 195:243-258.

Jensen, R.G., Kabrick, J.M., and E.K. Zenner. 2002. Tree cavity estimation and verification in the Missouri Ozarks. In: S.R. Shifley and J.M. Kabrick (eds). Proceedings of the second Missouri Ozark Forest Ecosystem Project symposium: post-treatment results of the landscape experiment. USDA Forest Service, North Central Experiment Station Gen. Tech. Rep. NC-227. St. Paul, MN.

Zenner, E.K. 2000. Do residual trees increase structural heterogeneity in Pacific Northwest coniferous forests? Ecological Applications 10(3):800-810.

Zenner, E.K. and D.E. Hibbs. 2000. A new method for modeling the heterogeneity of forest structure. Forest Ecology and Management 129:75-87.

Zenner, E.K., S.A. Acker, and W.H. Emmingham. 1998. Growth reduction in harvest-age coniferous forests with residual trees in the western central Cascade Range of Oregon. Forest Ecology and Management 102:75-88.

 
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This page last updated on: June 27, 2008

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