Research

The forestry programme at Bangor University has a rich history with its roots dating back to the early part of the last Century when Forestry was the very essence of the original School. The forestry faculty at Bangor are now integrated into the multifaceted School of Environment, Natural Resources and Geography and in this capacity conduct research on varied aspects of forests from stand dynamics to human dimensions to ecosystem process and function. The research emphasis is highly international with projects currently planned or underway on every forested continent on the Globe.

On-going studies address a range of issues including forest management, forest regeneration, biodiversity conservation, climate change, carbon flux, biomass energy, agroforestry, biogeochemistry, invasive species, forest pathology, bioenergy production, impacts of intensive biomass harvesting, wood combustion and ash recycling, and sustainable community development. Research resources include plantation forests associated with Henfaes experimental farm, glass houses, laboratories, a rhizotron, and the natural hardwood forest at Treborth Botanic Garden.

Research Area Information

Bangor forest diversity and ecosystem function experiment BangorDIVERSE is a member of the global tree species diversity and ecosystem function network Tree DivNet

Forestry to promote sustainable intensification and resilience to extreme events through the Multi-Land project, which aims to improve our understanding of ecosystem function associated with tree-livestock-soil interactions in upland systems. This work is paramount to increasing terrestrial ecosystem resilience to climate change and extreme events whilst promoting the provision of regulating and supporting ecosystem services. Using an ecosystem services framework approach the Multi-Land project will address identified knowledge gaps in ecosystem function and service provision. We focus on the topical issues of regulation of climate (carbon), flooding and water quality, the provisioning of food (livestock) and fibre (trees) in addition to studying the relationships between trees-livestock-soil to determine the impact of interventions on the critical functions and supporting services of net primary productivity, soil health and nutrient cycling

Mangrove carbon balance and greenhouse gas monitoring.

Tropical forestry participatory biodiversity assessment, biodiversity conservation in protection and production forests. We have exciting new research, with five papers published in international journals in 2015 and 2016, on logging roads in the tropical rain forests of the Congo Basin. Our research has shown how logging roads are dissecting intact forest landscapes, yet the forest vegetation has a good capacity to regrow cover on roads after they are abandoned. We make important recommendations about how forestry practice should be improved to reduce negative effects on the forest environment and biodiversity.

The ecology and management of invasive woody species.

Population genetics of tree species

General mycology

Biochemical mechanisms for wood decay

Environmental and life cycle aspects of forest harvesting for wood fuel production

Building Nicaraguan and Costa Rican Capacity in biodiversity conservation