DENDROECOLOGY OF NCRN TREES | P17AS00374

Opportunity Information: Apply for P17AS00374

The grant opportunity titled "DENDROECOLOGY OF NCRN TREES" (Funding Opportunity Number P17AS00374) is a National Park Service research project focused on improving how long-term forest monitoring data are interpreted across the National Capital Region Network (NCRN). NCRN maintains 425 permanent forest vegetation plots spread across 11 park units, but a key piece of information is missing for most of these plots: stand age. Without reliable estimates of how old each forest stand is, it becomes much harder to separate normal age-related changes in forests from changes driven by climate, disturbance, or other ecological pressures. This project is designed to fill that gap and, in doing so, strengthen the scientific value of the network's ongoing monitoring program.

The work has two main measurement goals. First, the project will estimate stand age at each of the long-term monitoring plots, providing a baseline that can be used to interpret trends in forest structure and composition through time. Second, it will produce a historical record of tree growth using dendroecology, meaning tree-ring data will be collected and analyzed to reconstruct growth patterns year by year (and in some cases, over decades to centuries depending on species longevity and site history). Tree rings provide an unusually detailed biological archive because annual growth reflects how trees responded to conditions in each growing season, including moisture stress, temperature patterns, and disturbance events.

After collecting and developing the tree-ring and stand-age information, the project emphasizes building explanatory and predictive models of tree growth. The planned analyses will connect growth patterns to three broad sets of drivers. One driver is forest community composition and competitive dynamics, which typically includes factors like which species are present, relative dominance, tree density, and indicators of competition for light, water, and nutrients. A second driver is climate, with specific attention to variables tied to growing season length and the timing of precipitation, both of which strongly influence forest productivity in the Mid-Atlantic region. The third driver is remote sensing, using observations of vegetation cover to provide broader landscape context and potentially detect canopy changes, disturbance footprints, or spatial variation that plot-level measurements alone might miss. By integrating plot data, climate records, and remotely sensed observations, the project aims to move beyond descriptive monitoring toward mechanistic understanding of why growth changes from place to place and year to year.

The expected outcome is a clearer picture of how sensitive NCRN forests are to climate variability, disturbance, and long-term successional processes. In practical terms, that means being better able to interpret whether observed changes in forest condition are consistent with normal stand development, linked to recent weather and climate patterns, or associated with disturbances such as storms, drought, pests, or human impacts. The project is also designed to compare responses across eight common tree species, which allows the researchers to examine differences among dominant species in the parks, summarize historic growth trajectories, and discuss their potential for future growth under changing conditions. That cross-species comparison is important because species often differ in drought tolerance, shade tolerance, and sensitivity to temperature or precipitation shifts, so management implications can vary substantially depending on which species are most affected.

Administratively, this opportunity was offered by the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, as a discretionary cooperative agreement under the Science and Technology and other Research and Development activity category (CFDA 15.945). Eligibility was limited to public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, reflecting the research-intensive nature of dendroecological field and lab work. The opportunity anticipated a single award, with an award ceiling of $95,482. The posting was created on June 15, 2017, with an original closing date of June 25, 2017, indicating a short application window typical of some targeted cooperative research solicitations.

• The Department of the Interior, National Park Service in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "DENDROECOLOGY OF NCRN TREES" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.945.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jun 15, 2017.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jun 25, 2017. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $95,482.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education.

Apply for P17AS00374

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