Study reveals centuries of forest change hidden in a small Virginia woodland
A Virginia Tech research team made up of students and faculty members used dendroecology to trace the hidden history of a forest fragment and its ecological value.
Graduate student Ethan Frye uses an increment borer to collect a tree core sample in the woods near Virginia Tech’s Corporate Research Center. These cores allow researchers to analyze tree rings and uncover the forest’s age and disturbance history. Photo courtesy of Carolyn Copenheaver.
Research at a glance
Context
Hidden forests risk being lost to urban development pressures.
Solution
A small Virginia woodland holds centuries of ecological and human history.
Impact
Dendroecology reveals change, resilience, and insights for forest management.
In a small patch of woods tucked behind the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center, tree rings tell a story centuries in the making.
A recently published study, “Composition and Disturbance History of a Forest Fragment in Virginia, USA,” led by Carolyn Copenheaver, professor in the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation, and co-authored by Ethan Frye ’24 and Olivia Deane M.F. ’24, sheds new light on how even small, human-adjacent forests evolve over time.
The research team used dendroecology, the science of studying tree rings, to reconstruct the disturbance history of the forest and better understand its composition and structure.
“Each tree puts on an annual ring, which tells us its age and the environmental conditions it experienced that year,” Copenheaver said. “By taking a small wood core with an increment borer, we can read that story without harming the tree.”
The results challenged a common assumption in forestry — that bigger trees are always older.
“Some of the oldest trees we found were actually the smallest,” Copenheaver said. “That inversion in diameter and age likely reflects past logging, when the largest trees were removed and smaller ones were left behind.”
The study, published recently in Tree-Ring Research, offers a window into how forests continue to adapt in a changing world.
A tree-ring core extracted from a sample tree shows annual growth from 1860 to 2023, revealing more than 160 years of forest history in a fragment near the Virginia Tech campus. photo courtesy of Carolyn Copenheaver.
Beyond documenting history, the study highlights how forest fragments – often overlooked or dismissed as “second growth” or too close to human activity – hold ecological value.
“When we talk about conservation, we tend to focus on sites far from human settlements,” Copenheaver said. “But this research shows that unique ecosystems can exist right within urban or suburban areas – even on a college campus.”
For Frye, who joined the project as an undergraduate, the work offered the opportunity to build technical skills and perspective. He collected and analyzed hundreds of tree cores, carefully sanding and cross-dating samples to identify false or missing rings caused by environmental stress.
“Forests are in constant flux,” Frye said. “Even in urban environments, they’re still changing. If we want to increase biodiversity or reach a certain ecological goal, we have to use silvicultural practices. You can’t just rely on forests staying the same.”
Copenheaver said Frye showed persistence and precision throughout the project.
“Some of the hickory samples were so difficult to date that most grad students would have given up,” she said. “Ethan stuck with it for hours, running the statistics and getting every detail right.”
The project provided research opportunities for students like Frye and Deane, who each contributed fieldwork, lab analysis, and data interpretation.
“This kind of experiential learning, seeing a forest’s history unfold right in front of you, is one of the most powerful teaching tools we have,” Copenheaver said. “It reminds us that even small woodlands can reveal big ecological stories.”
Original study: DOI: https://doi.org/10.3959/TRR2024-6
Written by Leila Christopher
