H Brian Underwood, Ph.D.

Our nation’s forests serve many purposes including source of timber, habitat for wildlife, and a place for people to recreate. Our scientists seek to understand how forests can serve all these functions by answering such questions as, “How do forests managed for timber harvest and bird habitat affect the bat populations of the forest?” and “How can hiking trails be designed to minimize impacts...

Coastal areas and estuaries contain a variety of habitats that serve many purposes including protecting other lands from flooding and storms, habitats important to commercially harvested fish and shellfish, recreational uses, and habitat for wildlife. We work with U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, National Park Service and other federal and state land managers that are charged with managing...

Acceleration in sea-level rise and changing environmental stressors have important implications for the integrity of coastal wetlands and for efforts to restore and protect the ecosystem services they provide. Federal and state agencies need to make more detailed assessments of how different watersheds and shoreline types might influence an array of ecosystem functions and components and...

Determining the size of animal populations is fundamental to wildlife management and how such populations change over time and space can provide insights into ecosystem function and associated processes.   Patuxent scientists’ utilize a number of robust statistical techniques to generate these estimates and to improve our understanding of population dynamics.

The Challenge: The primary dune along barrier island beaches protects leeward vegetation from tidal fluctuation, salt spray and storm surge.  However, storm surges like those experienced during Hurricane Sandy can obliterate the primary dune, transporting sand inland and burying existing vegetation.  The dune rebuilds naturally as recovering vegetation traps wind-blown and waterborne sand. ...