FES professor Bill Ripple and co-author Blaire Van Valkenburgh are featured in American Archaeology magazine.  They propose that by hunting various types of carnivores and herbivores, humans disrupted a delicate balance, triggering a collapse in the large herbivores and, ultimately, the carnivores that preyed upon them.

Faster development of the promising field of cellulosic biofuels – the renewable energy produced from grasses and trees – is being significantly hampered by a “deep and thorny regulatory thicket” that makes almost impossible the use of advanced gene modification methods, researchers say.  Steve Strauss, a distinguished professor of forest biotechnology in FES, was lead author of the paper.

Dan Luoma and Keith Jayawickrama from FES are scheduled to give presentations at the upcoming workshop, Operational Management of Swiss Needle Cast in Douglas-fir.  This workshop is sponsored by The Swiss Needle Cast Cooperative, Oregon State University and Western Forestry and Conservation Association and will be held on November 17 in Woodburn, Oregon.

The “big bad wolf” — that sinister character of scary bedtime stories — is getting a makeover. Not only do wolves and other large predators pose little threat to humans, they also play a central role in keeping ecosystems flourishing, Oregon State University researchers assert in a new film showing at the 2010 Salem Film Festival on Oct. 18. FES professors Robert Beschta and Bill Ripple will speak about their research at the festival along with the showing of the film at 5:30 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 17, at Salem Cinema, 1127 Broadway St. N.E., and again at 6:30 p.m., Monday, Oct.