- Fisheries and Aquaculture
- Forestry
- Natural Resources Recreation & Tourism
- Water & Soil
- Wildlife Ecology & Management
- Facilities/Labs
- Overview
- Aquatic Biotechnology & Environmental Laboratory (ABEL)
- Aquatic Toxiciology Lab
- B. F. Grant Memorial Forest
- Charles Terrell Memorial Timber Farm
- Cohutta Fisheries Center
- Cooper Tract
- Denmark Forest
- Dorothy Warnell Research, Education and Demonstration Forest
- Fiber Supply Assessment
- GIS and Spatial Analysis Lab
- Hardman Memorial Park
- Herpetology Lab
- Oconee Forest Park
- Pete Phillips Laboratory for Nutrient Cycling Science
- Tree Health Care Outreach Laboratory
- Thompson Mills Forest (State Arboretum)
- Watson Springs Forest
- Whitehall Forest
- Wildlife Damage Laboratory
- Centers
- Center for Forest Business
- Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health
- Consortium for Accelerated Pine Productivity Studies (CAPPS)
- Piedmont-South Atlantic Coast Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (PSAC CESU)
- Plantation Management Research Cooperative (PMRC)
- Southern Forest Research Partnership (SFRP)
- Southern Regional Extension Forestry
- Timber Mart-South
- Wood Quality Consortium
- USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS)
- USGS Georgia Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Unit
- USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center
- Faculty
Research
Engineering forest trees with genes for phytoremediation
The contamination of soils by heavy metals such as mercury is a serious environmental problem worldwide. Traditional methods for decontaminating these soils are extremely expensive and disruptive to the natural environment. In collaboration with researchers in UGAís Genetics Department, Warnell scientists have created eastern cottonwood, yellow poplar and sweetgum trees that can grow on and detoxify dangerous levels of soil mercury. For example, in these images you see mercury-resistant and mercury-sensitive trees. Our first field test of mercury-resistant cottonwoods was planted on heavily contaminated soils in the spring of 2004. This site will be monitored over the next several years for reductions in soil mercury and maintenance of tree health.