Authors: Dean Wink, Ethan Hensel

Mentor: Juk Bhattacharyya

Forest diversification is essential to creating and maintaining healthy, resilient forest ecosystems. Forest diversification buffers the effects of climate change, creates new habitats for plants and animals, and improves biodiversity increasing the speed of succession. Without forest diversification, plant and animal life are at a higher risk of localized extinction. More species and populations of plants and animals thrive in an ecosystem that facilitates their habitat needs. In this project we worked with the Mashkiiziibii (Bad River) Natural Resources Department to diversify their forested lands. We acknowledge that the Mashkiiziibii tribal lands are of cultural significance and their cultural values play an important role within their community. For this project, we used LiDAR images and superimposed soil maps to locate sand lenses that have the potential to house new tree species and improve biodiversity. By collecting and analyzing samples from the study areas in the field, we are able to verify our observations from remotely sensed data. In this poster presentation we described our research process.