American Beech Restoration at PIRO and SLBE | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The grant opportunity titled "American Beech Restoration at PIRO and SLBE" (Funding Opportunity Number NOIP16AC01398) was a National Park Service cooperative agreement focused on restoring American beech in two NPS units: Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore (PIRO) and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (SLBE). Issued by the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, it fell under the Natural Resources activity category (CFDA 15.945) and was structured as a cooperative agreement rather than a standard grant, signaling that NPS anticipated active collaboration with the recipient on planning, implementation, and knowledge transfer. The opportunity was created on August 5, 2016, with an original closing date of August 19, 2016, and it anticipated a single award with a funding ceiling of $450,000.

Eligibility was effectively targeted to a specific partner within the Great Lakes Northern Forest Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU). The recipient was described as a CESU member operating under an existing Master Cooperative Agreement (P12AC31164), which explicitly positioned Michigan Technological University to carry out the technical tasks and provide specialized capacity needed for the project. The justification for this approach was that the university and its partners could supply expertise and infrastructure not readily available within the parks alone, particularly in areas central to beech decline and recovery, such as forest pests and pathogens, forest health monitoring, landscape ecology, and restoration planning. In other words, the project was framed as a landscape-scale forest health and restoration effort where coordinated science, monitoring, and applied propagation work needed to happen together, using personnel and facilities that could support multi-year field and nursery-type activities.

The core purpose of the work was to address beech bark disease (BBD) and its long-term effects on American beech populations within these park ecosystems. Beech bark disease is a complex forest health problem involving interactions between invasive insects and fungal pathogens that can lead to cankers, decline, mortality, and chronic stand-level impacts. Within that context, the opportunity emphasized identifying beech individuals that appear to show natural resistance or tolerance, confirming and screening that resistance, and then developing practical steps to propagate and re-establish resistant stock to support restoration over time.

The funded activities were a blend of monitoring, applied research, and on-the-ground restoration preparation. On the monitoring side, the project included collecting data at existing forest health monitoring plots and expanding that monitoring network by establishing additional forest health plots at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. This plot-based work was meant to provide consistent measurements of forest condition and change, support comparisons across sites, and track trends relevant to disease impacts and restoration success. In parallel, the project called for identifying and monitoring "putatively resistant" trees, meaning candidate beech trees that appear healthier or less affected than surrounding individuals under disease pressure, and then following them over time to understand durability and performance.

A major component of the project was centered on propagation and restoration methods. The work plan included conducting a literature review of beech propagation techniques to consolidate what is known, determine what approaches are feasible for these parks and this disease system, and highlight practical constraints. It also included screening candidate trees for resistance to beech bark disease, which is a key step in avoiding investment in planting stock that later proves susceptible. From there, the project moved into artificial establishment of beech, meaning intentional reintroduction or planting efforts rather than relying solely on natural regeneration, which can be compromised in diseased stands.

To ensure restoration actions were targeted and realistic, the opportunity included a spatial analysis of existing vegetation and site data. This spatial work was intended to map and interpret where beech occurs, how site conditions vary, and where planting or other establishment efforts would have the highest likelihood of success. Using those results, the recipient was expected to develop an establishment plan for beech resistant stock, essentially a blueprint for how resistant trees would be propagated, where they would be planted, and what site preparation, protection, and monitoring would be needed.

Finally, the project explicitly aimed to produce resistant planting material and improve the science needed to do that effectively. That included propagation of BBD-resistant trees and the initiation of studies designed to fill knowledge gaps related to propagation and "outplanting" (moving propagated stock into field conditions). Those gap-filling studies were meant to address practical uncertainties that often determine whether restoration succeeds, such as which propagation methods yield robust seedlings or clones, how well resistant stock survives and grows after planting, and what site or handling factors influence long-term establishment in the park environment.

Overall, this opportunity was designed as a science-to-implementation partnership: build and expand monitoring capacity, find and validate naturally resistant beech, translate propagation research into workable protocols, analyze landscapes to pick appropriate restoration sites, and then begin producing and establishing resistant beech stock. The intended outcome was not just more data, but a workable, park-relevant pathway for restoring American beech in PIRO and SLBE under ongoing disease pressure, using a collaborative model that leveraged university expertise and facilities alongside NPS management needs.

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