Sonja Oswalt, M.S. in Wildlife and Fisheries Science, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Degree/Completion Date: 

December 2003

Thesis Title:

Evaluation and description of a floodplain system: the Middle Fork Forked Deer River, West Tennessee

Current Employer:

USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station; http://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/staff/415

Hydrologic and geomorphic changes resulting from decades of channelization have clearly affected vegetation communities on the Middle Fork Forked Deer River.  Impacts are more temporally and spatially complex than previously described for other systems.  Rehabilitation of this degraded system will necessitate a long-term landscape-scale solution that addresses watershed rehabilitation in a spatially and temporally hierarchical manner.

Current Research

·        Forest Resources of Mississippi

·        Post-hurricane Katrina damage assessments in Mississippi

·        Wintering neotropical migrants in the U.S. Virgin Islands

·        Down woody material contributions to carbon and biomass on St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands

·        National inventory protocols for invasive species monitoring

·        National inventory protocols for understory vegetation

·        National inventory protocols for assessing down woody materials

Publications

 Oswalt, Sonja N.; Brandeis, Thomas J.; Dimick, Britta P. 2006. Phytosociology of Vascular Plants on an International Biosphere Reserve: Virgin Islands National Park, St. John, US Virgin Islands. Caribbean Journal of Science 42(1): 53-66.

Rudis, Victor A.; Gray, Andrew; McWilliams, William; O`Brien, Renee; Olson, Cassandra; Oswalt , Sonja; Schulz, Beth  2006.  Regional Monitoring of Nonnative Plant Invasions With the Forest Inventory and Analysis Program  In: Proceedings of the sixth annual forest inventory and analysis symposium; 2004 September 21-24; Denver, CO. Gen. Tech. Rep. WO-70. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service. 126p.

Oswalt, Sonja N.; King, Sammy L.  2005.  Channelization and floodplain forests: impacts of accelerated sedimentation and valley plug formation on floodplain forests of the Middle Fork Forked Deer River, Tennessee, USA  Forest Ecology and Management 215 (2005) 69-83.

Oswalt, Sonja N.  2005.  Forest resources of South Carolina’s National Forests, 2001.  Resource Bulletin SRS-98.  Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Southern Research Station. 35p.

Oswalt, Christopher M.; Clatterbuck, Wayne K.; Oswalt, Sonja N.; Houston, Allan E.; Schlarbaum, Scott E.   2004.  First-year Effects of Microstegium Vimineum and Early Growing Season Herbivory on Planted High-quality Oak (Quercus Spp.) Seedlings in Tennessee  In: Yaussy, Daniel A.; Hix, David M.; Long, Robert P.; Goebel, P. Charles, eds. Proceedings, 14th Central Hardwood Forest Conference; 2004 March 16 19; Wooster, OH. Gen. Tech. Rep. NE-316. Newtown Square, PA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northeastern Research Station: 1-9.

Conner, Roger C.; Adams, Tim; Butler, Brett J.; Bechtold, William A.; Johnson, Tony G.; Oswalt, Sonja N.; Smith, Gretchen; Will-Wolf, Susan; Woodall, Christopher W.  2004.  The state of South Carolina's forests, 2001  Resour. Bull. SRS–96. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Research Station. 67 p.