Like the forest itself, work on the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest keeps growing and evolving. Until 1950, when timber cutting began, wildfire was the main source of disturbance. Research was done by just a few USDA Forest Service scientists in the 1950s and 1960s. Initially they focused on road engineering, logging methods for old-growth, and rapid forest regeneration. Then in the 1960s research focused on effects of logging on water yield, sediment loads, and nutrient losses from small watersheds.

The International Biological Program began at the Andrews Forest in 1970, and university researchers started to work there. In 1976 the Andrews Forest was designated a Biosphere Reserve as part of the UN's Man and the Biosphere Program; in 1980 it became a charter member in the National Science Foundation's (NSF's) Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Program, which currently includes 20 sites around the United States and two in Antarctica. Since 1980 the Andrews Forest has also been one of more than 230 sites measuring the chemistry of precipitation (especially for acid rain) for the National Atmospheric Deposition Program; the forest enjoys the purest precipitation of any site in the network.

For the past 30 years, researchers at the Andrews Forest have been driven by a fundamental curiosity about how forests and streams work. In the 1970s, the focus was how forest and stream ecosystems function (nutrient cycling, energy flow, community organization); in the 1980s, work in those areas continued, but other projects began to consider ecosystem management. For the 1990s, the focus has been landscape-scale studies and testing ecosystem management methods. Many past research projects established permanent study areas (watersheds, forest plots, stream reaches, and weather stations) for getting periodic measurements to examine trends in natural changes as well as effects of human activities. Since timber cutting began in 1950, about 30% of the forest has been logged, mostly by clearcutting. Now researchers have available young plantations of varying age and composition, as well as old-growth dominated by Douglas-fir. The presence of new stands among the older growth gives researchers known starting points for stand conditions, mixtures of species, stocking densities, and genetic makeup.

Since the site was selected as an NSF-funded ecosystem study site, team research has been the norm. A team approach is necessary because the systems are so complex.

The Andrews Forest is part of the Willamette National Forest, but is administered jointly by OSU, the Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station, and the Willamette National Forest. It is unique in the degree to which a university is actively involved in the research program at a Forest Service Experimental Forest. Elsewhere universities use Forest Service properties but fail to invest in them. Thus although other experimental forests have many university researchers, the universities are not helping to run them or contributing to maintaining the facilities. Those facilities at the Andrews Forest make it the third largest Forest Service research complex in the country. Only the Forestry Sciences Laboratory in Corvallis and the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin, are larger.

The Andrews Forest is located about 50 miles east of Eugene, on the west slope of the Cascades. It includes 15,800 acres (6400 hectares) containing several small watersheds. This gives researchers access to both streams and riparian areas. Elevations range from 1350 to 5340 feet (410-1630 m), giving researchers further access to varied microclimates. Within the forest, researchers maintain long-term observations for basic meteorological and hydrological factors, vegetation development, stream habitat conditions, and other variables; many of the data sets are available through the Internet (http://www.fsl.orst.edu/lterhome.html).

Researchers come from 13 departments in four colleges at OSU, as well as the Forest Service, the US Geological Survey (USGS) Biological Resources Division, the Bureau of Land Management, the Environmental Protection Agency and its contractors, the Federal Highway Administration, and the USDA Agricultural Research Service. In addition, every year the forest hosts faculty and students from 10 to 30 other universities in the United States.

More than 50% of the researchers' funding comes from the NSF. Forest Director Art McKee (Forest Science) is proud of the high rate of NSF support. Projects receiving NSF funding must first prove themselves through rigorous peer review, and researchers must go through such review repeatedly with new and continuing projects. McKee notes that getting so much of their funding from NSF demonstrates that researchers on the Andrews Forest are a very competitive group, with many skills and talents. Their partnership reflects the breadth of their interest and talent; each researcher comes in with his or her own background and perspective, and all are brought together in their work on the forest.

Much of the research at the Andrews Forest is fundamental or basic, rather than focused on resolving particular problems. However, much has been quickly put into application. McKee is frequently asked for examples of how the basic research funded by NSF has been applied. The Andrews Forest has some outstanding success stories.

Mark Harmon's (Forest Science) work provides a classic example. Harmon's primary subject is carbon dynamics, including log decomposition, on which he is doing a long-term experiment. Before that experiment started, he and his colleagues conducted a literature review regarding the role of logs in temperate ecosystems. Even before the paper was published, drafts circulated among the people working at the Andrews Forest. Staff from the Willamette National Forest realized that the draft manuscript suggested that their practice of yarding slash from the cutting units to a single pile on the landing was problematic. The Willamette National Forest supervisor read the draft and agreed, and the forest changed policies to begin leaving slash where it fell. Thus the policy was changed even before Harmon's experiment was fully in place; that change would save $1 million per year on the Willamette National Forest and about $15 million per year across the West. Now, as a direct spin-off from the research, the Forest Service is drafting more specific regulatory language on how to handle coarse woody debris.

The Andrews Forest Stream Team's research into the role of coarse woody debris in streams has undergone a similar pattern. By having attended research discussions on the subject, national forest managers involved with the Andrews Forest learned that leaving logs in streams meant positive changes in stream structure, sometimes quite quickly. Even before hard copies of research results were ready to circulate, they changed agency policy.

In other projects, researchers are helping the forest assess and monitor new silvicultural practices, though getting results will take awhile. Several studies are using remote sensing to inventory, monitor, and model ecosystems at regional scales. For instance, Steve Garman (Forest Science) is doing simulation modeling of the effects of old and new logging practices on wildlife. Such modeling can provide many insights. At this point, results indicate that there may be many ways to move toward old-growth conditions, meaning that land managers may have more options than had been expected.

Research at the Andrews Forest is well-known in scientific circles. Over the forest's 50 years of existence, it has had more than 2500 publications. For the past decade, it has averaged about 100 publications per year. It has also been influential. Work on the forest has changed how forests and streams are managed in the Northwest. It has also affected how the state regulates private lands. Recent changes in the state's riparian regulations and in the State Forest Practices Act are heavily based on work in the Andrews Forest. At times, the change of policy has happened by circumventing the usual bureaucratic pathway. With an active partnership like the one at the Andrews Forest, such changes can happen quickly. This is one of the reasons that researchers choose to work at the Andrews Forest; the partnership has engendered a great deal of trust and willingness to take some risks.