Ecological Restoration
Administered by the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources
This option prepares students to assist in the recovery of ecosystems that have been degraded, damaged, or destroyed. This requires extensive knowledge of the abiotic environments that sustain the biota of ecosystems, community structure, sustainable cultural practices, and performance monitoring, among other skills. Emphasis is on the actual craft of restoring natural ecosystems, and the social and philosophical elements that mandate restoration.
Faculty Contacts
- Theodore Shear, ted_shear@ncsu.edu, 919.515.7794
- Marcelo Ardon. mlardons@ncsu.edu
- Rachel Cook, rlcook@ncsu.edu, 919.515.5979
- Jodi Forrester, jodi_forrester@ncsu.edu, 919.515.7576
- Elizabeth Guthrie Nichols, elizabeth_nichols@ncsu.edu, 919.515.4832
- Zakiya Leggett, zakiya_leggett@ncsu.edu, 919.515.2571
- Katie Martin, katie_martin@ncsu.edu, 919.515.2086
- Leah Rathbun, lrathbu@ncsu.edu, 919-513-1248
Curriculum
Prerequisites
A Bachelor of Science or Bachelor of Arts degree is required. Students without a background in natural resources or a related field may be required to take up to 12 credit hours of undergraduate course work. Students without a background in ecology may need to take additional undergraduate courses in ecology and soil science as a prerequisite for courses listed in the technical option core curriculum.
Master of Natural Resources Core Curriculum (required)
| Course | Description | Credit Hours |
| NR 500 | Natural Resource Management | 3 |
| NR 571 | Current Issues in Natural Resource Policy | 3 |
| ST 5** | A graduate level statistics course | 3 |
| FOR 801 | FER Graduate Seminar (or equivalent seminar course) | 1 |
| FOR 803 | Research Methods (FER graduate students only) | 1 |
| Total Credit Hours | 11 |
Technical Option Core Curriculum
Students are required to take the four courses below. Elective courses can be taken from the elective list below, or others may be substituted with approval of the advising committee.
| Course | Description | Credit Hours |
| PB 403 | Systematic Botany | 4 |
| FOR 565 | Plant Community Ecology | 4 |
| FOR 750 | Ecological Restoration | 3 |
| SSC 452 | Soil Classification | 4 |
Electives
| FOR 501 | Dendrology | 3 |
| GIS 512 | Intro to Environmental Remote Sensing | 3 |
| GIS 520 | Spatial Problem Solving | 3 |
| GIS 510 | Introduction to GIS | 3 |
| NR 595 | Landscape Ecology | 3 |
| SSC 570 | Wetland Soils | 3 |
| SSC 511 | Soil Physics | 4 |
| ST 512 | Exp. Statistics Biological Sciences II | 3 |
| ZO 592 | Conservation Ecology | 3 |
| NR 693/695 | Supervised Research / Thesis Research | Variable |
Total credits required: 30-36.
Projects
Links to previous projects:
An Analysis of the North Carolina Wetland Assessment Method (NCWAM) Using Quantitative Metrics
Accuracy Assessments for Headwater Stream Maps in Western North Carolina
Effect of invasive species removal on the understory of an urban forest