jacob levine

Thrilled to announce that next year I will be joining @DukeBiology as an assistant professor! I am excited to recruit postdocs and PhD students to start as early as Fall 2026. If you are interested in plant community dynamics, global change, and/or wildfire, please see below!

A new study led by alum @jacob__levine, BS '18 Forestry and EEP, and co-authored by @berkeleyforests researchers Scott Stephens and Brandon Collins explores why forests planted for logging purposes fuel devastating wildfires more often than untouched land. latimes.com/environment/st…

Great to see our work in my hometown paper @latimes! Its not logging itself thats the issue, its what happens after -- dense plantations are responsible for elevated fire severity in industrial forests. Excellent story by Noah Haggerty. latimes.com/environment/st…

Had a great time chatting with @Jerickaduncan on @CBSNews last night about our new paper on increased fire severity in industrial forest plantations! cbsnews.com/video/megafire…

Private timberlands managed for industrial logging are more prone to severe burning in wildfires than national forests. LiDAR-based study led by @UUtah shows why. @WilkesCenter attheu.utah.edu/facultystaff/i…

Excited to see our work on 🔥 in industrial forests featured in the @sfchronicle this morning. Article by @kurtisalexander sfchronicle.com/california-wil…

🔥 Estudio señala que los incendios forestales son más severos en tierras industriales privadas que en terrenos públicos, debido a la mayor densidad y uniformidad de los árboles. Paper: doi.org/10.1111/gcb.70…

Hopefully, this research will help us strike a better balance between the sustainable production of critical wood products and the mitigation of fire severity risk in plantations.

Mitigating the severity of future fires requires a coordinated effort across ownership boundaries. In particular, strategies like mechanical thinning which reduce the density of trees and foster structural variability are critical.

🔥🔥🔥 Why are wildfires more severe in private industrial forests? Our new paper in @GlobalChangeBio has the answers. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gc… 🧵 Thread below #Wildfires #fireprevention #California

Overall, the paper suggests that the forest structures created through plantation forestry -- dense, homogenous stands with high ladder fuels -- elevate the risk of high-severity fire. However, although public lands fared better in our dataset, they still have a massive problem.

This is an important result because it indicates that practices which reduce tree density and ladder fuels, and increase variability, will remain effective even as extreme weather conditions become more prevalent. Indeed, these efforts will only become more urgent.