Planting forests with diverse species can help ensure their success, according to a new study published from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) and The Nature Conservancy. The discovery is the result of a decade of research from BiodiversiTREE, a large-scale reforestation project at SERC designed to run 100 years, testing the effects of different tree planting strategies on sapling survival and other ecosystem functions. Forests are naturally diverse, and this diversity.