From assisting with criminal cases and mid-air collisions to identifying wood species to combat illegal logging, the wood anatomy and forensic research done at the Forest Service's Forest Products Laboratory draws upon one of the largest and oldest collections of wood and plant species from around the world. (Forest Service video)

“We were recently consulted about a murder case,” Forest Service's Forest Products Laboratory research botanist Alex Wiedenhoeft said.

From murder mysteries to mid-air plane collisions, Wiedenhoeft uses his expertise in plants to partner with local to national investigators to solve mysteries that ultimately help keep people safer.

“It is very exciting when you see people from all over the world coming here and realizing that we have samples of wood that come from their countries that they have never seen,” Forest Products Laboratory botanist Rafael Arevalo Burbano said. “This is one of the oldest collections in the world.”

This collection is used to help customs agents identify rare species of wood being illegally traded across U.S. borders.

“It is hard to differentiate these species once you have only the wood. So, we developed wood indications and manuals to help authorities … to identify wood that are different to what they are normally used to [seeing] in the legal wood trade market,” Arevalo said.

Drawers and drawers of wood samples in the hands of a few botanists at the Center for Wood Anatomy Research in Wisconsin can have a huge effect on the survival of endangered trees worldwide.

“Some people find it hard to believe, but wood anatomy actually turns out to be important in real life,” Wiedenhoeft said. “Global capacity for wood anatomy is fairly small. There aren’t that many of us wood anatomy nerds out there.”

Play the video to join the Forest Products Laboratory team as they help solve a murder, investigate a plane crash, and crack down on smuggling rings.