Treesearch

Coarse dead wood is an important component of forest carbon stocks, but it is rarely measured in Amazon forests and is typically excluded from regional forest carbon budgets. Our study is based on line intercept sampling for fallen coarse dead wood conducted along 103 transects with a total length of 48 km matched with forest inventory plots where standing coarse dead wood was measured in the footprints of larger areas of airborne lidar acquisitions. We developed models to relate lidar metrics and Landsat time series variables to coarse dead wood stocks for intact, logged, burned, or...

Global ecology – the study of the interactions among the Earth’s ecosystems, land, atmosphere and oceans – depends crucially on global observations: this paper focuses on space-based observations of global terrestrial ecosystems. Early global ecology relied on an extrapolation of detailed site-level observations, using models of increasing complexity. Modern global ecology has been enabled largely by vegetation indices (greenness) from operational space-based imagery but current capabilities greatly expand scientific possibilities. New observations from spacecraft in orbit allowed an...

Margarops fuscatus (Pearly-eyed Thrasher) is the Caribbean’s premier avian supertramp. Concurrent with urban development, it continues to expand its geographical and habitat range throughout the region, especially in the Greater Antilles. Through personal research, supplemented by relevant publications, unpublished results from others’ research and casual observations, as well as checklists including Pearly-eyed Thrasher sightings submitted to Cornell University’s eBird online database, we document the species’ apparent colonization of Hispaniola. Most sightings of pioneering Pearly-eyed...

Shrubland vegetation has not received as much scientific attention in the Caribbean as forest vegetation has. However, shrublands constitute ~25% of the woody vegetation classification units in the Caribbean, and in 10 islands that we analyzed, the average cover of shrublands was 16% of the land area and 27% of the vegetation area. Caribbean vegetation is subject to strong environmental gradients, and many tree species change habit from arboreal to shrubby along those gradients. Shrublands usually occur at the extremes of edaphic and climatic gradients, which explains why many studies of...

Geospatial inventories of protected areas and information regarding additional conservation mechanisms that were established to protect natural resources are useful in evaluating conservation effectiveness and supporting conservation planning at broader scales. The lack of a single inventory and common terminology among stakeholders in Puerto Rico was identified as a major limitation in planning and monitoring conservation effectiveness across the island. This report describes the multiagency/organization effort to facilitate communication among managers and stakeholders of protected areas...

Los inventarios geoespaciales de áreas protegidas y la información sobre otros mecanismos de conservación que se establecen para proteger los recursos naturales son útiles para evaluar la efectividad de las medidas de conservación y apoyar la planificación de la conservación a gran escala. En Puerto Rico, la falta de un inventario detallado y de una terminología común entre las diferentes partes interesadas son las principales limitaciones en la planificación y el monitoreo de la efectividad de las estrategias de conservación. Este informe describe el esfuerzo de múltiples agencias...

Hurricanes shape ecosystems. A broad range of forested ecosystems is particularly affected by hurricanes, thus creating the need for studies addressing the effects of these disturbances. There is a long history of hurricane and forest research on the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico. In this study, we present results from a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed articles regarding ecological research conducted in Puerto Rico on the topic of hurricanes and forests published from 1900 through 2017. We present a summary of cyclonic activity on the island during the study period and the...

Current trends in the nation’s forest-sector research capacity were analyzed in terms of funding and number of scientists, and compared with prior data in the National Research Council’s 2002 report, National Capacity in Forestry Research. The total number of professors at institutions accredited by the Society of American Foresters, research scientists at the USDA Forest Service, and forest researchers in forest industry decreased approximately 12 percent since 2002. In 2016, there were an estimated 1,224 professors and 540 Forest Service research scientists, for a total of 1,764 scientist...