Treesearch

The silver fly Leucopis hennigrata McAlpine is a predator of the silver fir wooly adelgid, Adelges nordmannianae (Eckstein), a pest in the European production of Christmas trees. While the fly is known to be a common native predator of the adelgid in Georgia, Turkey, and central Europe, it is absent from northern Europe, where the Christmas tree production is an important industry. Therefore, L. hennigrata has been suggested as a classical biological control agent of Ad. nordmannianae in northern Europe. Here, we evaluated the fly's suitability as a classical biological control agent in...

"The Great Acceleration" poses serious challenges to land managers, policy makers, and all who are interested in the global sustainability of socioecological systems. Methods that can effectively address the uncertainty of the future to allow more robust and adaptive planning and management are urgently needed. We present a case study from northeastern Minnesota to highlight how strategic foresight methods and landscape modeling can serve as complementary tools to generate divergent yet plausible participatory scenarios to ultimately model the potential impacts of these scenarios on...

The first biennial Northern Hardwood Conference (NHC 2021) with the theme "Bridging Science and Management for the Future" took place virtually June 15–16, 2021. This inaugural meeting brought together scientists and managers working in the northern hardwood forests of eastern North America. Articles presented in this proceedings document the diverse subjects, cutting edge science, and state of the art practices exchanged among experts and across the subregions of the northern hardwood range. The topics include People and the Forestry Profession, Regeneration and Biotic Interference, Stand...

Background. Sequestration of carbon on forest land is a common and practical component within many climate action plans developed by state or municipal governments. Initial planning often identifies the general magnitude of sequestration expected given the scope of the project. Because age plays a key role in forest carbon dynamics, we summarize both the carbon stock and accumulation rates in live trees by age class and region, allowing managers and policymakers to assess the influence of forest age class structure on forest carbon storage as represented in current inventories. State-level...

Oaks (Quercus spp.) are masting species exhibiting highly variable and synchronized acorn production.We investigated the hypothesis that periodical cicadas (Magicada spp.), well known to have strong effects on the ecosystems in which they occur, affect acorn production of oaks through their xylemfeeding habits as nymphs, the oviposition damage they inflict as adults during emergences, or the nutrient pulse resulting from the decomposition of their bodies following breeding. We found negative effects on acorn production during emergence years and the year following emergences and enhanced...

The spongy moth, Lymantria dispar L. (Lepidoptera: Erebidae), formerly known as the "gypsy moth," continues to spread throughout North America, threatening deciduous trees, impacting humans, and directing state, federal, and private funds to population suppression and regulatory compliance. This non-native, foliage-feeding insect species currently occupies only about one-third of its possible host distribution in the United States. Efforts to reduce its impact and invasion spread represent one of the largest and most successful federal and state agency integrated pest management programs...

As a result of climate change, temperature and precipitation levels in the northeastern United States have increased in recent decades, and they are projected to continue to do so in the decades ahead (Janowiak et al. 2018). Projected changes include increases in maximum, minimum and average temperatures, with the greatest increases forecast for winter (Janowiak et al. 2018). Precipitation inputs are also expected to generally increase, though inputs may be more intense (leading to greater runoff and less soil infiltration) and episodic - creating intermittent droughts (Janowiak et al....

The fungus currently known as Laetiporus persicinus is a recognizable brown-rot decayer that is widespread on oak hosts in the southeastern United States. This species was first described as Polyporus persicinus in 1872 based on collections by Henry W. Ravenel from South Carolina. In this study, we elucidate the phylogenetic relationships of Laetiporus persicinus based on maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference analyses of a four-locus data set (18S, 28S, rpb2, and tef1) from taxa within the Fomitopsidaceae and Laetiporaceae. The internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region was analyzed...

Extreme weather events, such as ice storms, are increasing and have potentially large impacts on forests, including belowground structures such as fine roots and mycorrhizal fungi. Many forest trees rely on the mutualistic relationship between mycorrhizal fungi and plants; a relationship that, when disrupted, can negatively impact tree net primary productivity. We took advantage of a large-scale ice storm manipulation in the northeastern United States to test the hypothesis that increasing ice storm intensity and frequency would reduce ectomycorrhizal fungal root tips per unit root length...

The increase in the frequency and severity of water crises around the world necessitates maintaining or augmenting investments in the hydrologic sciences, including in a trained, diverse workforce. The USDA Forest Service operates a network of 85 Experimental Forests and Ranges, Experimental Watersheds, and cooperating sites (EFRs), 31 of which include long-term hydrologic studies (HydroEFRs). The HydroEFRs are centers for hydrologic science and education and play a key role informing watershed policy and management. The goals of this study were to understand (1) how, broadly, the women...