Treesearch

In material collected in 2017 in Antrim County, Michigan, USA, were three specimens of a flea beetle species misidentified at the time as belonging to the genus Crepidodera Chevrolat in Dejean, 1836 (Haack and Ruesink 2020). A recent reexamination of those specimens revealed that they actually belong to the genus Neocrepidodera Heikertinger, 1911.

1. Although many non-native species arrive in novel environments, only a fraction successfully establish. A crucial factor affecting the colonization process of invading species is propagule pressure. The positive association between propagule pressure and colonization probability is driven both by stochastic dynamics and the 'Allee effect'. Although the role of Allee effects in invading populations is theoretically compelling, they are difficult to quantify in the field because the earliest phases of biological invasions are typically not observed. 2. We conducted parallel studies using...

A diverse, representative workforce is both beneficial and legally mandated for U.S. federal agencies. While previous research documents overall diversity within public agencies, like the USDA Forest Service, little is known about career outcomes and trajectories within these agencies. In this work, we look at individual-level career metrics which reveal patterns in employee retention, advancement, and termination. Using employment data for over 25,000 USDA Forest Service employees, we found that race/ethnicity, gender, and the interaction of these variables significantly related to each...

Nonnative insects and pathogens pose major threats to forest ecosystems worldwide, greatly diminishing the ecosystem services trees provide. Given the high global diversity of arthropod and microbial species, their often unknown biological features or even identities, and their ease of accidental transport, there is an urgent need to better forecast the most likely species to cause damage. Several risk assessment approaches have been proposed or implemented to guide preventative measures. However, the underlying assumptions of each approach have rarely been explicitly identified or...

The USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program collects sample plot data on all forest ownerships across the United States. FIA's primary objective is to determine the extent, condition, volume, growth, and use of trees on the Nation's forest land through a comprehensive inventory and analysis of the Nation’s forest resources. The FIA program strives for transparency by making the methods and results of the inventory and analysis available to the public. The standard for distributing FIA data is the FIA Database (FIADB). FIADB data for individual states can be downloade...

1. Large-scale ecological sampling networks, such as national forest inventories (NFIs), collect in situ data to support biodiversity monitoring, forest management and planning, and greenhouse gas reporting. Data harmonization aims to link auxiliary remotely sensed data to field-collected data to expand beyond field sampling plots, but outliers that arise in data harmonization—questionable observations because their values differ substantially from the rest—are rarely addressed. 2. In this paper, we review the sources of commonly occurring outliers, including random chance (statistical...

Despite efforts to prevent their establishment, many invasive species continue to spread and threaten food production, human health, and natural biodiversity. Slowing the spread of established species is often a preferred strategy; however, it is also expensive and necessitates treatment over large areas. Therefore, it is critical to examine how to distribute management efforts over space cost-effectively. Here we consider a continuous-space bioeconomic model and we develop a novel algorithm to find the most cost-effective allocation of treatment efforts throughout a landscape. We show...

Wild cards are improbable, high impact events. Such events, like the COVID-19 pandemic, have the ability to shape policy by upending entire systems and paradigms. Unfortunately, long-term planning and policymaking rarely account for wild card events. Instead, planning and policymaking typically assume that existing trends will continue without major disruption. Moreover, adequately planning for potential wild card events is challenging because they are inherently difficult to predict. However, planning for wild card events in natural resources and environmental policymaking is vital as...

This document presents forest carbon stocks and stand-level total volume for common reforestation scenarios in the United States. Eight geographic regions and 13 forest types are represented. These tables complement recent estimates of forest carbon stocks in the conterminous United States (Hoover et al. 2021) and were developed with a similar approach, using the USDA Forest Service’s Forest Vegetation Simulator and starting from a "bare ground" condition. The regions, types, and scenarios were selected based on data from the Forest Service and reforestation partner organizations and...

Non-native insect pests can have significant effects on forest ecosystems. Forest fruit-targeting non-native insect pests may cause extensive damage to fruits, reducing food for fruit-tracking wildlife. Parasitism of forest fruits by spotted wing Drosophila (Drosophila suzukii, SWD) may put it in competition for fruits with fruit-consuming forest songbirds during their post-breeding and migration seasons. Our objective was to identify factors, primarily SWD abundance and fruit parasitism, influencing frugivorous and non-frugivorous bird relative abundance and species richness in regeneratin...