Treesearch

Pistachio is one of the most economically important nut crops worldwide. However, there are no reports describing the chloroplast genome of this important fruit tree. In this investigation, we assembled and characterized the complete pistachio chloroplast sequence. The Pistacia vera chloroplast genome was 160,598 bp in size, similar to other members of Anacardiaceae (149,011–172,199 bp) and exhibited the typical four section structure, including a large single copy region (88,174 bp), a small single copy region (19,330 bp), and a pair of inverted repeats regions (26,547 bp). The genome...

Animals that create structures often display non-random patterns in the direction of their constructions. This tendency of oriented construction is widely presumed to be an adaptive trait of the constructor’s extended phenotype, but there is little empirical support for this hypothesis. Particularly, for cavity nesting-birds there is a lack of studies examining this issue. In this study of a primary cavity excavator, the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker (Dryobates borealis), we show that cavity entrances exhibited a strong westward bias in all 11 of the populations examined throughout...

The extent to which persisting species may fill the functional role of extirpated or declining species has profound implications for the structure of biological communities and ecosystem functioning. In North America, arthropodivorous bats are threatened on a continent-wide scale by the spread of white-nose syndrome (WNS), a disease caused by the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans. We tested whether bat species that display lower mortality from this disease can partially fill the functional role of other bat species experiencing population declines. Specifically, we performed high-throughp...

In recent decades, wildfires have destroyed growing numbers of homes in the United States. Wildfire recovery has emerged as a critical time to reduce future vulnerability, yet we lack knowledge of how rebuilding efforts unfold over time, and are shaped by resident and housing characteristics, land use planning, and government regulations. We used a case study approach to document housing recovery a decade post-event for the Highway 31 fire in suburban South Carolina, and the Station fire in exurban California (both in 2009). We found divergent rebuilding and mitigation outcomes; rebuilding...

The real‐world application of climate change adaptation practices in terrestrial wildlife conservation has been slowed by a lack of practical guidance for wildlife managers. Although there is a rapidly growing body of literature on the topic of climate change adaptation and wildlife management, the literature is weighted towards a narrow range of adaptation actions and administrative or policy recommendations that are typically beyond the decision space and influence of wildlife professionals. We developed a menu of tiered adaptation actions for terrestrial wildlife management to translate...

Across the U.S.A., as across many countries, families, individuals, trusts, estates, and family partnerships, collectively referred to as family forest ownerships, own a plurality of the forestland. The Montreal Process Criteria and Indicators (C&I) were used to assess the sustainability of these lands. There are currently 109 million ha of family forestland across the conterminous U.S.A., but this area is decreasing by 1 million ha yr-1 with 64% of this acreage going to non-forest uses and the rest going to other forest ownership classes. While forest-type groups have remained relatively...

With global efforts to restore grassland ecosystems, researchers and land management practitioners are working to reconstruct habitat that will persist and withstand stresses associated with climate change. Part of these efforts involve movement of plant material potentially adapted to future climate conditions from native habitat or seed production locations to a new restoration site. Restoration practice often follows this plant-centered, topdown approach. However, we suggest that restoration of belowground interactions, namely between plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi or rhizobia,...

Both global poverty and hunger have increased in recent years, endangering progress towards accomplishing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 1 and 2. The regression has been most pronounced in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Meeting the SDG targets requires achieving resilient farm productivity. Although many farm management technologies exist to improve yields, farmers in SSA largely have not adopted these approaches. A long-standing literature about technology adoption identifies multiple hypotheses as to why farmers may or may not adopt new agricultural technologies, culminating in numerous...

The ability to detect diseased trees before symptoms emerge is key in forest health management because it allows for more timely and targeted intervention. The objective of this study was to develop an in-field approach for early and rapid detection of beech leaf disease (BLD), an emerging disease of American beech trees, based on supervised classification models of leaf near-infrared (NIR) spectral profiles. To validate the effectiveness of the method we also utilized a qPCR-based protocol for the quantification of the newly identified foliar nematode identified as the putative causal...

Wildfires are increasingly understood as an ecological driver within the entire Arctic biome. Arctic soils naturally store large quantities of C, as peat has formed throughout the Holocene. For the Siberian Arctic, we used observations from the MODIS remote sensing instrument to document changes in frequency, geographic extent, and seasonal timing of wildfires as well as vegetation productivity (GPP, NPP, EVI).We also used correlation and regression analysis to identify environmental factors of temperature, precipitation, and lightning occurrence associated with these changes. For the...