Treesearch

Forest composition and fuel loadings govern wildfire behavior and effects, influencing the vulnerability of forest carbon (C) to emission; however, key uncertainties remain regarding post-fire forest and fuel dynamics and their consequences for C vulnerability to subsequent burns. The objectives of this study were to investigate (1) how forest structure before and after fire compares to the historic natural range of variability; (2) how immediate fire effects and environmental characteristics influence patterns of change in forest structure and biomass over time after fire; and (3) how...

The oak genus (Quercus), originating approximately 56 million years ago in the temperate Americas, has diversified across the Northern Hemisphere. Oaks are integral components of various ecosystems, including temperate deciduous forests, temperate and subtropical evergreen forests, subtropical and tropical savannahs, oak-pine forests, oak-“piñon”-juniper woodlands, cloud forests, tropical premontane and montane forests, matorral (summer rain chaparral), and Mediterranean vegetation. While many species of Quercus are exceptionally large, dominant overstory trees, others exhibit a wide range...

The widespread loss of red spruce forests across the central and southern Appalachians during the industrial logging era (1890–1940) inspired nearly a century of land conservation and restoration. This chapter covers the evolution of the restoration movement that began with Civilian Conservation Corpstree plantings in the 1930s, built momentum with the recognition of the loss of endangered species, and has grown through partnerships and supportive policies over the following decades to result in over 2.5 million trees planted and over an estimated 3,200 ha (7,907 ac) treated to accelerate...

Aspects of red spruce’s climatic niche and its relation to the biogeography of the species are covered in Chapter 1. Our emphasis here is on red spruce’s interaction with its biophysical environment in terms of a changing climate, what this might illuminate about the nature of its climate sensitivities, and how it may respond to future climate change. We approach this from an interdisciplinary viewpoint that integrates perspectives across biological, temporal, and spatial scales not often discussed together in the same work. We first briefly summarize key features of red spruce’s climate...

In this chapter, we review and synthesize the literature on the dynamics of central and southern Appalachian red spruce ( Picea rubens ) and spruce-fir forests under five topics. We begin with gap dynamics in old-growth forests by describing the natural dynamics and the contrasting strategies of the major tree species: red spruce, Fraser fir ( Abies fraseri ), yellow birch ( Betula alleghaniensis ), and pin cherry ( Prunus pensylvanica ). We then discuss four topics that address human impacts on these dynamics: broad-scale logging and remnant old-growth forests; the balsam woolly adelgid (...

Red spruce (Picea rubens) is a coniferous tree native to the eastern U.S. (Fig. 1.1), ranging from eastern Canada and New England south along the Appalachian Mountains, where it occurs in disjunct populations in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Red spruce-dominated forests (i.e., ≥ 50% of the canopy trees are red spruce) occur in near-boreal regions in the northern U.S. and Canada, temperate forests in the central part of their range, and montane sky islands in the southern part of their range. Temperature and moisture drive the distribution of red...

Soil moisture dynamics play a crucial role in hydrological and agroecological processes, yet currently, there are few viable statistical procedures readily available to compare soil moisture time series data from multiple locations or soil horizons. We introduce three novel soil moisture time series signatures to characterize and compare soil moisture dynamics across depths and locations: (1) recession slope, (2) slope reversal frequency, and (3) soil moisture flashiness index. We calculated two recession slopes, one between saturation and field capacity and a second between field capacity...

Fuel treatments are implemented across large spatial scales in sagebrush ( Artemisia spp.) ecosystems of the US Intermountain West to limit wildfire risk and spread, but treatment effects on ecosystem carbon storage remain poorly understood. Fuel treatments can reduce aboveground carbon storage and may also influence belowground carbon storage either directly through disturbance (e.g., disruption of soil surface) or indirectly through altered plant community composition over time (e.g., increases in invasive annual grasses that can impact plant–soil feedbacks and thus soil carbon storage)....

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program provides this resource update yearly as an overview of forest resources in Maine. These estimates are derived from field data collected across a systematic network of fixed-radius forest monitoring plots located on both public and private land. New updates are provided annually as a subset of plots within the State are remeasured. Each year, field crews visit and measure a subset of all FIA plots across the entire State (the size of the subset varies by State and year). Combining all the...

Although forest-based ecosystem services are well-documented, limited research has examined the role of forest ownership in human well-being. We conducted an ecological momentary assessment (EMA) of evaluative and experienced subjective well-being (i.e., affect) among private landowners in the Great Northwoods region of Michigan and Wisconsin, USA. The amount of land people owned, whether that land was forested, and how often and in what ways respondents engaged with their land was not related to life satisfaction or eudaimonic well-being (i.e., worth and meaningfulness of life). In...