Treesearch

Pinus densa, an endemic and keystone tree in Florida's endangered pine rocklands ecosystem, faces increasing threats from sea level rise and salt intrusion. Ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi are critical for pine recruitment and survival, yet their diversity and response to salinity in this ecosystem have been unstudied. We used metabarcoding to survey the naturally occurring ECM fungi on the roots of mature Pinus densa at eight field sites with varying elevations, soil salinities, habitat patch sizes and distances from the ocean, followed by a manipulative greenhouse experiment to assess...

1. Planting or sowing native perennial bunchgrasses is a common restoration practice in grasslands disturbed by agricultural or forestry operations. Bunchgrasses provide fine fuel loads for reinstating fire regimes that promote native plant community development. Wiregrass (Aristida beyrichiana) is a dominant bunchgrass used in the restoration of south-eastern US pine savannas. Amending disturbed soils with native soils or inoculating them with mycorrhizal fungi are restoration practices used to enhance plant growth or establishment. It is unknown, however, whether these practices increase...

Cities, states, and countries across the globe are recognizing the interconnections of human and planetary health, and are investing in greening. Nevertheless, environmental improvements may not bring adequate changes in exposure needed to reduce chronic disease and improve mental health. Nature prescription, in which a health provider refers a patient to spend time outdoors, is a potential behavioral intervention that could connect people to accessible green spaces. However, formidable patient barriers could reduce the potential to scale-up implementation in equitable and sustained ways....

Urban forest patches, including woodland interiors and bounding edge habitat, result from secondary succession and fragmentation of more extensive forested landscapes in the eastern United States. Management regimes, surrounding land use, and successional processes lead to distinct environments and contribute to local and regional heterogeneity. However, many woodlands are degraded due to frequent disturbance, aggressive exotic species, and heavy browsing, which stress canopies, reduce regeneration, and may reduce ecosystem services. Effective management requires rapid, repeatable assessmen...

Alterations to the fire regime have contributed to widespread regeneration failure in oak (Quercus) forests of the eastern United States. Our long-term study was initiated in 2010 in southern Indiana to examine how oak reproduction in a dry oak forest responded to shelterwood and midstory treatments followed by a spring prescribed burn. We tracked the survival, height, and resprout response of individual seedlings through time, and tallied overall seedling density pre- and post-treatments. Mixed-effects models and nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) ordination were used to evaluate...

Changing built environment conditions to impact health mindsets and health equity may be a promising target for public health interventions. The present study was a cluster randomized controlled trial to test the impact of remediating vacant and abandoned properties on factors related to health mindset—including well-being, health interconnectedness, social capital markers, neighborhood disorder, and worry—as well as direct and indirect violence experiences and the moderating role of racial and income segregation on outcomes. A residential cohort of 405 participants from 194 randomly...

Rates of family violence, including intimate partner violence (IPV) and child maltreatment, remain high in the USA and contribute to substantial health and economic costs. How neighborhood environment may influence family violence remains poorly understood. We examine the association between neighborhood vacant and abandoned properties and family violence, and the role collective efficacy may play in that relationship. Data were used from a longitudinal cohort of 218 maternal-child dyads in a southern US city known for elevated rates of violence. Women were matched on their propensity...

Context: As land-use change and climate change transform landscapes globally, increases in habitat fragmentation and shifts in habitat composition present challenges for the conservation of wildlife. Behavioral approaches to landscape ecology can explore how animal movement across complex landscapes can drive ecological processes like functional connectivity. By integrating mechanisms that link landscape change to animal behavior, simulation models can project how individuals and populations will respond to novel landscapes. Objectives: To understand how dispersal behavior and functional...

In recent years, wildfires in the western United States have become more challenging to manage, with extreme wildfire behavior, larger fires, and longer fire seasons contributing to rising losses. Community and government leaders are realizing that suppression alone is untenable for future wildfire prevention and seek a wider range of risk reduction strategies from the community to the household levels. Simultaneously, these leaders are faced with the challenge of expeditiously rebuilding communities in the wildland-urban interface (WUI), sometimes after multiple fires that have occurred...

The way a city or neighborhood is designed plays a significant but often overlooked role in the prevalence of firearm violence within communities and a growing body of research demonstrates that improving built environment conditions may have a profound impact on social interactions, crime rates, and ultimately, the occurrence of firearm-related incidents. In this chapter, we present an overview of select environmental factors, including the potential roles of green, blue, building and housing, commercial, situational, transportation, education and healthcare, and social infrastructure in...