Treesearch

NaturePLACE Collaborative Arts Program, formerly known as the Urban Field Station Collaborative Arts Program, is a virtual, place-based artist residency program hosted by the USDA Forest Service in partnership with The Nature of Cities. The program aims to foster collaborations between land managers, artists, and scientists, cross-cut disciplinary approaches to Place, Landscapes, Arts, Creativity, and Ecologies, and curate events and public programs that mix science and art into public conversations. A key element of the program is that it is not a commission for work, but a call to engage...

Forest tree diversity helps shape the assembly of herbivorous insect communities in forests worldwide, and Island biogeography theory explains the role of tree range area as a driver of variation in native insect richness per tree species. However, it is unclear if these biogeographical principles apply to non-native insect herbivores. We created an extensive list of tree–insect associations for tree species native to Palearctic Europe bioregion, and investigated how both native and non-native insect herbivore species richness per tree may be influenced by various factors including the...

Termites are important wood decomposers in tropical and sub-tropical forest ecosystems, but less is known about termite activity in temperate forests, especially poorly-drained wetlands. Therefore, we carried out a 5-year study to assess the effects of a seasonally-variable water table on wood decomposition by termites. The study was carried out on three forested wetland sites on the Atlantic Coastal Plain of the US where the water table was: 1) only in the mineral soil, 2) at the soil surface for 3.7 months/year, and 3) at the soil surface for 5.7 months/year, and on an adjacent drier...

Annual model and crop species have been the subject of most epigenetic studies for plants. In contrast to annuals, forest trees persist on natural landscapes and experience environmental variation within and across seasons, years, and decades or even centuries. Most forest trees species are undomesticated and typically grown on variable landscapes with no irrigation or application of agricultural chemicals. Forest trees must thus rely on their inherent ability to alter growth and physiology to mitigate the effects of changing abiotic and biotic stressors. Like other plants, trees have...

Background: Despite mixed evidence supporting the link between greenspace and asthma exacerbations, several studies suggest a negative association. The mechanisms underlying this relationship are unclear, with air pollution concentrations potentially playing a key role. This study investigated whether air pollution concentrations modify or mediate the relationship between residential greenspace and pediatric asthma exacerbations. Methods: Data were drawn from a pediatric asthma cohort at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (2011–2016), including children aged <18 years. Participants were...

Focus group meetings with Minnesota field foresters were conducted to obtain their observations on how winter weather conditions have changed, and how these changes have impacted their work during the winter logging season over the course of their career. Foresters stated warmer winter temperatures and precipitation changes have generally led to less conducive conditions for winter harvesting. They indicated changing winter weather has substantially affected their work administering timber sales during the frozen ground logging season. This includes spending more time interacting with...

High mountain peatlands in Colombia play a crucial role in water regulation, store significant carbon, and yet remain poorly studied and threatened. The lack of a comprehensive national peatland map hinders effective management. Our objectives were to create a national mountain peatland map for Colombia, assess peatland distribution, quantify degraded pasture peatlands, and evaluate soil carbon percentages and bulk density in the top 40 cm of mountain peatlands soils. We developed and compared three national-scale maps using field validation, Sentinel-2 imagery, SAR data, and topographic...

Context:Global climate change is predicted to cause long-term changes in bird distributions and populations. Although previous studies often prioritized understanding avian responses to shifting climate conditions, recent efforts increasingly incorporate landscape change as an additional factor. Objectives:We evaluated current and potential future effects of both climate and landscape change on the breeding distributions and relative abundance of 14 forest songbird species in the Appalachian Mountains. Methods: For each species, we compiled route-level total count data from 322 North...

Herbivores are commonly classified as host specialists or generalists for various purposes, yet the definitions of these terms, and their intermediates, are often imprecise and ambiguous. We quantified host breadth for 240 non-native, tree-feeding insects in North America using phylogenetic diversity. We demonstrated that a partitioning of host breadth: (1) causes 67% of non-native insects to shift from a generalist to specialist category, (2) displays a reduction in host breadth from the native to introduced range, (3) identifies an inflection point in a model predicting the likelihood of...

During the 1990s, the United States Forest Service implemented several studies to measure the impacts of organic matter removal and soil compaction on forest productivity in forest ecosystems throughout the country. One site was in northeastern Lower Michigan on the Huron-Manistee National Forest in Oscoda County. This site was dominated by mature quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) and bigtooth aspen (P. grandidentata Michx.) growing on sandy loam soils. The three organic-matter removal treatments at the site included: 1. stem-only harvesting (SOH); 2. whole-tree harvesting (WTH);...