Treesearch

The ambrosia beetle Megaplatypus mutatus (Chapuis) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Platypodinae) is native to South America and is an important forest pest in poplar plantations in Argentina as well as in Italy where it has been introduced. Unlike most platypodine ambrosia beetles, it targets specifically live and vigorous trees. We report for the first time an attack on African mahogany trees, Khaya grandifoliola C. DC., by M. mutatus in Brazil, indicating its preference for trees with larger diameters. Most attacked trees exhibited only one or two gallery entrance holes, primarily along the...

Urban forests provide ecosystem services that are public goods with local (shade) to global (carbon sequestration) benefits and occur on both public and private lands. Thus, incentives for private tree owners to invest in tree care may fall short of those of a public forest manager aiming to optimize ecosystem service benefits for society. The management of a forest pest provides a salient focus area because pests threaten public goods provision and pest management generates feedback that mitigates future risks to forests. We use a game theoretic model to determine optimal pest treatment...

Due to concentrated surface water runoff, edge-of-field buffers may ineffectually mitigate agricultural nonpoint source pollution. To address this challenge, we evaluated the AgBufferBuilder (ABB) tool, which designs nonlinear buffers based on hydrologic modeling. ABB was tested on 45 areas of interest (AOIs) within the Saginaw Bay basin in central Michigan (United States) to determine the effectiveness of ABB at improving sediment trapping efficiency from runoff compared to existing conditions. While ABB did not consistently achieve the target sediment trapping efficiency rate of 75% in...

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...