Treesearch

Oak wilt causes significant losses of valuable red oak in forest stands. As this disease is expanding in range, the ability to both detect and recognize oak wilt is important to enable timely application of control measures. Oak wilt is not consistent in its behavior across the range of occurrence.

Between 2010 and 2016, rapid and extensive mortality of bitternut hickory (i.e., 35 percent year-1) was observed within a long-term experimental site in Wisconsin. The purpose of this study was to document and quantify the mortality, investigate stem-density impacts on mortality, and assess remaining hickory regeneration. Similar mortality has been reported in the midwest and northeast United States, and a pathogenic fungus (Ceratocystis smalleyi Johnson and Harrington) and hickory bark beetle (Scolytus quadrispinosus Say) were identified as the causal agents, herein investigated via a...

The introduction of nonnative earthworm species into northern hardwood forests negatively affects overall forest health, vegetation dynamics, and soil biogeochemistry. Though they have a long introduction history in some urbanized areas, earthworms continue to invade new forested areas, with new species and additional biomass. Both understory regeneration and overstory canopy trees are negatively impacted by earthworm activity. These "ecosystem engineers" are creating novel systems by affecting both the biotic composition and environmental conditions in northern hardwoods. The condition of...

Understanding the influence of climatic variation on forest dynamics is of great ecological and economical interest and is essential to prescribe interventions that will facilitate ecosystem adaptation to climate change. However, the retrospective identification of climatic events responsible for the inter-annual variation of tree growth is challenging, notably because both their duration and their subsequent effect can be highly variable in time. In this study, we aimed to (1) quantify empirically the effect of severe climatic events on the short- and long-term growth dynamics of dominant...

Water limitation is expected to have greater impact on forest growth in the Lake States region in the future, and management may have long-term impacts on how forests respond to this and other potential stressors. We examined the response of aspen-dominated forest growing on droughty, sandy soils to a regionwide drought that occurred in 2012. During July 2018, we stem-mapped, measured, and cored overstory trees across nine replicated treatments at the Long-Term Soil Productivity (LTSP) study installation at Huron-Manistee National Forest in lower Michigan, USA. Annual biomass growth,...

Climate change may require foresters to adapt management in order to maintain healthy, functional forests. We present the effects of experimental climate adaptation treatments on species diversity and adaptability of natural tree regeneration 5 years following implementation in red pine-dominated ecosystems in north central Minnesota. Treatments included resistance, resilience, and transition. Each adaptation treatment increased tree species diversity and richness over the passive control treatment. The transition treatment resulted in the greatest adaptability, quantified as a composite...

Short-term effects of disturbances intensity on understory plant communities are well documented, however, only few studies have examined longer term effects. While increased intensity of soil and canopy disturbances tend to increase species richness in the short term due to early seral-species establishment, those competitive-pioneer species emerging from early stages of succession can become recalcitrant, which can alter patterns of natural regeneration especially by being detrimental to rarer species and such functional groups associated with closed forest habitats. We measured taxonomic...

Wind disturbance in northern hardwood forests creates heterogeneously distributed structural attributes such as downed woody debris (DWD) across temporal and spatial scales. Wood inhabiting fungi (WIF) contribute to ecosystem carbon (C) dynamics through their role in deadwood turnover and long-term C storage.

Composition and diversity of small mammal communities are sensitive to bottom-up effects where variation in vegetative structure, climate, and microclimates affect the food resources upon which small mammals depend (Pinotti et al. 2011). Sensitivity to changes in forest structure reflect the close trophic linkages between herbivorous, granivorous, and insectivorous small mammals and the surrounding vegetation they use as food resources and cover (Niedziałkowska et al. 2010). Subsequent variation in small mammal community structure and abundance can result in cascading effects on carnivores,...

Environmental DNA (eDNA) and invertebrate DNA (iDNA) have become popular techniques in biodiversity surveys. Established iDNA sources to survey mammals include biting invertebrates, but Silphidae (carrion feeders) have yet to be reported in literature. These beetles could provide a less invasive tool to survey mammalian communities. To validate use of iDNA methods using silphids, fieldwork was conducted in Michigan Technological University’s Ford Forest in the Northern Hardwood-Silviculture Experiment to Enhance Diversity (NH-SEED). Modified pitfall trapping was conducted and we successfull...