Treesearch

Effective national plant conservation has several basic needs, including: 1) accessible, up-to-date information on species distribution and rarity; 2) research and management capacity to mitigate the impact of threats that make plants rare; 3) effective networks for conserving species in situ and ex situ; 4) education and training to make sure the right people are addressing the issues; 5) policy that supports conservation; 6) funding to maintain the infrastructure for plant conservation; and 7) effective communications so that plants are valued and supported by the public. The more...

conservation of forest genetic resources (FGR). After presenting internationally adopted definitions of some terms related to FGR, the characteristics of the current state of FGR conservation from a global perspective are summarized. Many international and regional organizations and institutions are engaged in the conservation of FGR at degrees ranging from core mandate to indirect interest. Relevant actors are listed under each of the following categories: United Nations agencies and programs; the Rio Conventions; Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centres (CGIAR); advocacy...

It is estimated that there are at least 60,000 tree species globally and that more than 20 percent of them are threatened with extinction. This threatened tree diversity will have a critical impact for solving some of this century’s major challenges in the areas of energy, water scarcity, human health, food security, climate change and habitat degradation. Botanic gardens and arboreta offer the opportunity to conserve and manage a wide range of plant diversity ex situ, and in situ in the broader landscape. The rationale that botanic gardens have a major role to play in preventing plant...

The ‘Gene Conservation of Tree Species—Banking on the Future Workshop’ provided a forum for presenting and discussing issues and accomplishments in genetic conservation of trees, and notably those of North America. The meeting gathered scientists, specialists, administrators and conservation practitioners from federal, university, non-governmental and public garden institutions worldwide. The 81 submissions included in this Proceedings are from oral and poster presentations at the 2016 workshop held in Chicago, Illinois. They update the science and policy of genetic conservation of trees,...

Premise of the study: We investigated whether wood metabolite profiles from direct analysis in real time (time-of-flight) mass spectrometry (DART-TOFMS) could be used to determine the geographic origin of Douglas-fir wood cores originating from two regions in western Oregon, USA. Methods: Three annual ring mass spectra were obtained from 188 adult Douglas-fir trees, and these were analyzed using random forest models to determine whether samples could be classified to geographic origin, growth year, or growth year and geographic origin. Specific wood molecules that contributed to geographic...

A reference genome sequence for Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii (Mirb.) Franco (Coastal Douglas-fir) is reported, thus providing a reference sequence for a third genus of the family Pinaceae. The contiguity and quality of the genome assembly far exceeds that of other conifer reference genome sequences (contig N50 = 44,136 bp and scaffold N50 = 340,704 bp). Incremental improvements in sequencing and assembly technologies are in part responsible for the higher quality reference genome, but it may also be due to a slightly lower exact repeat content in Douglas-fir vs. pine and spruce....

Landscape values mapping has been widely employed as a form of public participation GIS (PPGIS) in natural resource planning and decision-making to capture the complex array of values, uses, and interactions between people and landscapes. A landscape values typology has been commonly employed in the mapping of social and environmental values in a variety of management settings and scales. We explore how people attribute meanings and assign values to special places on the Olympic Peninsula (Washington, USA) using both a landscape values typology and qualitative responses about residents’...

The perhumid coastal temperate rainforest (PCTR) of southeast Alaska has some of the densest soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks in the world (>300 Mg C ha-1) but the fate of this SOC with continued warming remains largely unknown. We quantified dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and carbon dioxide (CO2) yields from four different wetland types (rich fen, poor fen, forested wetland and cedar wetland) using controlled laboratory incubations of surface (10 cm) and subsurface (25 cm) soils incubated at 8 and 15 °C for 37 weeks. Furthermore, we used fluorescence characterization of DOC and laboratory...

The goal of this study was to use watershed characteristics derived from light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data to predict stream biogeochemistry in Perhumid Coastal Temperate Rainforest (PCTR) watersheds. Over a 2-day period, we sampled 37 streams for concentrations of dissolved C, N, P, major cations, and measures of dissolved organic matter quality (specific ultraviolet absorbance, SUVA254) and bioavailability. Random forest – classification and regression tree analysis showed that aboveground biomass and structure and watershed characteristics, inclusive of mean watershed slope and...

In this article we examine in-depth interviews with farmers (n=159) from nine Corn Belt states. Using a grounded theory approach, we identified a “soil stewardship ethic,” which exemplifies how farmers are talking about building the long-term sustainability of their farm operation in light of more variable and extreme weather events. Findings suggest that farmers’ shifting relationship with their soil resources may act as a kind of social-ecological feedback that enables farmers to implement adaptive strategies (e.g., no-till farming, cover crops) that build resilience in the face of...