Treesearch

Climate change presents new challenges to land managers. At stake is our ability to make thoughtful, science-based decisions and to add climate change considerations to our project and management plans. We also must prioritize among the opportunities that can be included in adaptation strategies because funding and time are limited, now more than ever. In 2012, we conducted a vulnerability assessment of common overstory forest tree species for the Pacific Northwest and provided recommended actions based on the results of this assessment. These recommendations will sharpen the focus of...

Among the 17 provinces, territories, and states that comprise western North America, approximately 18 percent of the 8.4 million km2 of forested land base is designated as protected areas to ensure the in situ conservation of forest biodiversity. Jurisdictions vary substantially however, in their responsibilities, protected area coverage, and conservation policies. Here we demonstrate a novel approach to identify current and potential future conservation gaps for genetic populations across a tree species’ range based on (1) statistical species distribution maps generated from 250 m remote...

Hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA, Adelges tsugae) is an invasive forest insect that has caused mortality of eastern (Tsuga canadensis) and Carolina hemlock (T. caroliniana) at an alarming rate. Now infesting 19 states and over 400 counties of the eastern United States, HWA poses a significant threat to native host species. The current biological and chemical methods for protecting these keystone species are expensive, time consuming, and short-lived. For the long-term preservation of both hemlock species, ex situ genetic conservation efforts such as seed collection and storage may be the best...

that forest tree species will undergo population-level extirpation or species-level extinction during the next century. Project CAPTURE (Conservation Assessment and Prioritization of Forest Trees Under Risk of Extirpation) is a cooperative effort across the three U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service (USDA FS) deputy areas to establish a framework for conservation priority-setting assessments of forest tree species across the entire United States. Project CAPTURE uses extensive lists of life history trait data, as well as climate change and pest and pathogen threat information, to...

Several analyses have been done or are underway to evaluate the vulnerability of individual forest tree species to climate change. Species vulnerability assessments allow managers to allocate limited resources to the management of those species that are most threatened. But we also know that threats to individual populations of species may vary across the landscape, and that populations may contain unique and potentially valuable genetic variants that should be conserved. We propose a framework for prioritizing populations within species for gene conservation activities in which maps of...

Trees and woodlands in the United Kingdom are currently subject to a range of threats including loss and fragmentation of native woodland and escalating pest and disease outbreaks. The largely unknown impacts of climate change pose a number of questions when considering afforestation and reforestation. There are frequent calls to develop resilient woodlands, robust enough to deal with these challenges but there is uncertainty over what this means in terms of species mixes and use of local provenance versus non-local planting material. Conserving and making appropriate use of the current...

The primary aim of this article is to enhance understanding about how two commonly used PPGIS approaches—community workshops and internet surveys—differ in who they bring to the environmental planning table. A secondary aim is to expand knowledge about favored destinations and activities associated with public forest road networks, with a focus on exploring how favored destinations and activities differ for urban and rural residents. Our study contributes to the field of environmental planning and management in several ways. First, it helps fill the gap in knowledge about whether and how...

Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) is a global voice for plant conservation via its worldwide network of botanic gardens and partners. Tree conservation has been a strong focus of BGCI’s program for many years. In collaboration with Fauna & Flora International, BGCI runs the Global Trees Campaign (GTC, www.globaltrees.org), the only international program dedicated to saving the world’s threatened tree species. Through the GTC, we prioritise and protect the trees of greatest conservation concern, and improve and promote tree conservation action globally. As a foundation of...

Artificial regeneration is necessary for meeting a variety of management objectives following timber harvests and other disturbances. While foresters use ecological classification to identify the most appropriate species to plant on a particular site, they generally use seed zones to identify the most suitable seed source of that species to plant. Seed zones have been utilized by public and private sector nurseries for many years in the western United States, but have not been accepted by nurseries for the eastern United States, corresponding to 33 states defined by the National Forest...

Crop wild relatives native to the United States have proved useful as genetic resources in breeding more productive, nutritious, and resilient crops. Their utilization is expected to increase with better information about the species and improving breeding tools. But this utilization may be constrained by their limited representation in genebanks and the ongoing loss of wild populations to habitat modification, invasive species, pollution, over-collecting, and climate change. We report on a series of related initiatives contributing to conservation of crop wild relatives in the United...