Treesearch

Earth's climate is changing, as evidenced by warming temperatures, increased temperature variability, fluctuating precipitation patterns, and climate-related environmental disturbances. And with considerable uncertainty about the future, Forest Service land managers are now considering climate change adaptation in their planning efforts. They want practical approaches to managing forests and rangelands that will sustain key ecosystem functions, services, and critical habitats in the face of climate change. Climate change studies are proliferating, and locating pertinent information, as it...

Increased popularity of recreational activities in natural areas has led to the need to better understand their impacts on wildlife. The majority of research conducted to date has focused on behavioral effects from individual recreations, thus there is a limited understanding of the potential for population-level or cumulative effects. Brown bears (Ursus arctos) are the focus of a growing wildlife viewing industry and are found in habitats frequented by recreationists. Managers face difficult decisions in balancing recreational opportunities with habitat protection for wildlife. Here, we...

Differential habitat use and intraguild competition are both thought to be important drivers of animal population sizes and distributions. Habitat associations for individual species are well-established, and interactions between particular pairs of species have been highlighted in many focal studies. However, community-wide assessments of the relative strengths of these two factors have not been conducted. We built multi-scale habitat occupancy models for five carnivore taxa of New York’s Adirondack landscape and assessed the relative performance of these models against ones in which...

This is the third in a series of periodic monitoring reports on northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) habitat status and trends on federally administered lands since implementation of the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) in 1994. The objective of this monitoring is to determine if the NWFP is providing for conservation and management of northern spotted owl (NSO) habitat as anticipated. This report focused on the amount, distribution, and spatial arrangement of NSO habitats across the NWFP area; and how these have changed as a result of disturbance and ingrowth starting with the...

The National Wildfire Coordinating Group’s definition of extreme fire behavior indicates a level of fire behavior characteristics that ordinarily precludes methods of direct control action. One or more of the following is usually involved: high rate of spread, prolific crowning/ spotting, presence of fire whirls, and strong convection column. Predictability is difficult as such fires often influence their environment to some degree and behave erratically, sometimes dangerously. Alternate terms include “blow up” and “fire storm.” Fire managers examining fires over the last 100 years have...

Amendment of soil nutrients through fertilization is used to increase wood production of forest stands. Subsequent allocation of growth to individual trees and the resulting increase in stand volume and value, however, depend on stand density at the time of treatment. Our primary research question was: To what extent can volume growth per acre in precommercially thinned or nonthinned portions of a poor-site, 30-year-old coast Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii [Mirb.] Franco var. menziesii) plantation be increased by a single application of 200 or 400 lb nitrogen (N)/acre as urea? Each...

Trees bursting forth with new leaves signal the arrival of spring. Budburst for most temperate tree species occurs after a tree has been exposed to a sufficient number of chilling and forcing hours over the winter. Waiting until these chilling and forcing hours have accumulated is a survival mechanism. If a tree bursts bud prematurely, delicate tissue may be damaged by a late frost. Conversely, if a tree bursts bud too late in the spring, it will be unable to achieve substantial height growth before summer drought sets in. Although most Northwest tree species require a combination of...

Over the past decade, wood-energy use in Alaska has grown dramatically. Since 2000, several dozen new wood-energy installations have been established, with numerous others in the design or construction phase. This case study report compares two wood-pellet heating systems in Juneau, Alaska. The Tlingit-Haida Regional Housing Authority, a native housing authority that serves more than 27,000 tribal residents in 11 communities in the southeast, recently established a wood-pellet boiler to provide heating to their 10,000-square-foot warehouse. The Sealaska Corporation is an Alaska Native...

This report highlights key findings from the most recent (2001–2010) data collected by the Forest Inventory and Analysis program across all forest land in California, updating previously published findings from data collected from 2001 through 2005 (Christensen et al. 2008). We summarize and interpret basic resource information such as forest area, ownership, volume, biomass, and carbon stocks; forest structure and function topics such as biodiversity, forest age, and dead wood; disturbance information such as tree damage, fire, and invasive plants; and tree growth, mortality, and removals...

This guidebook describes major biological and physical attributes of the 433-ha (1,070-ac) Grayback Glades Research Natural Area. The area supports high- elevation examples of white fir–Shasta red fir (Abies concolor[Gord. + Glend]–Abies magnifica var. shastensis) forest along the crest of the Siskiyou Mountains in southwestern Oregon. High-elevation Sitka alder (Alnus viridis ssp. sinuata) glades are also represented on the site. Drainages support large individuals of Port Orford cedar (Chamaecyparis lawsoniana[A. Murray bis]).