Treesearch

Since the reintroduction of gray wolves (Canis lupus) in the Northern Rocky Mountain region of the Western United States in the mid-1990s, wolves have spread to occupy suitable habitat in several Western states, most notably Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, and recently California. Much of this suitable habitat is on federal lands, including those managed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. The Forest Service manages lands for multiple uses, including grazing, and many national forests in these states now harbor both wolf and livestock populations for at...

Storing carbon in forests is one approach often proposed to help reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide, one of the greenhouse gases contributing to climate change. Land managers can use models to better understand how much carbon is stored in forests, and how forest carbon changes in response to forest growth, mortality, management, and disturbance. Knowing which model to choose based on land management goals can be a challenge. This report describes 15 forest carbon models that are applicable to Washington, Oregon, and California, with a focus on how each model incorporates disturbance and...

The Tongass National Forest has a rich history of serving its inhabitants for thousands of years, providing a variety of ecosystem services. Often, there are competing interests for the limited forest resources that provide the ecosystem services most in demand. In this study, we laid the groundwork for assessing three leading ecosystem services—timber, carbon sequestration, and wildlife habitat (specifically deer habitat). We examined in detail the tradeoffs among these ecosystem services and how stakeholders will use them. We projected the future needs and ecosystem services likely to be...

We examined the relation of an Olympic Mountain (Washington, U.S.A.) whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) population to its physical and biological environments. We analyzed temperature, light, soil moisture, foliar nutrients, tree size and age, white pine blister rust (Cronartium ribicola), plant species canopy cover, slope stability, and snow cover data to assess the dynamic nature of the whitebark pine population and plant communities since the end of the Little Ice Age around 1850 Common Era. We found that high summer temperatures, drought, and slope stability were important in controlling...

Introduced species may exhibit variations in their preferred climatic niches between their native and introduced ranges, which can have important implications for the transferability of distribution models. In the Himalayan ecoregion, little is known about the geographic distribution and climatic niche overlap between native and introduced cold-water species. Here, we used the COUE (centroid shift, overlap, unfilling, and expansion) framework to explore the invasive potential of rainbow (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and brown (Salmo trutta fario) trout and corresponding climatic niche overlap with...

Herpetofaunal diseases were a dominant theme in meeting rooms at the Borneo Convention Center in Kuching, Malaysia, where the 2024 Global Amphibian and Reptile Disease Conference (GARD24: Fig. 1) convened with the 10th World Congress of Herpetology (WCH10), 5–9 August 2024. Disease topics were addressed in 133 abstracts, representing 9% of all joint-meeting submissions (available online; Das 2024), covering work on 15 categories of disease agents across 34 nations. Although diseases are natural components of ecosystems, this relatively large proportion of amphibian and reptile disease...

Exhaust from diesel combustion engines is an important contributor to urban air pollution and poses significant risk to human health. Diesel exhaust contains a chemical class known as nitrated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (nitro-PAHs) and is enriched in 1-nitropyrene (1-NP), which has the potential to serve as a marker of diesel exhaust. The isomeric nitro-PAHs 2-nitropyrene (2-NP) and 2-nitrofluoranthene (2-NFL) are secondary pollutants arising from photochemical oxidation of pyrene and fluoranthene, respectively. Like other important air toxics, there is not extensive monitoring of...

The forests and associated wood products of the Pacific coast region (PCR)—British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and California—play an important role in mitigating climate change by storing carbon long term in durable wood products and providing a significant share of non-fossil fuel-based building materials and other renewable products. Understanding the supply chains and flows of these wood products into and out of the PCR is essential for supporting this goal. The objective of this research paper is to quantify the trade flows in the four PCR jurisdictions. This analysis focuses on the...

Quantifying soil redistribution rates, including both erosion and deposition, is critical for understanding erosion processes, landscape evolution, land management strategies, and the carbon cycle. In the Northeast Pacific coastal temperate rainforest, the interaction of perhumid climate and dense coniferous forest tends to form Spodosols which are soils characterized by a subsurface accumulation of organic matter and iron and aluminum oxides, across a range of contrasting lithologies. Deep Spodosols are frequently found on steep backslopes (up to 60%) of colluvial deposits, where shallower...

A dense concentration of old‐growth forest and a wet, cold climate promote mineral weathering and leaching in coastal temperate rainforest soils. Our objective was to assess soil development and soil organic carbon (SOC) distribution across 18 soil profiles in remote, upland terrain of southeast Alaska where pedon data are sparse. We made soil morphological observations, collected samples, and completed laboratory analyses to measure SOC content, pH, and particle size distribution. The survey of upland backslope soils included north‐ and south‐facing hillslopes derived from three lithologie...