Treesearch

We examined the effect of thinning on wood quality of western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla) and Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis) located on Prince of Wales and Mitkof Islands in southeast Alaska. Sample trees came from paired plots (thinned versus unthinned) in eight naturally regenerated, mixed stands of young-growth western hemlock and Sitka spruce in an effort to examine a range of thinning densities, from 10 X 10 ft to 20 X 20 ft spacing. The stands, which had been thinned in the late 1970s and early 1980s, ranged in age from 36 to 73 years at the time they were selected for this study...

Forest ecosystem dynamics emerges from nonlinear interactions between adaptive biotic agents (i.e., individual trees) and their relationship with a spatially and temporally heterogeneous abiotic environment. Understanding and predicting the dynamics resulting from these complex interactions is crucial for the sustainable stewardship of ecosystems, particularly in the context of rapidly changing environmental conditions. Here we present iLand (the individual-based forest landscape and disturbance model), a novel approach to simulating forest dynamics as an emergent property of environmental...

Tree invasions of grasslands are occurring globally, with profound consequences for ecosystem structure and function. We explore the spatio-temporal dynamics of tree invasion of a montane meadow in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon, where meadow loss is a conservation concern. We examine the early stages of invasion, where extrinsic and intrinsic processes can be clearly delineated. In a 0.21-ha plot, we mapped and aged 929 trees > = 0.3-m tall, yielding a detailed record of the spatio-temporal dynamics of invasion. For the primary species, Abies grandis and Pinus contorta, we correlated age...

Distinct aggregations of fungal hyphae and rhizomorphs, or “mats”, formed by some genera of ectomycorrhizal (EcM) fungi are common features of soils in coniferous forests of the Pacific Northwest. We measured in situ respiration rates of Piloderma mats and neighboring non-mat soils in an old-growth Douglas-fir forest in western Oregon to investigate whether there was higher respiration from mats, and to estimate mat contributions to total soil respiration. We found that areas where Piloderma mats colonized the organic horizon often had higher soil surface flux than nonmats, with the...

Digital elevation model (DEM) data are essential to hydrological applications and have been widely used to calculate a variety of useful topographic characteristics, e.g., slope, flow direction, flow accumulation area, stream channel network, topographic index, and others. Except for slope, none of the other topographic characteristics can be calculated until the flow direction at each pixel within a DEM is determined. However, flow direction cannot be accurately calculated until depressions and flat areas within a DEM have been rectified. This is a routine problem in hydrologic modeling,...

From both social and environmental perspectives, water is the main connection between highland and lowland processes in mountain watersheds: Water flows downhill while human impacts flow uphill. For example, in the Oregon Cascades mountain range, geology, vegetation, and climate influence the hydrologic connections within watersheds. Geology determines which watersheds are surface runoff-dominated and which are groundwater-dominated. In this Mediterranean climate with dry summers, surface runoff watersheds will consistently experience near-zero late summer discharge, so declining snowpacks...

The capacity for forests to aid in climate change mitigation efforts is substantial but will ultimately depend on their management. If forests remain unharvested, they can further mitigate the increases in atmospheric CO2 that result from fossil fuel combustion and deforestation. Alternatively, they can be harvested for bioenergy production and serve as a substitute for fossil fuels, though such a practice could reduce terrestrial C storage and thereby increase atmospheric CO2 concentrations in the near-term. Here, we used an ecosystem simulation model to ascertain the effectiveness of...

There is no scientific consensus about how dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in surface waters is regulated. Here we combine recent literature data from 49 catchments with detailed stream and catchment process information from nine well established research catchments at mid- to high latitudes to examine the question of how climate controls stream water DOC. We show for the first time that mean annual temperature (MAT) in the range from 3 ° to +10 ° C has a strong control over the regional stream water DOC concentration in catchments, with highest concentrations in areas ranging between 0 °...

Amino sugars in fungal cell walls (such as chitin) represent an important source of nitrogen (N) in many forest soil ecosystems. Despite the importance of this material in soil nitrogen cycling, comparatively little is known about abiotic and biotic controls on and the timescale of its turnover. Part of the reason for this lack of information is the inaccessibility of these materials to classic bulk extraction methods. To address this issue, we used advanced visualization tools to examine transformation pathways of chitin-rich fungal cell wall residues as they interact with microorganisms,...

Surface transient storage (STS) has functional significance in stream ecosystems because it increases solute interaction with sediments. After volume, mean residence time is the most important metric of STS, but it is unclear how this can be measured accurately or related to other timescales and field-measureable parameters. We studied mean residence time of lateral STS in small streams over Reynolds numbers (Re) 5000–200,000 and STS width to length (W/L) aspect ratios between 0.2–0.75. Lateral STS have flow fields characterized by a shear layer spanning the length of the STS entrance, and...