Treesearch

Promotion of effective science exchange between government scientists and managers requires thoughtful arrangement and operation of research and management functions. The U.S. Forest Service was established at the peak of the Progressive Era, when science exchange was designed to occur between researchers and resource managers who worked in distinct arms of the agency, but shared similar goals of effective forest management. In this article, the authors explore the implications of diminished agency capacity for science exchange interactions between researchers and managers in recreation...

This historical perspective on fire provides a window into the future of fire in the Pacific Northwest. Although fire will always be more common in the interior portion of the region, a warmer climate could bring more fire to the westside of the Cascade Range where summers are typically dry and will probably become drier. If future climate resembles the climate now experienced during the warm phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, then we can expect fire occurrence to be similar to its historical pattern during those warm phases, that is, more area will burn on average. We can also...

Climate change has increased the area affected by forest fires each year in boreal North America. Increases in burned area and fire frequency are expected to stimulate boreal carbon losses. However, the impact of wildfires on carbon emissions is also affected by the severity of burning. How climate change influences the severity of biomass burning has proved difficult to assess. Here, we examined the depth of ground-layer combustion in 178 sites dominated by black spruce in Alaska, using data collected from 31 fire events between 1983 and 2005. We show that the depth of burning increased...

The success of biological control programs is rarely assessed beyond population level impacts on the target organism. The question of whether a biological control agent can either partially or completely restore ecosystem services independent of population level control is therefore still open to discussion. Using observational and experimental approaches, we investigated the ability of the saltcedar leaf beetle [Diorhabda carinulata (Brulle) (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae)] to reduce the water use of saltcedar trees (Tamarix ramosissima Ledeb.) in two sites (Humboldt and Walker Rivers) in...

Invasive plant species degrade ecosystems in many ways. Controlling invasive plants is costly for government agencies, businesses, and individuals. North central Colorado is currently experiencing large-scale disturbance, and millions of acres are vulnerable to invasion because of natural and socioeconomic processes. Mountain pine beetles typically endemic to this region have reached epidemic proportions, with up to 80% tree mortality, which opens growing space for invasive plants. In socioeconomic terms, the popularity of this amenity-rich region for tourists and in-migrants has resulted...

Nonindustrial private—or "family"—forests hold great potential for sequestering carbon and have received much attention in discussions about forestry-based climate change mitigation. However, little is known about social and cultural influences on owners' willingness to manage for carbon and respond to policies designed to encourage carbon-oriented management. We review the published literature to examine how family forest owners' values, ecological knowledge, risk perceptions, and forest management and policy preferences may affect their interest in managing for carbon sequestration. We...

The effect of land-use or land-cover change on stream runoff dynamics is not fully understood. In many parts of the world, forest management is the major land-cover change agent. While the paired catchment approach has been the primary methodology used to quantify such effects, it is only possible for small headwater catchments where there is uniformity in precipitation inputs and catchment characteristics between the treatment and control catchments. This paper presents a model-based change-detection approach that includes model and parameter uncertainty as an alternative to the traditiona...

Two rival silvicultural systems for promoting multiaged ponderosa pine stands emerged in the 1930s and 1940s. Maturity selection was developed to move the vast ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) acreage in eastern Oregon and Washington into regulation to limit bark beetle losses. In the Southwest, improvement selection was designed to improve residual growing stock by making stands less susceptible to wind, lightening, and dwarf mistletoe. The primary difference between the systems was the treatment of undesirable smaller trees. Maturity selection tended to ignore them whereas improvement...

There was keen interest within the volcanology community when the first large eruption of high-silica rhyolite since that of Alaska's Novarupta volcano in 1912 began on 1 May 2008 at Chaiten volcano, southern Chile, a 3-kilometer-diameter caldera volcano with a prehistoric record of rhyolite eruptions. Vigorous explosions occurred through 8 May 2008, after which explosive activity waned and a new lava dome was extruded. In early 2010, seismicity, sulfur dioxide emissions of less than 100 tons per day, thermal imagery, and visual observations showed that the lava dome was still growing...

We studied vegetation and land cover characteristics within the existing array of protected areas (PAs) in South Garo Hills of Meghalaya, northeast India and introduce the concept of protected area network (PAN) and methods to determine linkages of forests among existing PAs. We describe and analyze potential elements of a PAN, including PAs, reserved forests, surrounding buffers as zones of influence, and connecting forest corridors, which collectively can provide old-forest habitat for wildlife species linked across a landscape dominated by jhum (shifting cultivation) agriculture. ANOVA...