Treesearch

This report summarizes timber resource statistics for the 20 counties in eastern Washington. The inventory sampled all private and public lands except those administered by the National Forest System in 2001, and those that were reserved from management for wood products. Area information for parks and other reserves was obtained directly from the organizations managing these areas. Statistical tables provide estimates of land area, timber volume, growth, mortality, and harvest for eastern Washington as a= whole. Estimated area of forest on non-national forest land was 4.9 million acres,...

1. Off-road recreation is increasing rapidly in many areas of the world, and effects on wildlife can be highly detrimental. Consequently, we have developed methods for studying wildlife responses to off-road recreation with the use of new technologies that allow frequent and accurate monitoring of human-wildlife interactions. To illustrate these methods, we studied the response of Rocky Mountain elk Cervus elaphus L. to all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), one of the most prominent forms of summer recreation in North America. We studied elk because the species is not only of keen economic and...

Past research has established that terminal buds of Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco) seedlings from many seed sources have a chilling requirement of about 1200 h at 0-5 °C; once chilled, temperatures > 5 °C force bud burst via accumulation of heat units. We tested this sequential bud-burst model in the field to determine whether terminal buds of trees in cooler microsites, which receive less heat forcing, develop more slowly than those in warmer microsites. For three years we monitored terminal bud development in young saplings as well as soil and air temperatures on...

Soil CO2 production is a key process in ecosystem C exchange, and global change predictions require understanding of how ecosystem disturbance affects this process. We monitored CO2 levels in soil gas and as bicarbonate in drainage from an experimental red pine ecosystem, for 1 year before and 3 years after its aboveground biomass was removed. Lack of physical disturbance, strict prevention of plant regrowth, and a comparison ecosystem without rooted plants facilitated isolation of the microclimatic and biochemical effects of instantaneous canopy removal and cessation of photosynthesis....

Historically the boreal forest has experienced major changes, and it remains a highly dynamic biome today. During cold phases of Quaternary climate cycles, forests were virtually absent from Alaska, and since the postglacial re-establishment of forests ca 13,000 years ago, here have been periods of both relative stability and rapid change (Chapter 5). Today, the Alaskan boreal forest appears to be on the brink of further significant change in composition and function triggered by recent changes that include climatic warming (Chapter 4). In this chapter, we summarize the major conclusions...

Sudden oak death, a disease associated with the pathogen Phytophthora ramorum, has a large number of shrub and tree host species. Three of the tree species must susceptible to mortality from the disease, California black oak (Quercus kelloggii), coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia), and tanoak (Lithocarpus densiflorus), are estimated to predominate by basal area on 1.52 (± 0.10) million ac in 12 counties that currently are under quarantine for the disease. The variety, prevalence, and importance of host species to wildlife indicate a high potential for impact on forest ecosystems in California.

The Northwest Forest Plan's 1994 Record of Decision (ROD) established a framework for a new ecosystem approach to federal land management across 24 million acres of the Pacific Northwest. One strategy outlined in the ROD combined ecosystem management and civic involvement in the creation of planning provinces, consisting of 12 contiguous multi-ownership areas spanning the Plan region. The ROD also directed agencies to monitor the effectiveness of the Plan, including the implementation of a socioeconomic monitoring program. We defined communities within provinces in order to better understan...

The spatio-temporal scaling relationship for individual channels in braided streams is shown to be identical to the spatio-temporal scaling associated with constant Froude number, e.g., Fr = l. A means to derive this relationship is developed from a new theory of sediment transport. The mechanism by which the Fr = l condition apparently governs the scaling seems to derive from the sensitivity of sediment transport to flow fluctuations when Fr = l. The condition Fr = l is also given a theoretical basis using arguments from surface roughness.

For many Pacific Northwest forests, little is known about the spatial and temporal variability in tree growth - climate relationships, yet it is this information that is needed to predict how forests will respond to future climatic change. We studied the effects of climatic variability on forest growth at 74 plots in the western and northeastern Olympic Mountains. Basal area increment time series were developed for each plot, and Pearson's correlation analysis and factor analysis were used to quantify growth-climate relationships. Forest growth in the Olympic Mountains responds to climatic...

Roads are important ecological features of forest landscapes, but their cause-and effect relationships with other ecosystem components are only recently becoming included in integrated landscape analyses. Simulation models can help us to understand how forested landscapes respond over time to disturbance and socioeconomic factors, and potentially to address the important role roads play in these processes. The inclusion of roads as static or as process components of the landscape modeling, however, presents numerous challenges owing to a general lack of adequate road data and threshold...