Treesearch

Consumers choose products based on various tangible and intangible attributes. Previous research has shown that there is a difference between appearance-based and word-based evaluations of wood species. However, little research has been done on how this difference affects consumer choice. This study examined how the presence or absence of a species name affects a cabinet door's popularity in the Pacific Northwest (including Alaska). The results showed significant difference between appearance-based and species name-based preferences for cabinet doors. For example, respondents chose cherry...

For many years silviculture and fire management have mostly been separate forestry disciplines with disparate objectives and activities. However, in order to accomplish complex and multiple management objectives related to forest structure, fuels, and fxe disturbance, these two disciplines must be effectively integrated in science and practice. We have linked scientific and management tools to develop an analytical approach that allows resource managers to quantify and evaluate the effectiveness of alternative fuel treatments in dry interior forests of western North America. The principal...

Most scientific literature supports forest thinning to reduce the severity of wildland fires, but the effectiveness of thinning in modifying fire behavior has not been well documented. The Biscuit Fire of 2002 offered a great opportunity to study the effects of mechanical thinning on fire behavior during a megafire.

Fire, in conjunction with landforms and climate, shapes the structure and function of forests throughout the Western United States, where millions of acres of forest lands contain accumulations of flammable fuel that are much higher than historical conditions owing to various forms of fire exclusion. The Healthy Forests Restoration Act mandates that public land managers assertively address this situation through active management of fuel and vegetation. This document synthesizes the relevant scientific knowledge that can assist fuel-treatment projects on national forests and other public...

The purpose of this paper is to provide information and discussion that will be helpful in promoting thoughtful design of fire hazard reduction treatments to meet the full range of management objectives. Thoughtful design requires an understanding of the costs and potential revenues of applying variations of fire hazard reduction treatments in a wide range of stand conditions. This paper draws extensively on the My Fuel Treatment Planner (MyFTP) software to highlight and illustrate the effect of treatment variables on the cost and net revenue from fire hazard reduction treatments in dry...

The rate of future climate change is likely to exceed the migration rates of most plant species. The replacement of dominant species by locally rare species may require decades, and extinctions may occur when plant species cannot migrate fast enough to escape the consequences of climate change. Such lags may impair ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration and clean waterproduction. Thus, to assess global change, simulation of plant migration and local vegetation change by dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) is critical, yet fraught with challenges. Global vegetation models...

Background and Aims. Genecological knowledge is important for understanding evolutionary processes and for managing genetic resources. Previous studies of coastal Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii) have been inconclusive with respect to geographical patterns of variation, due in part to limited sample intensity and geographical and climatic representation. This study describes and maps patterns of genetic variation in adaptive traits in coastal Douglas fir in western Oregon and Washington, USA. Methods. Traits of growth, phenology and partitioning were measured in seedlings...

This article discusses an 8-year, ongoing project that evaluates the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund community involvement program. The project originated as a response to the Government Performance and Results Act, which requires federal agencies to articulate program goals, and evaluate and report their progress in meeting those goals. The evaluation project assesses how effective the Superfund community involvement program is in promoting public participation in decisions about how to clean up hazardous wastes at Superfund sites. We do three things in the article: (1) share...

Ecological theory asserts that the climate of a region exerts top-down controls on regional ecosystem patterns and processes, across space and time. To provide empirical evidence of climatic controls, it would be helpful to define climatic regions that minimized variance in key climate attributes, within climatic regions-define the periods and features of climatic regimes, and then look for concordance between regional climate and ecosystem patterns or processes. In the past, these steps have not been emphasized. Before we evaluated the recent climate of the northwestern United States, we...

In 2005, the USDA Forest Service celebrates its 100th birthday. For a century, this agency has been charged with managing much of the Nation's forests.and rangelands in the public interest. From its humble beginnings with a handful of employees and a clearly stated vision, today the agency's 35,000 employees are responsible for managing more than 190 million acres of national forests and grasslands, for directing one of the world's largest natural resources research agencies, for directing cooperative state and private forestry programs, and for overseeing an international forestry...