Treesearch

Large western redcedar (Thuja plicata) and yellow-cedar (Callitropsis nootkatensis) trees have been prominent in many Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian Alaska Native traditions for 5,000 years. Today, these southeast Alaska tribes harvest logs from their historical territories within the Tongass National Forest. Cedars that are more than 450 years old provide logs for totem poles and canoes as well as bark for traditional weaving. Forest Service researchers Adelaide Johnson and Lee Cerveny worked with research collaborators, indigenous community leaders, tribal members, prominent carvers, and...

The lower Pecos River located in the southwest USA, is a naturally saline river system that has been significantly altered in relatively recent years. Climate change, coupled with anthropogenic disturbances such as dam construction have led to portions of the river becoming more susceptible to increased salinization and declines in water quality. These alterations have been documented to be detrimental to multiple freshwater communities; however, there is a lack of knowledge on how these alterations influence long-lived species in the river, such as freshwater turtles, where the effects...

Resource managers seek to thin second-growth riparian forests to address multiple stream and riparian management objectives, including enhancing aquatic productivity via light-mediated trophic pathways in watersheds of the Pacific Northwest (USA). However, such increases in aquatic productivity depend on complex food web dynamics that link riparian forests and streams.To evaluate how riparian forest thinning influences stream food webs, we conducted a replicated, manipulative field experiment in three northern California watersheds composed of second-growth redwood forests and tracked...

Spatial and temporal heterogeneity, or messiness, is a broadly desirable characteristic of river corridors and an indicator of many of the geomorphic processes that sustain fluvial ecosystems. However, quantifying geomorphic heterogeneity is complicated by a lack of consistent metrics, classification schemas for dividing the river corridor into the patches that form the basis for those metrics, and guidance on interpreting metrics. Drawing from both geomorphic and landscape ecology concepts, we offer ideas and guidance intended to help investigators, from researchers to restoration...

Climate change is projected to alter precipitation patterns across northern latitudes, with decreased snow accumulation and summer rainfall predicted. These changes may alter soil physical properties such as soil strength, which would have implications for the feasibility of forest management activities. Reductions in summer and winter precipitation were simulated using a paired-plot design with throughfall reduction and snow removal as treatments across four soil drainage classes (well, moderately well, somewhat poor, and poorly drained) at each of three locations in northern Minnesota,...

It is critical to gain insight into the responses of forest soils to the changing climate. We simulated future climate conditions with growing season throughfall reduction (by 50%) and winter snow removal using a paired-plot design across a soil drainage class gradient at three upland, Populus-dominated forests in northern Minnesota, USA. In situ bulk soil respiration and concentrations of extractable soil N were measured during the summers of 2020–2021. Soil respiration and N concentrations were not affected by throughfall reduction and snow removal, which was largely attributed to the...

This is the fourth in a series of periodic monitoring reports on the status and trends of late-successional and old-growth (LSOG) forests since the implementation of the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) in 1994. The objective of this monitoring is to evaluate the success of the plan in reaching its desired amount and distribution of LSOG forest on federal lands within the range of the northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) in the United States. We began our assessment in the years shortly preceding the NWFP, but primarily focused on how LSOG forests have changed as a result of...

As we reckon with the effect of COVID-19 on the research enterprise in hydrologic science, it is important to acknowledge that disruptions will be persistent and that institutional-level adjustments, while helpful, are not sufficient to mitigate all impacts on hydrologic scientists. Here, we describe the breadth of research contributions in the hydrologic sciences, consider how the pandemic has impacted this portfolio of contributions, document one impact that is already being realized in publication of research, and suggest guidance to the hydrologic science community, institutions,...

Flowing lava and water have dramatically different physical properties but can form similar hydraulic structures, including undular hydraulic jumps, or standing wave trains. In water flows, undular hydraulic jumps are evidence of critical flow (Froude number ∼1) and open-channel hydraulic theory provides a powerful tool for estimating flow depth and velocity. Monitoring these parameters in an active lava channel is inherently challenging, but essential for calculating lava discharge (effusion rate), a primary control on the rate of flow front advance and ultimate flow runout distance. We...

Process-based Forest Landscape Models (FLMs) rely on first principles to simulate ecological patterns and processes, making them uniquely powerful for forecasting ecological dynamics under unprecedented climatic and disturbance regimes. Persistent challenges with any ecological forecasting model are calibration (“tuning” the model) and validation (“proofing” the model). As no actual future data exist from which to conduct a formal model validation, model credibility is established through numerous tests against empirical datasets and comparisons with other types of models. The purpose of...