Treesearch

The biodiversity crisis necessitates spatially extensive methods to monitor multiple taxonomic groups for evidence of change in response to evolving environmental conditions. Programs that combine passive acoustic monitoring and machine learning are increasingly used to meet this need. These methods require large, annotated datasets, which are time-consuming and expensive to produce, creating potential barriers to adoption in data- and funding-poor regions. Recently released pre-trained avian acoustic classification models provide opportunities to reduce the need for manual labelling and...

Land managers use hazard (susceptibility) and risk rating systems to guide the application of forest management treatments that aim to reduce future damages to forests. Rating systems are typically designed for individual damage agents, but tree mortality often results from multiple agents without a clear proximate cause. In interior Douglas‐fir (DF, Pseudotsuga menziesii var. glauca ) forests in the Northern Rocky Mountains, USA, multiple damage agents are commonly associated with DF tree mortality, such as insects, disease, weather, and fire. We investigated how recent DF tree mortality...

The return of wolves to the American West has renewed historic conflicts on national forests. Wolves now share space with livestock across millions of acres of federal land. Forest Service research social scientists studied six national forests with wolves and livestock in six Western states. They interviewed Forest Service range management specialists, wildlife managers, and other stakeholders to understand how wolf-livestock conflicts are managed.They found that these conflicts are embedded in larger issues: rural-urban divides, federal versus state management authority, economic...

Fish escapes from open water net pens around the globe present persistent and unresolved challenges for aquaculture governance, environmental stewardship, and industry accountability. These escape events are widely recognized as disturbances to ecosystem services and functions [1], carry significant social and financial repercussions [2], and have prompted regional prohibitions on net-pen farming [3]. Particularly concerning is the potential for escaped fish to reproduce successfully [4], which can lead to genetic introgression with wild conspecifics or negative interactions with other...

The release of contaminants into the environment can occur from anthropogenic activities, such as oil extraction and transportation, mining, and industrial processes. Remediation associated with reducing contaminant concentrations, and restoration that improves animals and supporting habitat, are often needed to restore ecosystems to their pre-release, baseline condition. We demonstrated the application of Bayesian Decision Networks (BDNs) with two Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration (NRDAR) case studies. We use a stylized case study of riparian restoration following the...

There is a global abundance of non-perennial rivers and streams, of which are predicted to increase due to environmental change and anthropogenic influences. However, most modeled representations of streamflow have been constructed with perennial systems in mind, leaving a gap in our understanding and representation of non-perennial systems. To adapt to future challenges, there is a need to determine what modeled representations of low- and no-flow in non-perennial rivers and streams do well and where uncertainties may lie in the internal representations of hydrologic processes. Here we...

Reforestation practices have potential to alter site productivity and influence forest stand development. We evaluated the effects of logging debris (LD) manipulation (LD dispersed, LD piled, and LD removed) and competing vegetation control (VC; initial VC only or annual VC for five years) on Douglas-fir stand characteristics at two sites in western Washington and Oregon, USA that contrasted strongly in soil quality (SQ). Annual VC had a pronounced effect on stand volume compared to initial VC, but the magnitude of effect was greater at the low SQ site (~50 % increase in volume) than at...

Biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) is the largest natural source of new nitrogen (N) that supports terrestrial productivity1,2, yet estimates of global terrestrial BNF remain highly uncertain3,4. Here we show that this uncertainty is partly because of sampling bias, as field BNF measurements in natural terrestrial ecosystems occur where N fixers are 17 times more prevalent than their mean abundances worldwide. To correct this bias, we develop new estimates of global terrestrial BNF by upscaling field BNF measurements using spatially explicit abundances of all major biogeochemical N-fixing...

Aim: To map the probability of landscape use of invading barred owls (Strix varia) across the range of the threatened northern spotted owl (S. Occidentallis Caurina) in the Pacific Northwest, USA, identifying environmental drivers of barred owl landscape use to inform targeted management interventions.Location: Forests of the Pacific Northwest, USA.Taxon: Barred Owl (Strix varia).Methods: We deployed 4081 autonomous recording units (ARUs) within 1027 randomly selected long-term monitoring sites consisting of 5-km2 hexagons in 2023. We processed audio recordings using convolutional neural...

In the moist, coniferous forests of Oregon and Washington, a dense network of headwater streams supports high levels of amphibian species endemism and diversity, including the torrent salamanders (Rhyacotriton spp.). The Columbia and Cascade torrent salamanders (R. kezeri and R. cascadae, respectively) are species of greatest conservation need, but current information is insufficient for an adequate status assessment. We aimed to determine the current distributional extent, occurrence, and abundance of both species across their respective ranges, and to characterize watershed-scale habitat...