Treesearch

Within governance agencies, academia, and communities alike, there are increasing calls to recognize the value and importance of culture within social-ecological systems and to better implement Indigenous sciences in research, policy, and management. Efforts thus far have raised questions about the best ethical practices to do so. Engaging with plural worldviews and perspectives on their own terms reflects cultural evolutionary processes driving paradigm shifts in 3 fundamental areas of natural resource management: conceptualizations of natural resources and ecosystems, processes of public...

Species with extensive geographical ranges pose special challenges to assessing drivers of wildlife disease, necessitating collaborative and large-scale analyses. The imperilled foothill yellow-legged frog (Rana boylii) inhabits a wide geographical range and variable conditions in rivers of California and Oregon (USA), and is considered threatened by the pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis(Bd). To assess drivers of Bd infections over time and space, we compiled over 2000 datapoints from R. boyliimuseum specimens (collected 1897–2005) and field samples (2005–2021) spanning 9° of...

Arundo donaxis a non-native, invasive large-statured grass of riparian systems in the southwestern USA, including the Sacramento and San Joaquin River watersheds of northern California and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. In 2017, the shoot tip-galling wasp Tetramesa romanawas released at nine sites, three in each region. Shoots in some release plots were manipulated prior to release by cutting to ground or pruning to 1 m height, while others were left uncut. One year later, exit holes made by emerging adult wasps were found at two of nine sites. Exit hole density per main shoot length...

Ecocultural restoration involves the reciprocal repair of ecosystems and revitalization of cultural practices to enhance their mutual resilience to natural and anthropogenic disturbances and climate change stressors. Resilient ecocultural systems are adapted to retain structure and function in the face of disturbances that remain within historical ranges of severity. To assist in ecocultural restoration and management, understanding how a system has historically responded to different types of disturbances is therefore invaluable in understanding how social-ecological resilience can be...

Non-native ungulates (sheep, goats, and pigs) have significant negative impacts on ecosystem biodiversity, structure, and biogeochemical function throughout the Pacific Islands. Elevated nitrogen (N) availability associated with ungulate disturbance has been shown to promote the success of resource-exploitive invasive plants. While ungulate removal is a common restoration intervention, evaluations of its efficacy typically focus on vegetation responses, rather than underlying nutrient cycling. We used multiple chronosequences of ungulate exclusion (10–24 years duration) in three Hawaiian...

Past research on barriers to the development and implementation of green infrastructure (GI) has examined the experiences of policy makers and community leaders, with a focus on planting or installing GI. However, many of these programs rely on participation from the public — especially residents — who often steward GI over the long-term on both public and private lands. To better understand the barriers experienced by primary stewards of GI, we conducted 93 intercept interviews with residents spanning four neighborhoods in the City of Philadelphia and in four nearby suburban municipalities...

Street trees are highly visible components of the urban forest, providing ecosystem services to city residents, but tree mortality can result in a loss of these essential benefits. Here, we focus on how street tree survival in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (US) has been influenced by 1) tree traits and attributes, 2) the local biophysical environment, and 3) socioeconomic context. We used a longitudinal monitoring approach with a 6-year time interval and 103 randomly-located, fixed-length permanent plots, containing a range of tree size classes, to assess street tree survival rates, predictors...

The combined effects of Indigenous fire stewardship and lightning ignitions shaped historical fire regimes, landscape patterns, and available resources in many ecosystems globally. The resulting fire regimes created complex fire–vegetation dynamics that were further influenced by biophysical setting, disturbance history, and climate. While there is increasing recognition of Indigenous fire stewardship among western scientists and managers, the extent and purpose of cultural burning is generally absent from the landscape–fire modeling literature and our understanding of ecosystem processes...

Monitoring the status of nitrogen (N) deposition is a prerequisite for evaluating its ecological and environmental impacts. This chapter reviews the monitoring strategies to measure N deposition to forest ecosystems in six different regions (Europe, North America, East Asia, South Asia, Africa, Central and South America). The current status of monitoring is at very different stages for these regions, ranging from sophisticated and coordinated monitoring networks devoted to the quantification of fluxes to both forested and non-forested sites to sparse intensive studies with variations in...

The emerging field of convivial conservation (CC) draws on the tradition of political ecology (PE) to present a “radical” alternative to contemporary environmentalisms, speaking to the challenges of conservation in the Anthropocene as well as the global ascent of reactionary populism. Building on previous work arguing for the ongoing value of dialogue between PE and the American West, I here develop a conversation between CC and another radical intervention, the collaborative conservation of the West’s so-called “radical center” (RC). Using the nexus of wolf–livestock conflict and public...