Treesearch

The role of building characteristics and survival during wildfires are well studied. Less so is the role of urban vegetation type, condition, and location on building loss in fire events. We mapped and statistically modeled parcel-scale urban vegetation characteristics across different Defensible Space Buffers (DSBs) and their role in predicting building loss in shrub and forest dominated urban ecosystems. Using 3.0 m resolution PlanetScope imagery, geospatial data, and eCognition we mapped parcel-scale vegetation types and building characteristics in fire affected neighborhoods in Ventura...

Introduction: Growing concerns about fire across the western United States, and commensurate emphasis on treating expansive areas over the next 2 decades, have created a need to develop tools for managers to assess management benefits and impacts across spatial scales. We modeled outcomes associated with two common forest management objectives: fire risk reduction (fire), and enhancing multiple resource benefits (ecosystem resilience). Method: We evaluated the compatibility of these two objectives across ca. 1-million ha in the central Sierra Nevada, California. The fire strategy focused...

Ecosystem services are important for human well-being and for sustaining environmental quality objectives. Growing concern over extreme wildfire events in various watersheds necessitates understanding their impacts on regulating ecosystems services. Past studies have documented how wildfires regulate ecosystem services, but the distributional impacts of such ecosystem services across various human settlements (i.e. communities) remains understudied, despite renewed focus on how they are increasingly at risk from and being impacted by wildfires. We used the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem...

Deliberation – the process of group discussion and consideration – has been increasingly integrated to valuation of ecosystem services. In an online stated preference survey on the Fanjing Mountain National Nature Reserve in the Southwestern China, we assessed participants' willingness to pay (WTP) for cultural services (non-material benefits gained through interacting with nature, including its ecological and geological elements and characteristics) before and after deliberation. However, among the initial participants, only a subset completed deliberation and the full survey. This...

Many southern California residents use urban-proximate national forests to meet their recreation needs, but with climate change and increased forest popularity, displacement is of concern due to the potential for degraded conditions and/or closures. Displacement could result in recreationists completely foregoing the national forests for other forms of leisure activities. To guide would-be visitors to suitable alternative recreation experiences when they are unable to recreate as they want due to undesirable conditions (e.g., crowding, poor resource conditions), a better understanding of...

Land managers across western North America are increasingly treating forests with mechanical thinning and prescribed fire to reduce stand density, with the aims of reducing wildfire risks and generating conditions that better align with historic forest structure. The effects of these treatments on invertebrates in forests is poorly understood, especially over longer time scales. We tested for effects of three forest treatments on butterfly and bumble bee abundance and species richness in a ponderosa pine and white fir forest in northern California, USA, that was treated systematically two...

Adaptive evolution requires both natural selection and genetic variation. In introduced species, the selective dynamics of range expansion are predicted by theory to lead to differences between the core and the leading edge, with edge individuals evolving to be more fecund (under r-selection) and have greater dispersal ability than core individuals. In arthropods, both fecundity and dispersal ability are often positively correlated with body size. Here, we quantify genetic variation available for evolution of body size in a beetle (Diorhabda carinulata) introduced into North America as a...

Kang et al. (2024) present a spatiotemporal analysis of Phytophthora ramorum outbreaks from 2005 to 2021 in the United States and Europe. However, the analysis and conclusions are flawed because of a lack of understanding of the pathosystems analyzed which led the authors to select improper methods for their analysis. The open-source data analyzed does not include sampling over all seasons of the year. Sampling is primarily conducted in the spring which makes the data unbalanced and inappropriate for examination of seasonality without transformation. Differences in characteristics, and...

California has experienced increasing frequency and intensity of wildfire, with the five largest fires on record since 2018. Over the same period, licensed cannabis production has grown to a high-grossing industry, while remaining an important source of rural livelihood. Importantly, the geography of cannabis production overlaps with high fire hazard areas more than any other crop in the state. We developed and deployed a state-wide survey of licensed outdoor producers to determine direct and indirect impacts of wildfire, as well as how producers have responded to these threats. Quantitativ...

The non-material benefits obtained through interaction with nature are known as cultural services. We employed an online survey to value cultural services provided by the Fanjing Mountain National Nature Reserve, China. The valuation combined a stated-preference approach with online deliberation, where participants considered and discussed the services through typing in chat groups. The services perceived by most participants, in descending order, were spiritual experiences, recreation, aesthetic appreciation, education, and scientific value. In two hypothetical scenarios, where participant...