Treesearch

Background: Planting tree seedlings may help promote forest recovery after extensive high-severity wildfire. We evaluated the influence of growing environment characteristics on the performance of seedlings planted in the 2016 Cold Springs Fire, Colorado, USA. In 2021, four growing seasons after planting, we measured survival, height, and 2021 height growth for 300 ponderosa pine, limber pine, and Douglas-fir seedlings permanently marked along “stake rows.” For each seedling, we also recorded one site-level growing environment characteristic, aspect, and two microsite-level characteristics,...

Symbiotic nitrogen fixation (SNF) is a critical mechanism of ecosystem recovery, and in forests of the eastern United States, the most common tree species that supports SNF is black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia L.). Despite its prevalence, black locust’s fixation strategy - whether it maintains fixation at a constant rate (obligate fixation) or reduces its fixation rate (facultative fixation) - is unknown. Here, we examined how nitrogen and light control SNF by black locust, by growing seedlings under two nitrogen levels and across four levels of light. Seedlings were harvested after 12...

Shelter building caterpillars act as ecosystem engineers by creating and maintaining leaf shelters, which are then colonized by other arthropods. Foliage quality has been shown to influence initial colonization by shelter-building caterpillars. However, the effects of plant quality on the interactions between ecosystem engineers and their communities have yet to be studied at the whole plant level. We examined how leaf tying caterpillars, as ecosystem engineers, impact arthropod communities on Quercus alba (white oak), and the modifying effect of foliage quality on these interactions. We...

Wildfires can dramatically modify the hydrologic and erosion response of ecosystems, increasing risks to population and assets downslope of fire affected hillslopes. This applies especially to volcanic areas in fire-prone regions which often exhibit steep terrain and high population densities. However, the effects of fire on key hydrologic and erosion parameters, which are critical for modelling runoff-erosion processes, predicting related post-fire risks and for selecting effective mitigation measures, have not been extensively assessed in this terrain type. Here we evaluate water erosion...

Wildfires have become more severe and have burned larger swaths of the western United States and Canada in recent decades. The smoke from these wildfires contains hundreds of different gases and aerosols, which have significant negative impacts on air quality, climate, and public health.

This six-volume assessment provides information on the current conditions of riparian, aquatic, and groundwater-dependent ecosystems on the Rogue River-Siskiyou, Klamath, Six Rivers, Shasta-Trinity, and Mendocino National Forests of southern Oregon and northern California. We used peer-reviewed literature and national and regional-level data from the forests and their partners to evaluate the status of several key ecosystem characteristics. These characteristics are distribution, hydrologic regimes, water quality, connectivity, instream habitat quality, and riparian reserve condition for...

This six-volume assessment provides information on the current conditions of riparian, aquatic, and groundwater-dependent ecosystems on the Rogue River-Siskiyou, Klamath, Six Rivers, Shasta-Trinity, and Mendocino National Forests of southern Oregon and northern California. We used peer-reviewed literature and national and regional-level data from the forests and their partners to evaluate the status of several key ecosystem characteristics. These characteristics are distribution, hydrologic regimes, water quality, connectivity, instream habitat quality, and riparian reserve condition for...

This six-volume assessment provides information on the current conditions of riparian, aquatic, and groundwater-dependent ecosystems on the Rogue River-Siskiyou, Klamath, Six Rivers, Shasta-Trinity, and Mendocino National Forests of southern Oregon and northern California. We used peer-reviewed literature and national and regional-level data from the forests and their partners to evaluate the status of several key ecosystem characteristics. These characteristics are distribution, hydrologic regimes, water quality, connectivity, instream habitat quality, and riparian reserve condition for...

The escalating climate and wildfire crises have generated worldwide interest in reducing the risk of wildfire-caused carbon loss in forests. The United States (US) is no exception, with billions of US dollars being invested into proactive forest management (e.g. forest thinning, prescribed fire, cultural burning) that mitigates wildfire hazard and promotes fire-resilient forests. In turn, proactive forest management helps forests retain carbon in living vegetation and organic soil after wildfire, which allows forests to help humans with climate-mitigation goals by keeping carbon out of the...

The ForSys spatial planning system was developed by USDA Forest Service Research and Development to modernize agency tools to prioritize forest and fuel management investments and understand tradeoffs among alternative scenarios. ForSys uses inputs on objectives, management restrictions, constraints, and treatment thresholds to organize stands into planning areas that are optimized for one or more objectives. The model has been used in five different countries resulting in published case studies at scales ranging from watersheds to the continental United States, and multiple Federal...