Treesearch

This paper demonstrates a process for translating a database of forest measurements to interactive dashboards through which users can access statistically defensible estimates and analyses anywhere in the conterminous US. It taps the extensive Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) plot network along with national remotely sensed data layers to produce estimates using widely accepted model-assisted and small area estimation methodologies. It leverages a decade’s worth of statistical and computational research on FIA’s flexible estimation engine, FIESTA, and provides a vehicle through which...

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 Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) L4B product provides 1 km x 1 km (1 km, hereafter) estimates of mean aboveground biomass density (AGBD) based on observations from mission week 19 starting on 2019-04-18 to mission week 138 ending on 2021-08-04. The GEDI L4A Footprint Biomass product converts each high-quality waveform to an AGBD prediction, and the L4B product uses the sample present within the borders of each 1 km cell to statistically infer mean AGBD. The gridding procedure is described in the GEDI L4B Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD). Patterson et al....

In the Southwestern United States, land managers face a pressing management decision on how to dispose of the biomass resulting from the thinning of overstocked Ponderosa pine forests. These smaller-diameter trees, limbs, and tops have little to no value in the current forest products market. Additionally, pile-burning biomass can impact air quality in the surrounding communities and result in burn scars and other negative environmental effects.

High severity fires of unprecedented size have become regular occurrences and land managers are now facing the challenge of how to manage the increasing expanse of postburn landscapes. As the climate warms, tree species distributions are shifting, and managers are considering whether to promote the same tree species that previously existed at a site or more climate-adapted trees. Will long-lived tree species migrate on their own as fast as the climate is changing? Recently published work by Rocky Mountain Research Station research forester Mike Battaglia, Colorado State University’s Katie...

Wildfire activity is increasing throughout forests of the western United States, in large part due to the effects of a warming climate. The 2020 fire year in northern Colorado and southern Wyoming is a particularly striking example - several of the largest fires on record in this region (i.e., since the early 1900s) occurred in 2020. Many of these fires burned in high-elevation forests, an uncommon occurrence over the past century, and several burned well into the fall and winter due to atypically warm, dry conditions. Like the 2002 Hayman Fire and other recent events in the region, the...

Amplified by warming temperatures and drought, recent outbreaks of native bark beetles (Curculionidae: Scolytinae) have caused extensive tree mortality throughout Europe and North America. Despite their ubiquitous nature and important effects on ecosystems, forest recovery following such disturbances is poorly understood, particularly across regions with varying abiotic conditions and outbreak effects.

Wildland fires are a major source of gases and aerosols, and the production, dispersion, and transformation of fire emissions have significant ambient air quality impacts and climate interactions. The increase in wildfire area burned and severity across the United States and Canada in recent decades has led to increased interest in expanding the use of prescribed fires as a forest management tool. While the primary goal of prescribed fire use is to limit the loss of life and property and ecosystem damage by constraining the growth and severity of future wildfires, a potential additional...

A recent Restoration Ecology article by Merchant et al. (2022) suggested that practitioners do not regularly use functional traits in restoration planning. We disagree and provide our collective experience that practitioners do leverage trait-based approaches and information, but in ways that are different from researchers. Here, we provide an expanded perspective that incorporates practitioner voices to provide a more complete assessment of how traits are used in restoration practice. We highlight that a major challenge in the field of restoration ecology that leads to a disconnect...

Characterizing genetic structure across a species’ range is relevant for management and conservation as it can be used to define population boundaries and quantify connectivity. Wide-ranging species residing in continuously distributed habitat pose substantial challenges for the characterization of genetic structure as many analytical methods used are less effective when isolation by distance is an underlying biological pattern. Here, we illustrate strategies for overcoming these challenges using a species of significant conservation concern, the Greater Sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasian...