Treesearch

Forest fires spread via production and combustion of pyrolysis gases in the understory. The goal of the present paper is to understand the spatial location, distribution, and fraction (relative to the overstory) of understory plants, in this case, sparkleberry shrub, namely its degree of understory consumption upon burn, and to search for correlations between the degree of shrub consumption to the composition of emitted pyrolysis gases. Data were collected in situ at seven small experimental prescribed burns at Ft. Jackson, an army base in South Carolina, USA. Using airborne laser scanning...

Environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling is a highly sensitive and cost-effective technique for wildlife monitoring, notably through the use of qPCR assays. However, it can be difficult to ensure assay specificity when many closely related species co-occur. In theory, specificity may be assessed in silico by determining whether assay oligonucleotides have enough base-pair mismatches with nontarget sequences to preclude amplification. However, the mismatch qualities required are poorly understood, making in silico assessments difficult and often necessitating extensive in vitro testing-typically...

Environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling uses genetic material in the environment to infer species presence sight-unseen. The method has rapidly become a powerful tool for monitoring biodiversity. However, biological diversity, as per the Convention on Biological Diversity definition of “diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems” is more inclusive than most eDNA studies cover: The vast majority focus only on between-species and ecosystem-level biodiversity. However, a tantalizing prospect, as illustrated by Farrell et al. (2022) in this issue of Molecular Ecology Resources, is...

Characterization of physical fuel distributions across heterogeneous landscapes is needed to understand fire behavior, account for smoke emissions, and manage for ecosystem resilience. Remote sensing measurements at various scales inform fuel maps for improved fire and smoke models. Airborne lidar that directly senses variation in vegetation height and density has proven to be especially useful for landscape-scale fuel load and consumption mapping. Here we predicted field-observed fuel loads from airborne lidar and Landsat-derived fire history metrics with random forest (RF) modeling. RF...

There are more than 300 million hectares of forested land within the conterminous United States essential to sustaining the myriad social/cultural, economic, and ecologic benefits society enjoys from these lands. Nationwide, millions of forested hectares, both private and public, are disappearing functionally and physically through serve wildfire fire and land conversion. On many of these lands, management, centered on fire suppression, has led to reductions in forest resilience to wildfire. Lands, overstocked with accumulated fuel and faced with a changing climate, are expected to...

The taxonomy of annulate [possessing a ring-like structure on the stipe (stem) of the basidiocarp (mushroom, fruiting body, basidioma) that is the remnant of the ruptured veil on the underside of the cap] Armillaria (Figs. 20.1E-J, 20.2, and 20.3) and its exannulate (without an annulus) sister genus Desarmillaria (Fig. 20.1K) is constantly changing. However, at least 40 species are currently recognized around the world (Baumgartner et al., 2011; Koch et al., 2017; Heinzelmann et al., 2019; Antonín et al., 2021; Kedves et al., 2021), and most Armillaria spp. have a wide host range. In many...

Intactness is a commonly used measure of ecological integrity, especially when evaluating conservation status at the landscape scale. We argue that in the large and relatively unfragmented landscapes of the Arctic and sub-Arctic, intactness provides only partial insight for managers charged with maintaining ecological integrity. A recent landscape assessment suggests that 95% of Alaska shows no measured direct or indirect impacts of human development on the landscape. However, the current exceptionally high levels of intactness in Alaska, and throughout the Arctic and sub-Arctic, do not...

Climate classification allows an efficient encapsulation of climate data into climate units. For North America and most of Central America during 20, 14, 13, 11, 10, 7, 5, and 1 thousand years ago (ka) and recent years, I applied a Köppen-Trewartha classification system, but with dry classes subsumed under primary thermal classes to preserve information. The boreal and polar classes decreased from a combined 70% of area during 20 ka until reaching 42% of area at 7 ka, after which the area remained relatively stable. Conversely, the subtropical and temperate classes increased from 25% of...

Almost half of all Americans (45 percent) reported that their lives were affected a lot by COVID-19 pandemic conditions in 2020 and experienced a lot of worry and stress on a daily basis (Gallup, Inc. 2021). Nevertheless, even more said that they thrived. The study of human populations is rife with such paradoxes, especially during moments of change, when habits are shaken but values are clarified. Even in relatively uniform social groups, the same event can spur a wide variety of responses.

Wildland fire management is a complex system with various scales, modes, plans, and operations. As with any system, fire management can be subject to stresses and strains that are, in some cases, easy to identify in isolation but highly challenging to diagnose at a system level. A suitable analogy is the homeostatic range in the human body - that is, the limits on levels such as body temperature, pH, and blood level. Modern medicine has a quantitative understanding of the normal, extreme, and fatal ranges of these indicators.