Treesearch

Lahontan cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii henshawi) and Paiute cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii seleniris) are rare taxa of conservation concern. Their generally low population densities and remote distribution make traditional sampling difficult, but they primarily exist in small streams, a habitat type where environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling has proven extremely effective. We developed a single eDNA assay that allows sensitive detection of both taxa, which occur separate from each other in different regions of the Lahontan Basin. Performance of the assay was evaluated using...

Wildfire severity is a key indicator of both direct ecosystem impacts and indirect emissions impacts that affect air quality, climate, and public health far beyond the spatial footprint of the flames. Comprehensive, accurate inventories of severity and emissions are essential for assessing these impacts and setting appropriate fire management and health care preparedness strategies, as is the ability to project emissions for future wildfires. The frequency of large wildfires and the magnitude of their impacts have increased in recent decades, fueling concerns about decreased air quality....

The biological control program against Tamarix spp. (tamarisk/saltcedar; Tamaricaceae) was initiated in the 1970s to reduce negative impacts of this invasive Old World shrub to riparian biodiversity and ecosystem function in western North America. Field releases of host-specific leaf beetles (Chrysomelidae) in the genus Diorhabda were initiated in 2001, with significant establishment and widespread defoliation observed roughly two years after open releases. What followed were a variety of complex interactions among invasive Tamarix, its guild of herbivores including Diorhabda spp., and the...

Anecdotal reports indicate that invasive yellow or common toadflax (Linaria vulgaris) and Dalmatian toadflax (Linaria dalmatica) (Plantaginaceae) were deliberately introduced to North America for ornamental purposes. They were also accidentally introduced as a seed contaminant, as was the case for many early-introduced invasive plants in North America (Mack, 1986, 2003; Mack and Erneberg, 2002; Lehan et al., 2013). In the absence of laws regulating the importation of exotic plants (as opposed to plant pests) into the United States, plant-lovers ranging from homesteaders and miners to...

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...