Treesearch

In recent decades, container stock has become the preferred plant material to regenerate longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) forests in the southeastern United States. We evaluated the effects of container nursery treatments on early and long-term field performance in central Louisiana. Seedlings were grown in four cavity volumes (60-336 mL) with or without copper oxychloride root pruning (Cu or no-Cu) and fertilized at three nitrogen (N) rates. Across treatments, 91% of the seedlings emerged from the grass stage by the second field season, and 88% of the seedlings survived eight years...

Nutrient loading in the fall is a practical way to improve seedling quality and has been proven to increase nutrient accumulation, translocation and utilization. Few studies have reported on the variation in free amino acids as a result of fall fertilization, especially for different seasonal needle habits (evergreen, deciduous). Therefore, a balanced two-factor factorial design with one fall fertilization treatment (10 mg N/seedling) and Chinese pine (Pinus tabulaeformis Carr.) and Prince Rupprecht’s larch (Larix principis-rupprechtii Mayr.) seedlings was used to examine growth response...

Over the past three decades, wildfires in southwestern US ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Lawson & C. Lawson) forests have increased in size and severity. These wildfires can remove large, contiguous patches of mature forests, alter dominant plant communities and increase woody debris, potentially altering fungal community composition. Additionally, post-fire conditions may shift dominant fungal functional groups from plantsymbiotic ectomycorrhizal (EM) fungi to more decomposer saprotrophic fungi. We investigated the long-term (13 years post-wildfire) effect of fire severity on 1) fungal...

This report presents a summary of the most recent Forest Inventory and Analysis summary of Montana’s forests based on field data collected between 2006 and 2015. The report includes descriptive highlights and tables of area, numbers of trees, biomass, volume, growth, and mortality, as well as an industry report. Most sections and tables are organized by forest type or forest-type group, tree species group, diameter class, or owner group. Results show that Montana’s forest land covers 25.9 million acres, of which 7 million acres (27 percent) are privately owned, and 15.5 million acres (60...

Despite the generally accepted need for understanding social vulnerability within the context of USDA Forest Service planning and management, there is a lack of structured approaches available to practitioners to gain such an understanding. This social vulnerability protocol provides a step-by-step manual for engaging the public about ecosystem service tradeoffs and the drivers of change considered influential to the continued provision of important ecosystem services. This protocol provides a rigorous social science approach for implementation alongside common public engagement practices...

Decision makers need better methods for identifying critical ecosystem vulnerabilities to changing climate and fire regimes. Climate-wildfire-vegetation interactions are complex and hinder classification and projection necessary for development of management strategies. One such vulnerability assessment (VA) is FireCLIME VA, which allows users to compare management strategies under various climate scenarios and gauge the potential effectiveness of those strategies for reducing undesirable impacts of climate on wildfire regimes and resulting impacts of wildfire on natural ecosystems....

Treatments to reduce shrub cover are commonly implemented with the objective of shifting community structure away from shrub dominance and toward shrub and perennial grass codominance. In sagebrush (Artemisia L.) ecosystems, shrub reduction treatments have had variable effects on target shrubs, herbaceous perennials, and non-native annual plants. The factors mediating this variability are not well understood. We used long-term data from Utah’s Watershed Restoration Initiative project to assess short-term (1 - 4 yr post-treatment) and long-term (5 - 12 yr post-treatment) responses of...

Intraspecific trait variation can be substantial and is driven by many factors. To develop predictive models of intraspecific trait variation, an understanding of the drivers of that variation is essential. At fairly broad scales, differences in the environment are expected to drive genetic variation in functional traits among populations. To isolate this genetic variability, we conducted a greenhouse common garden experiment using nine grass species native to the western United States. We assessed relationships between several root, leaf, and whole plant traits and a number of environmenta...

The restoration of native forbs in the Great Basin and similar dryland ecosystems remains a great challenge for land managers. Variable soil water, precocious germination and emergence, and the presence of soil fungal pathogens often reduce plant establishment. Novel restoration treatments that increase soil water during early forb life stages, delay germination and emergence to coincide with favorable spring conditions, and reduce mortality from soil fungal pathogens may benefit native forb restoration. We compared the efficacy of three novel treatments - snow fencing, plant protection...

Many restoration projects use seeds to found new populations, and understanding phenotypic traits associated with seedling establishment in disturbed and invaded communities is important for restoration efforts world-wide. Focusing on the perennial grass Elymus elymoides, a native species common to sagebrush steppe communities in the Western United States, we asked if seed and seedling traits could predict field establishment.