Treesearch

Haiti has suffered great losses from deforestation, with little forest cover remaining today. Current reforestation efforts focus on seedling quantity rather than quality. This study examined limitations to the production of high-quality seedlings of the endemic Hispaniolan pine (Pinus occidentalis Swartz). Recognizing the importance of applying sustainable development principles to pine forest restoration, the effects of growing media and container types on seedling growth were evaluated with the goal of developing a propagation protocol to produce high-quality seedlings using economically...

Wildfires are a major source of air pollutants in the United States. Wildfire smoke can trigger severe pollution episodes with substantial impacts on public health. In addition to acute episodes, wildfires can have a marginal effect on air quality at significant distances from the source, presenting significant challenges to air regulators’ efforts to meet National Ambient Air Quality Standards. Improved emission estimates are needed to quantify the contribution of wildfires to air pollution and thereby inform decision-making activities related to the control and regulation of anthropogenic...

We present a direct broadcast (DB) rapid response burned area mapping algorithm for Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) data that combines products driven by the spectral signal of fire-affected areas from both emissive and reflective spectral bands. The algorithm processes VIIRS infrared M-bands (750 m) using spectral ratios of the top of atmosphere reflectance from a single satellite scene to identify pixels exhibiting surface properties consistent with burn scars. Next, this collection of candidate burn scar pixels is screened using a contextual filter based on VIIRS...

Wildfire in declining whitebark pine forests can be a tool for ecosystem restoration or an ecologically harmful event. This document presents a set of possible wildfire management practices for facilitating the restoration of whitebark pine across its range inWestern North America. These management actions are designed to enhance whitebark pine resilience and health, while also being effective wildfire management measures. The actions are presented by the three phases of the wildfire continuum: Before, during, and after a wildfire. Current pre-wildfire restoration actions, such as mechanica...

Wildfires naturally occur worldwide, however the potential disruption to ecosystem services from subsequent post-fire flooding and erosion often necessitates a response from land managers. The impact of high severity wildfire on infiltration and interrill erosion responses was evaluated for five years after the 2003 Hot Creek Fire in Idaho, USA. Relative infiltration from mini-disk tension infiltrometers (MDI) was compared to rainfall simulation measurements on small burned and control plots. Vegetation recovery was slow due to the severity of the fire, with median cover of 6-8% on burned...

A useful question for managers to ask is: why do we care about understanding fire’s ecological processes? At a theoretical level, knowledge itself may be the goal. However, at a more practical level, funding and research interest tends to reflect a desire to understand how to manipulate ecological processes to favor one or several preferred management outcomes. Although nature is indifferent about whether fire leads to regrowth of existing species or to wholesale change to a different vegetation type, humans usually favor one outcome over another. Which outcomes are viewed as more or less...

Every year worldwide some extraordinary wildfires occur, overwhelming suppression capabilities, causing substantial damages, and often resulting in fatalities. Given their increasing frequency, there is a debate about how to address these wildfires with significant social impacts, but there is no agreement upon terminology to describe them. The concept of extreme wildfire event (EWE) has emerged to bring some coherence on this kind of events. It is increasingly used, often as a synonym of other terms related to wildfires of high intensity and size, but its definition remains elusive. The...

Identifying units of conservation of aquatic species is fundamental to informed natural resources science and management. We used a combination of mitochondrial and nuclear molecular methods to identify potential units of conservation of Westslope Cutthroat Trout Oncorhynchus clarkii lewisi, a taxon native to montane river basins of the northwestern United States and southwestern Canada. Mitogenomic sequencing identified two major lineages composed of nine monophyletic clades, and a well-supported subclade within one of these, largely delineated by river basins. Analyses of microsatellites...

Small- to mid-sized forest carnivores, also known as mesocarnivores, are an important part of the animal community within national forests. Many forest mesocarnivores are of conservation concern and are listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), have been petitioned for listing under the ESA multiple times, or have designations within the Forest Service that warrant consideration in decisions about planning, projects, or restoration. Mesocarnivores also receive heightened public attention and, as a result, are frequently the center of lawsuits brought...

A patchwork of disjunct lidar collections is rapidly developing across the USA, often acquired with different acquisition goals and parameters and without field data for forest inventory. Airborne lidar and coincident field data have been used to estimate forest attributes across individual lidar extents, where forest measurements are collected using project-specific inventory designs. This research explores predicting forest attributes at locations not represented in the training data by combining lidar and field measurements from ecologically similar forests. Using field measurements...