Treesearch

Objective: Digital representations of stream networks are integral components of spatial analyses to describe species distributions and habitat extents, but users should understand their strengths and weaknesses. Here, we used two resolutions of the publicly available and widely applied National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) with large fish and amphibian occurrence data sets to highlight patterns of habitat occupancy relative to availability as described by the NHD.Methods: Data sets consisting of 37,318 occurrences for 10 species were linked to NHD reaches, attributed with reach slope and...

The area burned in the western United States during the 2020 fire season was the greatest in the modern era. Here we show that the number of human‐caused fires in 2020 also was elevated, nearly 20% higher than the 1992-2019 average. Although anomalously dry conditions enabled ignitions to spread and contributed to record area burned, these conditions alone do not explain the surge in the number of human‐caused ignitions. We argue that behavioral shifts aimed at curtailing the spread of COVID‐19 altered human‐environment interactions to favor increased ignitions. For example, the number of...

Accounting for the effects of fire suppression and containment efforts has posed a challenge in wildfire modeling. Fire suppression is a complex phenomenon depending on factors such as resource availability, weather, terrain, and fire suppression priorities in a given place and time. Suppression is an influential factor in wildfire growth though, and should be considered in models. We developed a generalized model of fire containment by utilizing daily reports on size and percent containment of wildfires in the United States. We used this model to support wildfire risk analysis simulations...

Background: Fuel moisture content is a key driver of fuel flammability and subsequent fire activity and behavior worldwide. Dead fuels passively exchange moisture with the atmosphere while live fuel moisture is confounded by a mixture of seasonal carbon and water cycle dynamics. Despite the significance of live fuel moisture content (LFMC) on wildland fire potential, attempts to model its variations seasonally and between species are often inconclusive or unsuccessful.Results: Here we present a mechanistic LFMC model that uses easily measured live fuel physiological and morphological...

In forests across the western United States, large, severe wildfires are creating treeless patches that are unlikely to reforest naturally due to a lack of seed sources and a warming climate. Active reforestation through tree planting has the potential to help forest ecosystems recover after wildfire.

The Wildfire Research (WiRē) team, supported by USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, is no stranger to engaging with residents and communities in fire-prone areas. They’ve been at it for over a decade - regularly refining their approach to reach the most people. Still, midway through a project in Lake County, Colorado, the WiRē team received almost no survey responses from households in three mobile home communities.

Aims: Fine-root traits are important for understanding the strategies plant species use to coexist in communities and persist in resource-limited environments. The extent to which aboveground and belowground strategies are coordinated is a continued subject of debate, and the role of fine-root traits in determining species responses to disturbance is largely unknown. … Methods: We measured fine-root traits representing the conservation and collaboration axes of the root economics space and leaf traits associated with the leaf economics spectrum of 56 understory species across 75 plots that...

1. Pollinator species have declined globally during the last several decades due to a variety of factors, including habitat destruction and degradation, pesticides, disease and climate change.2. To examine the effects of climate change on pollinator distributions, I modelled summer occurrences of pollinator species from North America under current climate (i.e. years 1981-2010) and predicted potential climate space for current, past (20, 10 and 6 thousand years ago) and future (six projections during 2071-2100, with North American warming of 4.3°C-8.8°C) climates.3. Accuracies ranged in...

Many ecosystems have been altered since European colonization, resulting in the loss of historical ecosystems along with information about historical ecosystems. Tree density estimation from historical land surveys with alignment to expert classifications of historical vegetation strengthen reconstructions of vegetation history through research triangulation. For the midwestern United States, we extended historical tree density estimates (≥12.7 cm in diameter) to contextualize expert classifications of vegetation types in Illinois and Minnesota, part of the historical Great Plains grassland...

One question about historical grassland ecosystems in the Great Plains region of central North America is the percentage of tree cover overall and near major rivers, compared to current tree cover. Here, I assessed tree cover in reconstructions of historical grasslands in the eastern Great Plains, isolating tree cover adjacent to major rivers, and then compared historical land cover to current (year 2019) land cover. As an extension to supply information for the entire Great Plains region, I modeled historical cover. For the 28 million ha extent of the eastern Great Plains, historical land...