Treesearch

In recent decades much attention has been given to the Arctic environment, where climate change is happening rapidly. Black carbon (BC) has been shown to be a major component of Arctic pollution that also affects the radiative balance. In the present study, we focused on how vegetation fires that occurred in northern Eurasia during the period of 2002–2013 influenced the budget of BC in the Arctic. For simulating the transport of fire emissions from northern Eurasia to the Arctic, we adopted BC fire emission estimates developed independently by GFED3 (Global Fire Emissions Database) and...

Environmental DNA (eDNA) is DNA that has been released by an organism into its environment, such that the DNA can be found in air, water, or soil. In aquatic systems, eDNA has been shown to provide a sampling approach that is more sensitive for detecting target organisms faster, and less expensively than previous approaches. However, eDNA needs to be sampled in a manner that has been tested and found effective and, because single copies of target DNA are detected reliably, rigorous procedures must be designed to avoid sample contamination. Here we provide the details of a sampling protocol...

As wildland fire activity continues to surge across the western US, it is increasingly important that we understand and quantify the environmental drivers of fire and how they vary across ecosystems. At daily to annual timescales, weather, fuels, and topography are known to influence characteristics such as area burned and fire severity. An understudied facet, however, concerns how these factors inhibit fire spread and thereby contribute to the formation of fire boundaries. We evaluated how weather, fuels, and topography impeded fire spread in four large study areas in the western US,...

Limber pine Pinus flexilis James populations in the southern Rocky Mountains are threatened by the combined impacts of mountain pine beetles and white pine blister rust. To develop restoration planting methods, six P. flexilis seedling planting trial sites were installed along a geographic gradient from southern Wyoming to southern Colorado. Experimental treatments included: high or low overstory canopy density from existing trees, presence/absence of a nurse object, and presence/absence of hydrogel. Of the P. flexilis seedlings planted, 72% were alive after four growing seasons. There...

A new ecologically-based approach to risk abatement has emerged that can aid land managers in grappling with escalating impacts of large-scale wildfire and invasive annual grasses in sagebrush ecosystems, particularly in the Great Basin. Specifically, ecosystem resilience and resistance (R&R) concepts have been more fully operationalized from regional to site scales to help reduce fire and invasive species risks in priority habitats for sagebrush-dependent species, like the greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus). Resilience refers to the ability of ecosystems to reorganize after...

Dalmatian toadflax, Linaria dalmatica (L.) Mill., and yellow toadflax, Linaria vulgaris Mill., are exotic weeds of rangeland, grassland, forests, and cropland. Both Dalmatian and yellow toadflax are short-lived perennial forbs that are easily recognized by their yellow snapdragon- like flowers (Figure 1a, 1b). Both species propagate by seed and vegetatively from shoots that arise either from lateral rhizomes (Dalmatian toadflax) or from buds developing on their roots (yellow toadflax). Dalmatian toadflax is native to southeastern Europe while yellow toadflax is considered to be native to...

Forest management today often seeks to restore ecological integrity and enhance human well-being by increasing forest complexity, resilience, and functionality. However, effective and financially expedient monitoring of forest complexity is challenging. In this study, we developed a practical and inexpensive technique to measure horizontal forest complexity. This monitoring method uses intuitively understandable data (imagery) and facilitates stakeholder participation in the adaptive management process within collaborative projects. We used this technique to determine if current restoration...

Landscape genetics has advanced the field of evolutionary ecology by providing a direct focus on relationships between landscape patterns and population processes, such as gene flow, selection, and genetic drift. This chapter discusses the current and emerging challenges and opportunities, which focus and facilitate future progress in the field. It presents ten conclusions drawn about the current state-of-the-art in landscape genetics. Landscape genomics is one way to fully grasp the various influences that landscape can have on neutral and adaptive genetic variation. A major challenge in...

Landscape genetic studies have focused on terrestrial animals more than any other taxonomic group. This chapter focuses on applications of landscape genetics for understanding connectivity of terrestrial animal populations. It starts with a general introduction covering unique characteristics and challenges of the terrestrial study system. This is followed by an overview of common research questions addressed in terrestrial animals using neutral markers in landscape genetics. These common research questions include detecting and defining barriers, identifying corridors, examining source-sin...

Submerged and emergent wetland plant communities are evaluated for their response to global climate change (GCC), focusing on seagrasses, submerged freshwater plants, tidal marsh plants, freshwater marsh plants and mangroves. Similarities and differences are assessed in plant community responses to temperature increase, CO2increase, greater UV-B exposure, sea level rise and other expected environmental alterations associated with GCC. Responses to most climate change variables are more similar within submerged plant communities, marine or freshwater, than between submerged vs. emergent...