Treesearch

Climate change velocity is a vector depiction of the rate of climate displacement used for assessing climate change impacts. Interpreting velocity requires an assumption that climate trajectory length is proportional to climate change exposure; longer paths suggest greater exposure. However, distance is an imperfect measure of exposure because it does not quantify the extent to which trajectories traverse areas of dissimilar climate. Here we calculate velocity and minimum cumulative exposure (MCE) in degrees Celsius along climate trajectories for North America. We find that velocity is...

We propose a spatially-explicit approach for modeling genetic variation across space and illustrate how this approach can be used to optimize spatial prediction and sampling design for landscape genetic data. We propose a multinomial data model for categorical microsatellite allele data commonly used in landscape genetic studies, and introduce a latent spatial random effect to allow for spatial correlation between genetic observations. We illustrate how modern dimension reduction approaches to spatial statistics can allow for efficient computation in landscape genetic statistical models...

Many North American river otter (Lontra canadensis) populations are threatened or recovering but are difficult to study because they occur at low densities, it is difficult to visually identify individuals, and they inhabit aquatic environments that accelerate degradation of biological samples. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) can improve our ability to monitor demographic and genetic parameters of difficult to study species. We used restriction site associated DNA (RAD) sequencing to discover 20,772 SNPs present in Montana, USA, river otter populations, including 14,512 loci that...

The hazards-of-place model posits that vulnerability to environmental hazards depends on both biophysical and social factors. Biophysical factors determine where wildfire potential is elevated, whereas social factors determine where and how people are affected by wildfire. We evaluated place vulnerability to wildfire hazards in the coterminous US. We developed a social vulnerability index using principal component analysis and evaluated it against existing measures of wildfire potential and wildland-urban interface designations. We created maps showing the coincidence of social vulnerabilit...

Restoration of pine forests has become a priority for managers who are beginning to embrace ideas of highly heterogeneous forest structures that potentially encourages high levels of regeneration. This study utilizes stem-mapped stands to assess how simulated regeneration timing and magnitude influence longevity of reduced fire behavior by linking growth and yield model outputs to a crown fire prediction model. Treatment longevity was assessed as return time to within 10% of pre-treatment predicted wind speeds for the onset of passive (Torching) and active (Crowning) crown fire behavior....

A young man or woman joins the military. He or she goes to war. Soldiers are trained and expected to follow orders and support the war effort. Likewise, military families are expected to support the military and, therefore, also support the war. As C. Wright Mills put it, “In the military world, debate is no more at a premium than persuasion: one obeys and one commands.” But what happens when military veterans and their families turn toward antiwar political activism?

There is growing interest in the implications of military service for the political attitudes, behaviors, and activism of military veterans. This article considers how promission and antiwar veterans’ narrate their experiences of becoming political activists and the mechanisms that effect that transition. The research draws on narratives from 40 members of the antiwar organization Iraq Veterans against the War and 28 members of the promission organization Vets for Freedom. Using ‘‘exemplars’’ from opposing political groups, the article reveals the shared process of politicization for both...

Total on-site energy requirements for wood product manufacturing are generally not well understood or publicly available, particularly at subregional scales, such as the state level. This article uses a mail survey of softwood sawmills in Montana to develop a profile of all on-site energy consumption. Energy use is delineated by fuel type on a production basis for both renewable and nonrenewable sources for production year 2009. Survey respondents represented 92 percent of total Montana softwood lumber production of 449 million board feet, which is 4 percent of western US production and 2...

Our explanation of the phenomenon differs from other researchers. Inasmuch as reproductive tissue contains little or no chlorophyll, we suggest that the flowers emerge from areas of the stems that receive abundant PAR, not because the reproductive tissue itself requires exposure to PAR. Because the translocation of photosynthates in cacti is difficult and energetically expensive, positioning of reproductive tissue in zones of the stems with high photosynthetic capacity is more energetically efficient. In addition, the Atacama Desert is not particularly warm. Exposure of flowers to solar...

Gene flow between Dalmatian toadflax (DT) and yellow toadflax (YT), both aggressive invaders throughout the Intermountain West, is creating hybrid populations potentially more invasive than either parent species. To determine the direction of gene flow in these hybrid populations, species-diagnostic cytoplasmic markers were developed. Markers were based on polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCRRFLP) polymorphisms in the trnT-D chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) region digested with Alu1, and single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the matK and trnL-F chloroplast-barc...