Treesearch

Local plant community assembly is influenced by a series of filters that affect the recruitment and establishment of species. These filters include regional factors that limit seeds of any given species from reaching a local site as well as local interactions such as post-dispersal seed predation and disturbance, which dictate what species actually establish. How these filters interact to influence recruitment into local assemblages, and whether they act differentially on individual species based on traits such as seed size or their provenance (i.e. native vs. exotic), has not been well...

The U.S. Forest Service includes three main branches: National Forest Systems, Research and Development, and State and Private Forestry. Herein, we focus on National Forest Systems and Research and Development. National Forest Systems is the management branch of the agency, and its charge is to administer national forests and grasslands throughout the United States. A number of laws, statutes, and policies guide and direct how forests should be managed, including provisions for considering and applying the best available science when planning and executing management actions. The Research...

The flow of woody biomass to end users is determined by economic factors, especially the amount available across a landscape and delivery costs of bioenergy facilities. The objective of this study develop methodology to quantify landscape-level stocks and potential biomass flows using the currently available spatial database road network analysis tool. We applied this methodology to a landscape of approximately 15 million acres around city Roseburg in southwestern Oregon. The analysis allows us produce isocost contour maps that display supply areas delineated by specific cost thresholds,...

Forest and mill residues are a promising source of biomass feedstock for the production of bioenergy, biofuels and bioproducts. However, high costs of transportation and handling of feedstock often make utilization of forest residues, such as logging slash, financially unviable. As a result, these materials are often considered waste and left on site to decompose or pile-burned to reduce wildfire risk and open space for regeneration. As an alternative, in-wood processing of forest biomass with a small scale, mobile biomass conversion unit that can be deployed near the source of feedstock...

Given the projected threat that climate change poses to biodiversity, the need for proactive response efforts is clear. However, integrating uncertain climate change information into conservation planning is challenging, and more explicit guidance is needed. To this end, this article provides a specific example of how a risk-based approach can be used to incorporate a species' response to climate into conservation decisions. This is shown by taking advantage of species' response (i.e., impact) models that have been developed for a well-studied bird species of conservation concern. Specifica...

In 2012, the nation experienced one of the largest wildland fire seasons in US history. More than 9 million acres burned, overwhelming fire-suppression budgets, burning homes and other structures, and taking the lives of both firefighters and civilians around the country. In Montana alone, 1.1 million acres burned, resulting in the largest wildfire year since 1910. As changing climate, insect infestations, exurban development, and other external stresses impact the nation's forests and other wildlands, many anticipate we could experience even longer and more severe fire seasons, and that...

Although outcomes of hybridization are highly variable, it is now considered to play an important role in evolution, speciation, and invasion. Hybridization has recently been confirmed between populations of yellow (or common) toadflax (Linaria vulgaris) and Dalmatian toadflax (Linaria dalmatica) in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States. The presence of hybrid toadflax populations on public lands is of concern, as both parents are aggressive invaders already listed as noxious weeds in multiple western states. A common garden experiment was designed to measure differences in...

Ecological niche models are commonly used to identify regions at risk of species invasions. Relying on climate alone may limit a model's success when additional variables contribute to invasion. While a climate-based model may predict the future spread of an invasive plant, we hypothesized that a model that combined climate with human influences would most successfully explain its present distribution.Weused the ecological niche model MaxEnt to test our hypothesis with Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica), a common invasive horticultural plant in the United States.We first predicted...

The US Forest Service initiated its catchment research program in 1909 with the first paired catchment study at Wagon Wheel Gap, Colorado, USA. It has since developed the Experimental Forests and Ranges Network, with over 80 long-term research study sites located across the contiguous USA, Alaska, Hawaii, and the Caribbean. This network provides a unique, powerful continental research platform for study of complex environmental and societal problems at the local, regional and landscape scale. The study of water and ecosystems through paired catchment studies has been an integral component...

Experimental watershed studies can provide answers to new challenges facing land managers and society including the impacts of fires and climate change on upstream and regional hydrology. The Cascabel Watersheds long-term prescribed fire study provides a unique opportunity to monitor climate change because of its location in an oak savanna situated between deserts or grasslands and the higher elevation oak-pine woodlands of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. Continuing studies on the Cascabel Watersheds in southwestern New Mexico are evaluating the effects of cool-seaso...