Treesearch

The response of soil organic matter (OM) decomposition to increasing temperature is a critical aspect of ecosystem responses to global change. The impacts of climate warming on decomposition dynamics have not been resolved due to apparently contradictory results from field and lab experiments, most of which has focused on labile carbon with short turnover times. But the majority of total soil carbon stocks are comprised of organic carbon with turnover times of decades to centuries. Understanding the response of these carbon pools to climate change is essential for forecasting longer-term...

Although the U.S. Wilderness Act of 1964 legally designated only one type of wilderness, the full array of wilderness values might be better protected by setting aside several important and different types of wilderness. Wilderness serves many different needs, having multiple and varied values and purposes (Cordell et al. 2005). Although many assume that these values and purposes are congruent and that all can be provided in optimal measure in one type of wilderness, this is not the case. Wilderness values such as freedom and solitude are often in conflict (Seekamp and Cole 2009), as are...

Place mapping is emerging as a way to understand the spatial components of people's relationships with particular locations and how these relate to support for management proposals. But despite the spatial focus of place mapping, scale is rarely explicitly examined in such exercises. This is particularly problematic since scalar definitions and configurations have implications for research results. In this study, we examine the relationship between place meanings and views on fire and fuels management through in-depth interviews and computer-based mapping with forest landowners. While...

This study examines visitor attitudes across the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness regarding the effects of natural disturbances on visitor planning and wilderness conditions. Visitors were intercepted at entry points and permit distribution locations during 2007. Results suggest that respondents were aware of recent wind and fire disturbances. Few respondents reported that these events had affected trip plans. Evidence of natural disturbances was evaluated as desirable or indifferent conditions in wilderness. Further investigation of these events related to travel patterns and...

Iconic wildlife species such as grizzly bears, wolves, lynx, and wolverines are often associated with wilderness. Wilderness may provide some of the last, and best, remaining places for such species because wilderness can offer long-term legislated protection, relatively large areas, and remoteness (Mattson 1997). Indeed, the word wilderness in its original form literally means "place of wild beasts" (Nash 1982). Despite this natural fit between wilderness and wildlife, simply drawing a boundary around an area such as wilderness does not assure the protection and persistence of wildlife...

A significant research body on recreation constraints exists, but wilderness constraints research is limited. Like other recreationists, wilderness visitors likely experience a number of constraints, factors that limit leisure preference formation or participation and enjoyment. This project explored how visitors' experiences with and in wilderness are constrained, and examined responses to those constraints. A hermeneutic approach (Patterson and Williams 2002) provided the stories of wilderness visitors' experiences and constraints to experiences with and in wilderness. A purposive sample...

We examined the scale-dependent relationship between spatial fire likelihood or burn probability (BP) and some key environmental controls in the southern Sierra Nevada, California, USA. Continuous BP estimates were generated using a fire simulation model. The correspondence between BP (dependent variable) and elevation, ignition density, fuels and aspect was evaluated at incrementally increasing spatial scales to assess the importance of these explanatory variables in explaining BP. Results indicate the statistical relationship between BP and explanatory variables fluctuates across spatial...

In the boreal forest of North America, as in any fire-prone biome, three environmental factors must coincide for a wildfire to occur: an ignition source, flammable vegetation, and weather that is conducive to fire. Despite recent advances, the relative importance of these factors remains the subject of some debate. The aim of this study was to develop models that identify the environmental controls on spatial patterns in area burned for the period 1980-2005 at several spatial scales in the Canadian boreal forest. Boosted regression tree models were built to relate high-resolution data for...

In a world where populations and resource demands continue to grow, there is a long history of concern about the "capacity" of the environment to support human uses, including timber, rangelands, fish and wildlife, and recreation. In the context of recreation, work on visitor capacities has evolved considerably since the late 1960s as a result of environmental planning, court proceedings, recreation management practice, and recreation research. This paper documents the "state-of-knowledge" understanding of capacity among our group of long-term professionals, who represent a wide range of...

The "ecosystem services" concept has emerged as a popular area of discussion among policy makers and conservation advocates. Ecosystem services are the benefits people derive from nature and include the provision of water, food, wood, and fiber; regulation of climate, flood, drought, and disease; maintenance of biodiversity; and recreational, aesthetic, spiritual, and cultural values. Ecosystem services brings together traditionally disparate fields of ecology, economics, and geography to address how the services are generated, how they flow across the landscape, who benefits from them,...