Treesearch

Although many studies confirm that competition and disturbance play important roles in determining tree diversity locally, climatic constraints become increasingly important at broader geographic scales. We evaluate the extent that annual actual evapotranspiration (AET) might account for observed variation in tree diversity across the entire eastern U.S. and within 24 Level III ecoregions designated by the Environmental Protection Agency. To estimate tree diversity, we extracted data from a total of 87,137 Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) survey plots. For each 1000 km2 cell with ≥15...

Landscape-scale disturbance events, including ecological restoration and fuel reduction activities, can modify habitat and affect relationships between species and their environment. To reduce the risk of uncharacteristic stand-replacing fires in the southwestern United States, land managers are implementing restoration and fuels treatments (e.g., mechanical thinning, prescribed fire) in progressively larger stands of dry, lower elevation ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forest. We used a Before-After/Control-Impact experimental design to quantify the multi-scale response of avifauna to...

Bull trout is a threatened species native to the Pacific Northwest that has been selected as Management Indicator Species on several national forests. Scientifically defensible procedures for monitoring bull trout populations are necessary that can be applied to the extensive and remote lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service. Distributional monitoring focuses primarily on temporal patterns of occurrence within suitable habitat patches, has minimal field sampling requirements, and can provide inference regarding large areas relevant to land management. This document describes: (1) using a...

The afforestation of agricultural lands was carried out under different site and ecological conditions, including lower and medium elevated localities. The present study documents the rapidity of accumulation of surface layers and their characteristics in stands of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris), Norway spruce (Picea abies), birch (Betula verrucosa) and Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) in the territory of the Training Forest Enterprise in Kostelec nad Cernymi lesy, at the altitude 430 m a.s.l., on the site of nutrient-poor gleyed soils. The plots were compared with the neighbouring...

Changes in forest vegetation as a result of fire exclusion, sheep and cattle grazing, and large-tree logging have been well documented for western forests (Agee 1998; Arno et al. 1997; Covington and Moore 1994; Everett et al. 2000; Harrod et al. 1999; Hessburg and Agee 2003; Hessburg et al. 2000, 2005). These changes in forest structure and composition have increased the hazard of large, highseverity wildfires (Agee 1994, Peterson et al. 2005, Scott and Reinhardt 2001, Weatherspoon and Skinner 1996), which lead to degraded water quality and costly losses of wildlife habitat, wood products,...

Carbon export from high elevation ecosystems is a critical component of the global carbon cycle. Ecosystems in northern latitudes have become the focus of much research due to their potential as large sinks of carbon in the atmosphere. However, there exists limited understanding of the controls of carbon export from complex mountain catchments due to strong spatial and temporal hydrologic variability, and large heterogeneity in landscape structure. The research presented in this dissertation investigates the control of hydrology and landscape structure and position on two major avenues of...

Soil respiration is tightly coupled to the hydrologic cycle (i.e., snowmelt and precipitation timing and magnitude). We examined riparian and hillslope soil respiration across a wet (2005) and a dry (2006) growing season in a subalpine catchment. When comparing the riparian zones, cumulative CO2 efflux was 33% higher, and peak efflux occurred 17 days earlier during the dry growing season. In contrast, cumulative efflux in the hillslopes was 8% lower, and peak efflux occurred 10 days earlier during the drier growing season. Our results demonstrate that soil respiration was more sensitive to...

We investigated the spatial and temporal variability of soil CO2 efflux across 62 sites of a 393-ha complex watershed of the northern Rocky Mountains. Growing season (83 day) cumulative soil CO2 efflux varied from ~300 to ~2000 g CO2 m-2, depending upon landscape position, with a median of 879.8 g CO2 m-2. Our findings revealed that highest soil CO2 efflux rates were observed in areas with persistently high soil moisture (riparian meadows), whereas lower soil CO2 efflux rates were observed on forested uplands (98% of watershed area). Furthermore, upslope accumulated area (UAA), a surrogate...

Damage caused by invasive forest pathogens is widely viewed as more severe, long-term, widespread, and difficult to restore than that caused by any other biological disturbance agent. In the last century, pathogens introduced into our native forests have threatened extinction of native tree species and critically degraded many different ecosystems across North America. Not only trees are threatened, but also the dependent forest flora and fauna. Invaders have severely diminished productivity, sustainability, and ecological functions of many forests. Diseases caused by invasive pathogens...

A quantitative understanding of how forests work, both before and after (prescribed and wild) fire, is essential to management. Yet acquiring the kind of broad yet detailed information needed for many management decisions can be costly, tedious, and time-consuming. After two sweeping wildfires in the Missouri River Breaks area of eastern Montana - the Indian and Germaine wildfires - some researchers wanted to see whether it was possible to characterize both pre-fire and post-fire characteristics in a relatively inexpensive and efficient way. Specifically, they wanted to know whether...