Treesearch

The goal of our study was to determine how the development of golf courses in the desert environment impacts the native bird community, and particularly to see whether golf courses have the potential of acting as surrogate riparian habitats for Southwestern birds. We compared the avian communities on five golf courses in the Albuquerque, New Mexico area (four traditional and one "naturalistic") to those of five paired natural areas that served as reference sites. Birds were surveyed using points counts during the breeding season over two years.

The Fuel Treatment Evaluator (FTE 3.0) is a web-based tool that can be used to explore the impacts of alternative thinning intensities for any forest area in the United States. This paper will explain the Stand Density Index-based prescription engine used in uneven-aged scenarios in the FTE 3.0 program and present examples of uneven-aged fuels treatment activity prescriptions that can be developed.

We investigated the nest building behavior of Paraphidippus aurantia (Lucas 1833) (Sal-ticidae) following the experimental destruction of their nests. We located 61 nests on 52 pine saplings (43 saplings with one nest, nine with two nests) and carefully displaced all spiders and destroyed their nests. On saplings with two spiders, we removed one spider. Of the 52 nests in which the resident spider was left in place, 29 new nests were constructed in the identical location as the nests we removed. Of the 9 nests in which the resident spider was removed, no new nests were constructed. There...

To understand omnivore function in food webs, we must know the contributions of resources from different trophic levels and how resource use changes through space and time. We investigated the spatial and temporal dynamics of pine (Pinus ponderosa) food webs that included the omnivorous ant, Formica podzolica, using direct observation and stable isotopes. Formica podzolica is a predator of herbivorous and predatory arthropods, and a mutualist with some aphids. Observations in 2001 of foragers showed that in early summer (June) ants fed upon equal parts non-mutualist herbivores (31% prey...

In multiuse forests the majority of nonpoint source pollution is typically sediment. Best management practices (BMPs) are implemented to reduce or prevent this pollutant, however little research has been done to quantify the effectiveness of individual types of BMPs. The overall goal of this project was to evaluate the effectiveness of three BMPs implemented to reduce sediment in Trout Creek: cattle fences, off-road vehicle signs, and road culverts. The effectiveness of the combined BMPs in the land use area was evaluated by comparing water quality and Wolman pebble counts with an upstream...

Effective management and restoration of ponderosa pine forests requires an understanding of the heterogeneity of contemporary and historical stand structures. We assessed spatial and temporal patterns of tree establishment, mortality and size structure over a 30-year period in an old-growth ponderosa pine stand in the mid-montane zone of the Colorado Front Range. We analyzed spatial patterns and spatial associations using Ripley's K(t) and K12(t) and then modeled the patterns using point process models. Forest age structure was estimated by aging a sub-sample of trees in the stand. Climate...

The purpose of this technical guide is to provide specific direction and guidance for conducting Terrestrial Ecological Unit Inventory (TEUI) at the landscape and land-unit scales. TEUI seeks to classify ecological types and map terrestrial ecological units (TEUs) to a consistent standard throughout National Forest System lands. The objectives, policies, and responsibilities for TEUI are contained in Forest Service Manual (FSM) 1940. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service policy dictates that ecological units be used in natural resource inventory, monitoring, and evaluation;...

Anthropogenic habitat loss and fragmentation have been implicated as among the key drivers of the burgeoning global biodiversity crisis. In response, there is a growing mandate among natural resource managers to evaluate the impacts of proposed management actions on the extent and fragmentation of habitats. Unfortunately, few guidelines exist to help managers understand the many complex issues involved in the quantitative assessment of habitat loss and fragmentation. In our Primer, we explore habitat fragmentation as a landscape-level process in which a specific habitat is progressively...

The goal of landscape ecology is to determine where and when spatial and temporal heterogeneity matter, and how they influence processes (Turner, 1989). A fundamental issue in this effort revolves around the choices a researcher makes regarding how to depict and measure heterogeneity, specifically, how these choices influence the "patterns" that will be observed and what mechanisms may be implicated as potential causal factors. Indeed, it is well known that observed patterns and their apparent relationships with response variables often depend upon the scale that is chosen for observation...

Regeneration of ponderosa pine after fire depends on the patterns of seed availability and the environmental conditions that define safe sites for seedling establishment. A transect approach was applied in 2002 to determine the spatial distribution of regeneration from unburned to burned areas within the landscape impacted by the Jasper Fire of 2000 in the Black Hills of South Dakota (USA). Canopy conditions alone, reflecting seed availability, at the stand level were not correlated with regeneration success. However, canopy conditions in combination with ground conditions explained...