Treesearch

Climate change significantly affects hydrological processes in forest ecosystems, particularly in sensitive coastal areas such as the Croatan National Forest (CNF) in North Carolina. Accurate projections of future water yield are essential for managing agriculture, forestry, and natural ecosystems. This study investigates the potential impacts of climate change on water yield using a combination of statistical downscaling and machine learning. Two downscaling methods, a Statistical DownScaling Model (SDSM) and Multivariate Adaptive Constructed Analogs (MACA), were evaluated, with the SDSM...

Decades of literature on forest treatment – peakflow relations have generated considerable disagreements and turned the topic into one regarded as enigmatic. Factors affecting peakflows are multiple and chancy and, hence, can only be investigated via a probabilistic approach. We analyze peakflow data using the peakflow frequency distribution framework in two pairs of control-treatment watersheds in the rain environment of an experimental forest in North Carolina. We demonstrate how a range of forest treatments can change the magnitude and frequency of all peakflows on record and how such...

This study used dense time-series satellite imagery, field data and historical streamflow records in a paired catchment approach to 1) estimate burn severity across a large ecoregion; 2) analyze vegetation recovery and 3) evaluate the effects of forest disturbance on annual water yield. While wildfire is an important driver of annual forest disturbance in Western United States, forest disturbance due to fire is infrequent in the Eastern United States. Changes in wildfire frequency and intensity amid climate variability are anticipated to increasingly impact forest ecosystems in regions...

Oak (Quercus) dominance in undisturbed eastern hardwood forests is declining as shade-tolerant species (e.g., red maple; Acer rubrum) gradually replace them (termed “mesophication”), especially on mesic sites. In contrast, compositional change can be accelerated after regeneration harvests as regeneration responds to overstory removal. We evaluated the tree and sapling strata over 17 years in mesic, mature cove hardwood (CHM) and subxeric upland hardwood (UHM) forests, and young cove hardwood and upland hardwood stands created by shelterwood-with-reserves harvests (CHSW and UHSW) to assess...

Prolonged inundations are altering coastal forest ecosystems of the southeastern US, causing extensive tree die-offs and the development of ghost forests. This hydrological stressor also alters carbon fluxes, threatening the stability of coastal carbon sinks. This study was conducted to investigate the interactions between hydrological drivers and ecosystem responses by analyzing daily eddy covariance flux data from a wetland forest in North Carolina, USA, spanning 2009–2019. We analyzed temporal patterns of net ecosystem exchange (NEE), gross primary productivity (GPP), and ecosystem...

Creation of small canopy gaps around understory eastern hemlocks (Tsuga canadensis (L.) Carrière) can increase resilience to hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae Annand), an invasive insect pest in eastern North America. In this study, the diversity and community composition of bees were quantified by monitoring pan traps in canopy gaps (mean size 0.06 ha, created 2.5—3 yrs earlier) and paired control plots (mature, intact forest) in western North Carolina and Virginia. Mean bee richness and abundance were significantly greater in silvicultural gaps. There were significant compositional...

Changing climate conditions, wildfires, and tree harvests could affect the area of mature and old-growth forests in the United States. We used a stochastic modeling system to project future areal extents of mature and old-growth forests on National Forest System (NFS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land across the conterminous United States, and to assess threats to these forests under a variety of socioeconomic and climate futures, to 2070. The area of old-growth forest is expected to increase 19-27% on NFS and BLM lands while mature forest trends (0.8% decrease to 2.5% increase)...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program provides this resource update yearly as an overview of forest resources in Alabama. These estimates are derived from field data collected across a systematic network of fixed-radius forest monitoring plots located on both public and private land. New updates are provided annually as a subset of plots within the State are remeasured. Each year, field crews visit and measure a subset of all FIA plots across the entire State (the size of the subset varies by State and year). Combining all...

Terrestrial and marine ecosystems constitute the primary components of the Earth’s biosphere, yet their photosynthetic productions are typically studied separately, which limits understanding of planetary carbon uptake and biosphere health. Here, using multiple satellite-derived products, we identify contrasting net primary production (NPP) trends between land and ocean, probably reflecting their differential sensitivity to climate warming, especially in tropical regions. Planetary NPP shows an overall increase of 0.11 ± 0.13 PgC yr−1 (P = 0.05) from 2003 to 2021, driven by a significant...

Forests generate numerous services upon which society depends. In the United States, much of this comes from private owners including small-scale family forest owners, who may face barriers to participating in timber and ecosystem services markets, and economic drivers that induce them to convert forests to other land uses. This study focuses on state-administered financial payment programs for private forest landowners, which provide payments in exchange for doing something socially desirable, or refraining from doing something socially undesirable related to the management or use of...