Treesearch

Worldwide, cities are grappling with aging infrastructure, shifting populations, and a changing climate, necessitating the use and expansion of green space in equitable and creative ways. Many are embracing a transition from the sanitary city (comprised of separate, siloed functions and grey infrastructure) to the sustainable city (comprised of regenerative, multi-functional systems, including green ihfrastructure) (Grove et al. 2015). While there is no set pathway to a sustainable future, it is clear that major transitions and transformations in built infrastructure, social infrastructure,...

In brief: Lawns and residential lands are an important and increasing land cover and land use type, and there is great concern about its ecological value and environmental performance. Long-term integrated social-ecological studies show that the socio-ecology of lawns and residential land use are much more complex than originally thought. Lawns are less intensively managed, and have produced less nitrogen pollution of water and air than originally expected by BES investigators. Long-term studies of lawns and residential lands have facilitated integration between biophysical and social...

Context: Tree canopy connectivity is important for supporting biodiversity. In urban landscapes, empirical examinations of habitat connectivity often overlook residential land, though yards and gardens often comprise a large portion of urban forests. Objectives: We quantify structural composition (patches and paths), connectivity and fragmentation of an entire tree canopy network spanning 1220 Boston’s neighborhoods to assess the configuration of the urban forest potentially affecting tree-dependent wildlife species, such as some birds and arboreal mammals. Methods: The urban landscape was...

Forest patches in developed landscapes perform ecohydrological functions that can reduce urban stormwater flows. However, urban forest patch contributions to runoff mitigation are not well understood due to a lack of performance data. In this study, we focus on the potential of urban forest patch soils to infiltrate rainfall by characterizing rates of unsaturated hydraulic conductivity (K) in 21 forest patches in Baltimore, Maryland. Soil bulk density, organic matter, soil moisture, percent of coarse fragments (≥2 mm), and texture were evaluated at the same locations to assess drivers of...

We examine how future changes in water yield and demand will affect the likelihood of water shortages and the efficacy of some of the most common methods for dealing with water shortages and meeting municipal demands, including improvements in water use efficiency and transfers of water between sectors of the economy. We find that more than 45.8 million people, primarily in the Southwest, central Great Plains, and southern California, would already be experiencing regular water shortages in the absence of groundwater mining. By 2060, that number would grow to over 136.2 million people....

Globe-LFMC is an extensive global database of live fuel moisture content (LFMC) measured from 1,383 sampling sites in 11 countries: Argentina, Australia, China, France, Italy, Senegal, Spain, South Africa, Tunisia, United Kingdom and the United States of America. The database contains 161,717 individual records based on in situ destructive samples used to measure LFMC, representing the amount of water in plant leaves per unit of dry matter. The primary goal of the database is to calibrate and validate remote sensing algorithms used to predict LFMC. However, this database is also relevant...

As trees age, they develop discernible attributes (legacy characteristics), that provide critical wildlife habitat. An arbitrary diameter cap is often used in planning to ensure old trees remain on the landscape. Although a relation exists between tree age and diameter, several environmental factors also influence growth; consequently, not all large trees are old and not all small trees are young. Personnel on the Boise National Forest questioned the efficacy of using a diameter cap of 20 in. (51 cm) as a method for conserving old trees because it prevented the ability to meet other Forest...

Outdoor recreationists are important advocates for wildlife on public lands. However, balancing potential impacts associated with increased human disturbance with the conservation of sensitive species is a central issue facing ecologists and land managers alike, especially for dispersed winter recreation due to its disproportionate impact to wildlife. We studied how dispersed winter recreation (outside developed ski areas) impacted a reintroduced meso-carnivore, Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis), at the southern periphery of the species’ range in the southern Rocky Mountains. On a voluntary...

Bias introduced by detection errors is a well-documented issue for abundance and occupancy estimates of wildlife. Detection errors bias estimates of detection and abundance or occupancy in positive and negative directions, which can produce misleading results. There have been considerable design- and model-based methods to address false-negative errors, or missed detections. However, false-positive errors, or detections of individuals that are absent but counted as present because of misidentifications or double counts, are often assumed to not occur in ecological studies. The dependent...

Drought can directly impact ecosystem function through reductions in productivity, but it can also indirectly impact people and ecosystems via disturbances such as wildfires. While often considered separately in terms of impacts, drought and wildfires are fundamentally linked by the weather conditions that drive moisture deficits in woody fuels and soil, which both increase potential for wildfire activity, as well as increase demand for water resources. Drought and wildfire danger are monitored at local, regional, and national scales, and the assessments made by various monitoring efforts...