Treesearch

Disturbances are part of the natural dynamics of Earth's ecosystems, with these events more common now in the Anthropocene. Yet metrics for calibrating these impacts and measuring an ecosystem's capacity to recover are lacking. Highway construction in 1989 to bypass Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park in California resulted in storm‐driven infusion of exposed sediments into five streams; five nearby streams that were not intersected by the bypass construction were not affected by this event and served as controls for a natural experiment. A second large storm event in 1995 contributed...

Tropical forest degradation from logging, fire, and fragmentation not only alters carbon stocks and carbon fluxes, but also impacts physical land-surface properties such as albedo and roughness length. Such impacts are poorly quantified to date due to difficulties in accessing and maintaining observational infrastructures, and the lack of proper modeling tools for capturing the interactions among biophysical properties, ecosystem demography, canopy structure, and biogeochemical cycling in tropical forests. As a first step to address these limitations, we implemented a selective logging...

Attitudes toward urban residential trees and awareness of their ecosystem services and disservices may play an important role in management decisions of private residential green spaces with important consequences to urban sustainability. In 2011, 397 household surveys were conducted in six locations of the Río Piedras Watershed (San Juan, Puerto Rico) to evaluate residents’ attitudes toward residential and neighborhood trees and their association with household socio-demographic factors, how awareness of services and disservices relate to the spatial proximity of trees (home versus...

A new species of Laetiporus, L. lobatus, is described. The species is closely related to L. caribensis, having similar ITS sequence and morphology. L. lobatus has smaller pores than L. caribensis and also has a distinctively lobed edge on its basidiocarps. To date, this species has only been found in Costa Rica. Taxonomic issues associated with Laetiporus are briefly discussed.

Successful attainment of SDG17 is essential for implementing the other 16 SDGs, all of which depend upon secure means of implementation and durable partnerships. Funding for forests from ODA and other sources has trended upwards since 2000, providing reason for cautious optimism. However, REDD+ finance is declining. Private sector investment remains important. The idea of impact investment, which aims to solve pressing environmental and social problems while providing a return for investors, could make a significant contribution to the SDGs. However, not all sustainable development finance...

Bruce R. Johnson worked at the USDA Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) from 1969-1994. His research as a Forest Products Research Technologist covered many aspects of wood durability and preservation. He was considered an expert on marine exposure of treated wood and wood based materials. His reports on marine performance of treated wood are influential publications still commonly cited in the current literature. To those of us who worked with him at FPL, Bruce was a motivating and inspiring colleague who loved his marine research, especially in Key West, Florida. Bruce was...

Knowledge of the spatiotemporal variability of abundance and vital rates is essential to the conservation of wildlife populations. In Pacific Northwest forests, previous small mammal research has focused on estimating abundance; few studies have focused on vital rates. We used robust design temporal symmetry models and livetrapping data collected 2011–2016 at nine sites to estimate apparent annual survival, population growth rate, andrecruitment of Humboldt’s flying squirrels (Glaucomys oregonensis) and Townsend’s chipmunks (Neotamias townsendii) in a late-successional forest of the...

Research conducted in various contexts suggests that urban greenspace, primarily trees, helps to reduce crime rates and other negative aspects of place. This study contributes to that literature by examining residents’ reporting of activities they do to create, maintain, and protect the urban forest in Atlanta, Georgia (USA), and the association of this involvement with seven inventoried blight indicators and two indicators of blight identified by residents, which included lack of code enforcement. Using binary logistic regression, we found that urban forest engagement was negatively...

There is heightened interest in heirs’ property research, as a burgeoning social science literature and recent popular press articles have drawn attention to the inequities of this insecure type of property ownership. Economists and legal scholars charge that heirs’ property ownership inhibits the ability of owners to efficiently manage property. We developed a novel methodology combining LiDAR techniques, GIS mapping, and Fuel Characteristic Classification System data to compare vegetative understory accumulation and wildfire risk for heirs’ and non-heirs’ parcels in rural Macon-Bibb...

Recent decades have witnessed an escalation in the social, economic, and ecological impacts of wildfiresworldwide. Wildfire losses stem from the complex interplay of social and ecological forces at multiple scales,including global climate change, regional wildfire regimes altered by human activities, and locally managedwildland-urban interface (WUI) zones where homes increasingly encroach upon wildland vegetation. Thecoupled nature of the human-ecological system is precisely what makes reducing wildfire risks challenging. Aslosses from wildfire have accelerated, an emerging research and...