Treesearch

Habitat selection and movement are key mechanisms by which animals can respond to and potentially cope with highly variable environmental conditions. Optimal responses likely vary, however, depending on the severity and scope of conditions. We tested this hypothesis using a facultative migrant species, the Great Gray Owl (Strix nebulosa), which exhibits high inter-and intra-individual variation in the timing, direction, and distance of winter movements. Specifically, we evaluated whether episodic, spatiotemporally variable “locked-pasture” snow conditions, which restrict access to subnivean...

Pinyon ips (Ips confusus LeConte) is a native bark beetle that can cause extensive mortality of pinyon pines (Pinus spp.) in the western United States, particularly during hot droughts that stress trees. Although pinyon ips is assumed to be multivoltine, with multiple generations per year, research is lacking regarding temperature-dependent phenology and field-based evidence of annual generations. At sites in Arizona and New Mexico, across two years, we monitored pinyon ips lifecycle timing using emergence cages on trees and passive traps. These data and associated field-based temperatures...

As changes in climate accelerate, mature forests experience different local conditions than those that they were established under and are likely adapted to. Tree regeneration is highly constrained by climatic conditions and as these conditions continue to change, it is important to understand how reforestation choices will affect future forests. Provenance studies have been used for more than a century to understand the influence of genetics and the environment on traits, and can now additionally provide information on provenance performance under the rapidly changing climate. Here we...

habitat loss and encroachment by generalist competitors. Ecological theory predicts that niche differentiation through dietary specialisation can facilitate coexistence with generalist competitors. We quantified dietary overlap between a high-elevation specialist, the Sierra Nevada red fox (SNRF; Vulpes vulpes necator) and a widespread generalist, the coyote (Canis latrans), as well as other sympatric carnivores. We were especially interested in dietary items that were themselves specialised to alpine habitats, as we expected them to be most critical to SNRF. To characterise diet, we used...

Wildfires are growing in destructive power, and accurately predicting the spread and intensity of wildland fire is essential for managing ecological and societal impacts. No current operational models used for fire behavior prediction resolve critical fire-atmospheric coupling or nonlocal influences of the fire environment, rendering them inadequate in accounting for the range of wildland fire behavior scenarios under increasingly novel fuel and climate conditions. Here, we present a new perspective on a dominant fire-atmospheric feedback mechanism, which we term wildland fire entrainment...

Increasing wildfire activity in mesic, temperate Pacific Northwest forests west of the Cascade Range crest has stimulated interest in understanding whether alternative forest management practices could reduce risk of stand-replacing fire. To explore how management can enhance fire resistance in these forests and assess tradeoffs among resistance enhancement, carbon sequestration and storage, and economic returns, we conducted 40-year simulations of stand development with BioSum, a framework for conducting landscape analysis with the Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS), utilizing a statistical...

Socio-ecological resilience recognizes that humans and nature are inextricably connected, and humans play an increasingly central and active role in determining the fate of ecosystem resilience. For decades, managers and scientists have sought effective approaches for managing forest composition, structure, and processes to improve resilience properties. Management actions that encompass large landscapes tend to engage a broad spectrum of stakeholders and perspectives about resilience. Translating resilience concepts into concrete and measurable objectives and outcomes and effectively...

This study reported laser induced graphene (LIG) fabricated from the distillation residues of bio-oil resulting from switchgrass pyrolysis. The bio-oil distillation residues as a precursor can significantly boost the efficiency of LIG synthesis by generating self-detachable and standalone LIG layers via direct laser writing toward high-throughput roll-to-roll manufacturing. For on-chip applications, the produced LIG had high specific surface area (375.30 m2/g) and excellent electrical conductivity, which can be facilely transferred onto adhesive substrates with fully preserved structural...