Treesearch

Dispersal among breeding sites in territorial animals (i.e. breeding dispersal) is driven by numerous selection pressures, including competition and spatiotemporal variation in habitat quality. The scale and trend of dispersal movements over time may signal changing conditions within the population or on the landscape. We examined 2,158 breeding dispersal events from 694 male and 608 female individually marked Northern Spotted Owls (Strix occidentalis caurina) monitored over 28 yr on 7 study areas to assess the relative importance of individual (sex, experience), reproductive (annual...

The life-and-death stakes of predator–prey encounters justify the high price of many anti-predator behaviors. In adopting these behaviors, prey incur substantial non-consumptive costs that can have population-level consequences. Because prey knowledge of risk is imperfect, individuals may even adopt these costly behaviors in the absence of a real threat. For example, rather than only avoid hunters, many species categorically avoid all anthropogenic activity. Although hunting seasons only increase risk for specific individuals (e.g., males), non-target individuals may still perceive human...

Keys to Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus uropha-sianus) management are maintenance of expansive stands of sagebrush (Artemisia species [spp.]), especially varieties of big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) with abundant forbs in the understory, particularly during spring; undisturbed and somewhat open sites for leks; and healthy perennial grass and forb stands intermixed with sagebrush for brood rearing. Within suitable habitats, areas should have 15–25 percent canopy cover of sagebrush 30–80 centimeters (cm) tall for nesting and 10–25 percent canopy cover 40–80 cm tall for brood rearing...

We studied the mating behavior and reproductive biology of three members of the genus Agrilus: the bronze birch borer, Agrilus anxius Gory; the twolined chestnut borer, Agrilus bilineatus (Weber); and the emerald ash borer, Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire. All three species share a highly stereotyped mating behavior. However, the copulation duration of A. planipennis was 90% longer than that of its two congeners. Female reproductive tracts of the three species were anatomically similar, as were the spermatophores. Within the spermatophores, sperm were single in A. anxius and A. bilineatus,...

The DendroEcological Network (DEN; https://www.uvm.edu/femc/dendro) is an open-source repository of high quality dendrochronological and associated ecological data. The DEN was launched in 2018 with the goal of providing a database and online infrastructure to archive these data, and make those data easy to find, explore, and aggregate across disparate research projects. The DEN provides a mechanism to gather together a range of studies conducted across space and time into a larger data network. This network has the potential to expand the scale of inquiry through synthesis and aggregate...

Biomass mapping is used in variety of applications including carbon assessments, emission inventories, and wildland fire and fuel planning. Single values are often applied to individual pixels to represent biomass of classified vegetation, but each biomass estimate has associated uncertainty that is generally not acknowledged nor quantified. In this study, we developed a geospatial database of wildland fuel biomass values to characterize the inherent variability within and across major vegetation types of the United States and Canada. For vegetation types that had sufficient quantification...

1. The number and rate of non‐native plant invasions in forests have been steadily increasing over the last century with profound consequences for the composition, structure and functioning of these ecosystems. While multiple regional, landscape and local environmental factors are known to drive the spread of non‐native invasive plant species (NNIPS) into forests, such factors have rarely been analysed within a unified analytical framework allowing for the assessment of their relative importance, possible non‐linear behaviour and interactions. Obtaining such knowledge would improve the...

Timber genus identification based on the anatomical features of wood is well established in botany. However, species-level wood identification is not always possible based on traditional wood morphology techniques alone. To compensate for the deficiencies of traditional methods, direct analysis in real time coupled to Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (DART-FTICR-MS) was used to obtain the mass spectral fingerprints of different timber species. Using heartwood samples of two morphologically similar species, Pterocarpus santalinus and Pterocarpus tinctorius,...

The principal findings of the first forest inventory for the full State of Texas and the ninth inventory for east Texas are presented. Trends between the 2008 and 2013 surveys for east Texas are examined, along with current data for the entire State. Topics described include forest area, volume, biomass, number of trees, growth, mortality, removals, forest health, silvicultural treatments, invasive species, ownership, and crown characteristics.

Roundwood is increasingly sourced from highly productive plantations that yield excellent growth. Information is needed on the wood properties from plantations because these trees will contain a higher proportion of low stiffness corewood compared to naturally regenerated trees of the same size. The objective of this study was to examine the within-tree variation in stiffness for Douglas-fir and loblolly pine grown in the United States through assessment of specific gravity (SG) and ultrasonic velocity (USV). Approximately 500 pith-to-bark radial strips collected from multiple height...