Treesearch

The shoreline in southeast Alaska is changing. In many places, the shoreline is rising as glaciers melt and the land rebounds; elsewhere, rising sea levels are submerging the current shoreline. These changes are altering coastal habitats and subsistence resources on which many rural Alaska Native communities rely in southeast Alaska.Forest Service scientists Adelaide Johnson and Linda Kruger modeled the relationships between physical shoreline features and biological communities to project future shorelines and the distribution of food resources. They also engaged high school students from...

Civic environmental stewardship groups actively take care of their local environment and are known to work in urban contexts. Research on the geographies of this urban environmental stewardship is young. Understanding where stewardship groups work and the associated organizational and neighborhood contexts advances the understanding of the environmental outcomes of stewardship efforts. We examine the organizational, socioeconomic, and environmental contexts associated with the number of stewardship groups at the Census block group and neighborhood scales for four diverse U.S. cities...

One of the desired outcomes of dam decommissioning and removal is the recovery of aquatic and riparian ecosystems. To investigate this common objective, we synthesized information from empirical studies and ecological theory into conceptual models that depict key physical and biological links driving ecological responses to removing dams. We define models for three distinct spatial domains: upstream of the former reservoir, within the reservoir, and downstream of the removed dam. Emerging from these models are response trajectories that clarify potential pathways of ecological transitions...

Limited financial resources coupled with competing social demands may require novel approaches for biodiversity conservation. Within the Bahamas archipelago, subtropical dry forest (“coppice”) provides habitat for many resident and migratory bird species including the U.S. federally endangered Kirtland’s warbler (Setophaga kirtlandii). On the islands, this migratory bird relies heavily on fruits of shrubs in early-successional coppice. Evidence indicates shrub species of particular importance in the bird’s diet may not be generally widespread, while attempts to actively manage for these...

Over the past three decades, wildfires in southwestern US ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Lawson & C. Lawson) forests have increased in size and severity. These wildfires can remove large, contiguous patches of mature forests, alter dominant plant communities and increase woody debris, potentially altering fungal community composition. Additionally, post-fire conditions may shift dominant fungal functional groups from plantsymbiotic ectomycorrhizal (EM) fungi to more decomposer saprotrophic fungi. We investigated the long-term (13 years post-wildfire) effect of fire severity on 1) fungal...

Public officials and stakeholders who want to advance watershed protection may want to consider how ballot referendum design can serve as a nudge in voting behaviors. We extend the research literature on voter preferences by using behavioral economics theory to provide new insights into voter behaviors towards watershed conservation referendums. We drew upon observations from 76 separate watershed protection referendums, conducted in the eastern U.S. from 1991 to 2013, and evaluated the wording of the ballot statement to determine their potential influence on voter support and the psycholog...

It is typically difficult to burn duff because of high fuel moisture; however, under persistent drought conditions, duff will burn readily. This study investigates the burning of a deep duff layer by the 2016 Rough Ridge Fire, in the southern United States, under drought conditions and evaluates the contribution of duff consumption to fire emissions and air pollution. Fuel loading was measured and used to evaluate the BlueSky framework. Smoke was simulated for three fuel loading and moisture scenarios of field measurement, BlueSky estimated fuel loading, and a hypothetical moist condition....

A long‐standing goal of invasion biology is to identify factors driving highly variable impacts of non‐native species. Although hypotheses exist that emphasize the role of evolutionary history (e.g., enemy release hypothesis & defense‐free space hypothesis), predicting the impact of non‐native herbivorous insects has eluded scientists for over a century. Using a census of all 58 non‐native conifer‐specialist insects in North America, we quantified the contribution of over 25 factors that could affect the impact they have on their novel hosts, including insect traits (fecundity, voltinism,...

This report presents a summary of the most recent Forest Inventory and Analysis summary of Montana’s forests based on field data collected between 2006 and 2015. The report includes descriptive highlights and tables of area, numbers of trees, biomass, volume, growth, and mortality, as well as an industry report. Most sections and tables are organized by forest type or forest-type group, tree species group, diameter class, or owner group. Results show that Montana’s forest land covers 25.9 million acres, of which 7 million acres (27 percent) are privately owned, and 15.5 million acres (60...

Understanding short- and long-term responses of forest nutrient cycling to disturbance is vital to predicting future forest function. Mortality of ash trees (Fraxinus spp.) due to emerald ash borer [EAB, Agrilus planipennis (Coleoptera: Buprestidae)] invasion is likely to alter ecosystem processes within infested stands throughout North America. In particular, the loss of Fraxinus nigra (black ash) from F. nigra-dominated swamps may significantly impact the biogeochemical cycles within these ecologically important wetlands. A multiyear manipulative study of nine F. nigra-dominated wetlands...