Treesearch

The 2017 Oak Symposium was convened in Knoxville, TN, to share knowledge on state-of-the-art management and research to improve sustainability of the upland oak resource in the Eastern United States. The symposium featured 33 invited speakers, an audience discussion period, a field trip, and 21 offered posters. Speakers addressed topics including the history of silviculture, fire, and research; current status of the oak resource; emerging economic markets; forest health; silviculture for climate change; artificial regeneration; wildlife habitat management; approaches to secure natural...

In this report we provide a framework for assessing cross-boundary wildfire exposure and a case study application in the western U.S. The case study provides detailed mapping and tabular decision support materials for prioritizing fuel management investments aimed at reducing wildfire exposure to communities located proximal to national forests. The work was motivated by a number of factors, including a request from U.S. Department of Agriculture Undersecretary James Hubbard (Natural Resources and Environment) to assess community wildfire risk specifically from Forest Service lands,...

In this issue, we cover new research ranging from using chili powder to improve native plant restoration, searching for a link between exotic white pine blister rust and mountain pine beetle resistance in limber pine, identifying how melting arctic sea ice could open new pathways for invasive species introductions, and research into a relatively newly established biocontrol agent for rush skeletonweed. This issue also sees the return of a popular section called “Ask the Experts”, and it addresses a question about the important topic of secondary weed invasion.

The 1351 ha Walker Fire burned in late August 2015 on the eastern Sierra Nevada, California escarpment from sagebrush steppe and pinyon pine woodlands (2150 m) through mid-elevation forests into subalpine whitebark pine (WBP; 3310 m). Fuels were particularly dry due not only to the season but as a result of a record multi-year drought (2012–2015). The fire burned into stands heavily impacted by a mountain pine beetle outbreak (MPB) during a prior drought (2007–2010). Using plot data, we report 100% mortality due to fire of understory vegetation and trees in pinyon pine, aspen, white fir,...