Treesearch

Background: White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) have increased during the past century in the USA. Greater deer densities may reduce tree regeneration, leading to forests that are understocked, where growing space is not filled completely by trees. Despite deer pressure, a major transition in eastern forests has resulted in increased tree densities. Methods: To reconcile conflicting trends, we applied generalized linear mixed models to compare deer densities during 1982 and then 1996 to tree stocking after about 30 years and 15 years of potential reductions of small trees by deer,...

Managing water resources is becoming increasingly difficult as demographic, economic, institutional, technological, and climate changes manifest across the U.S. and around the world (Cosgrove and Louchs 2015). These extraordinarily complex water quality and quantity challenges facing water resource management are "wicked problems" (Gold et al. 2013). Wicked problems - those that are difficult to resolve because of complexity, uncertainty, and divergence and fragmentation in viewpoints, values, and intentions (Rittel and Webber 1973; Head 2008) - arise in numerous resource management...

Dimethoxymethane/methanol was creatively used as matching-solvents for one-pot synergistic converting bamboo into value-added chemicals. C6 and C5 sugars in cellulose and hemicellulose were simultaneously transformed into methyl levulinate with higher yield (48.68%). The overall reaction pathways for directional liquefaction of biomass into methyl levulinate with matching-solvent was put forward.

This paper describes how in-depth interviews and content analysis of water-related policies and plans were used to assess good governance principles (transparency, effectiveness, equity, accountability, and appropriate scale) for Lake Wausau in central Wisconsin. The purpose of the research was to support and inform development of a lake management plan. One of the key findings was that the existing system of water governance lacked transparency. In addition, responsibility for and benefits from potential improved lake conditions were distributed unevenly and inequitably among stakeholders....

Much is known about the characteristics, attitudes, and behaviors of U.S. family forest owners and agricultural landowners independently. However, little is known about those who own both woodland and farmland. To address this knowledge gap, we analyze National Woodland Owner Survey data to better understand similarities and differences between family forest owners who also own farmland, and those who do not. We found that, in general, farmland and woodland owners (FWOs) are very similar to woodland-only family forest landowners (FFOs) in terms of ownership objectives, attitudes and forest...

During that period of time, these four types of fire represented 36 percent of all wildfires and 9 percent of all acres burned in Florida (fig.1). Prestemon and others (2010) found that by reducing accidently ignited wildfires, Florida and its residents avoided the associated costs of firefighting and economic losses, such as property damage, timber loss, large-scale evacuations, and medical expenditures (for example, from issues associated with smoke inhalation.

Soils are subject to a variety of stressors including human land use, air pollution and climate change. A challenge for detecting temporal change is disentangling heterogeneity at multiple spatial scales. Forty permanent plots were sampled across the US White Mountain National Forest (WMNF) in 2001 or 2002 and resampled in 2014. Paired t tests detected significant increases in carbon and base cations concentrations and a decrease in Al in the Oa horizon while base cations decreased and Al increased in some mineral horizons. A subset of six plots were intensively resampled in 2015. Pooled...

Headwater streams in the White Mountains, NH, United States have been shown to have downstream gradients of increasing pH and concentrations of base cations coupled with decreasing concentrations of aluminum. A two-stage acid neutralization model involving shallow soil exchange processes in headwaters coupled with deeper mineral weathering downstream had been proposed to explain these gradients. We conducted synoptic sampling of three headwater catchments in this region that showed variations in this longitudinal pattern, ranging from streams that remain acidic throughout their length to...

Since 2011, qualitative studies examining adoption of conservation practices and programs (CPPs) have burgeoned. This article presents a systematic review of all U.S.-based qualitative investigations into CPP adoption since 1996. We found three themes are discussed primarily as motivating adoption: farmer characteristics, environmental awareness, and trust in information sources. Four themes are discussed primarily as barriers to adoption: farm management, negative perceptions of a conservation practice, perceptions that adoption is a risk, and land tenure. Four themes were discussed as...

Natural wood has certain advantages such as good processability and high specific strength and thus has been used for millennium as a structural material. But the mechanical performance and water resistance, particularly for fast-growing species, are unsatisfactory for high-end applications. In this study, the “new-type” scrimber technology was introduced to radiata pine (Pinus radiata D. Don) scrimbers.The structure, mechanical properties, and dimensional stability of the scrimber panels were investigated. Results showed that OWFMs as basic units of scrimber had been very even in size and...