Treesearch

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program provides this resource update yearly as an overview of forest resources in Alabama. These estimates are derived from field data collected across a systematic network of fixed-radius forest monitoring plots located on both public and private land. New updates are provided annually as a subset of plots within the State are remeasured. Each year, field crews visit and measure a subset of all FIA plots across the entire State (the size of the subset varies by State and year). Combining all...

A novel ternary deep eutectic solvent (TDES) composed of glycine hydrochloride, ethylene glycol, and p-toluenesulfonic acid was synthesized. The prepared TDES exhibited highly efficient capacity for the pretreatment of bamboo biomass (Phyllostachys edulis). About 95 % of xylan and 89 % of lignin could be removed from the bamboo feedstock after being pretreated with the TDES at 100 °C for 1 h. In addition, a nearly complete glucose yield of 98.7 % could be achieved, which was 9.4 times higher than that of the untreated bamboo. The pH value of the TDES is an important factor affecting the...

Terrestrial and marine ecosystems constitute the primary components of the Earth’s biosphere, yet their photosynthetic productions are typically studied separately, which limits understanding of planetary carbon uptake and biosphere health. Here, using multiple satellite-derived products, we identify contrasting net primary production (NPP) trends between land and ocean, probably reflecting their differential sensitivity to climate warming, especially in tropical regions. Planetary NPP shows an overall increase of 0.11 ± 0.13 PgC yr−1 (P = 0.05) from 2003 to 2021, driven by a significant...

Effective landscape planning relies on community insights through participatory design to achieve local needs. Visual media can assist community engagement, and visuals created using generative AI text-to-image models are increasingly adopted for such purposes. We explore a new approach of including generative images in participatory planning through a case study with the Diverse Corn Belt Project in the US Corn Belt. Our method is applicable to other contexts, and adds to the literature in three ways. First, we propose a compromise between real-time image generation and extended time...

While much of the literature focuses on plant and prokaryote tolerance towards abiotic stresses, environmental resistance by fungi remains understudied. Many fungi have traits that help them to tolerate extreme environmental perturbations. Bird’s nest fungi produce ‘peridioles’ which consist of basidiospores, basidia, hyphae, and melanized walls, but their tolerance towards environmental stresses is currently unknown. We exposed the peridioles of three distantly related bird’s nest fungi species (Cyathus poepigii, Crucibulum parvulum, and Nidularia pulvinata) to extremely high temperatures,...

We studied the stoichiometry of 6 forest stands dominated by Spathodea campanulata (African Tulip Tree; hereafter Spathodea) on alluvial (n = 3) and karst (n = 3) substrates in the north-central region of Puerto Rico. The stands were on lands previously used for Saccharum officinarum (Sugar Cane) cultivation, subsistence agriculture, and grazing, and are representative of novel forest emergence and secondary succession in the study region. The functioning of these novel forests is poorly understood, and we sought to improve our understanding by studying the stoichiometry of forest stands...

Forests generate numerous services upon which society depends. In the United States, much of this comes from private owners including small-scale family forest owners, who may face barriers to participating in timber and ecosystem services markets, and economic drivers that induce them to convert forests to other land uses. This study focuses on state-administered financial payment programs for private forest landowners, which provide payments in exchange for doing something socially desirable, or refraining from doing something socially undesirable related to the management or use of...

Aim: Tree size distributions are an emergent feature of forest dynamics across space and time. Theory suggests that undisturbed forests exhibit a size-abundance distribution captured by a power-law relationship with a near-2 slope. We aimed to quantify how disturbances systematically and predictably cause deviations from this expected pattern. Location: Contiguous United States. Time Period: 2001–2023. Major Taxa Studied: Diverse tree communities. Methods: We analysed size-abundance distributions in over 160,000 FIA plots for both disturbed and undisturbed forests, examining changes in...

Background: Remote sensing (RS) technologies provide unprecedented opportunities to assess forest structure at broad spatial scales. Light detection and ranging (LiDAR) is a powerful tool that offers detailed vertical information, but its consistent high-resolution coverage can be limited across vast areas and quantifying understory vegetation remains challenging due to occlusion. Conversely, while high-resolution RGB imagery is more accessible and valuable for large-scale analyses, it comes with higher uncertainty and only captures canopy-level information. Integrating RGB data with...

Aspen (Populus tremuloides) forests are generally thought to impede fire spread, yet the extent of this effect is not well quantified in relation to other vegetation types. We examined the influence of aspen cover on interpolated daily fire spread rates, the relative abundance of aspen at fire perimeters versus burn interiors, and whether these relationships shifted under more fire-conducive atmospheric conditions. Our study incorporated 314 fires occurring between 2001 and 2020 in the southwestern United States and a suite of gridded vegetation, topography, and fire weather predictor...