Treesearch

In recent years, the U.S. Federal government has advanced shared stewardship (see Study Background for definition) of Federal lands with American Indian Tribes across land management agencies. Yet little is understood about how these efforts are carried out in the context of Wild and Scenic Rivers (WSRs). The WSRs are managed across four Federal land management agencies: the Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service, the National Park Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Rivers designated under the WSR Act are managed to protect their free-flowing, undammed quality, along...

As the impacts of drought intensify with climate change, adaptation to drought is becoming an increasingly important consideration for tree breeding and forest management. This elevates the need to understand how breeding for faster growth affects drought tolerance and if breeding to improve drought tolerance could help mitigate the impacts of drought on forest health and productivity. To understand the implications for tree breeding in future climates, we studied how selective breeding of western larch (Larix occidentalis) for faster growth affects drought resistance (a component of...

Since the 1960s, there has been an increasing trend in oak (Quercus spp.) dominated forests exhibiting poor oak regeneration and recruitment, and associated hickories (Carya spp.) are likely undergoing a similar trend. Additionally, American chestnut (Castanea dentata) responses to management have been poorly studied. Silvicultural treatments to increase oak regeneration include prescribed fires and stand thinning, but often show mixed results. One potential issue is grouping oaks and hickories when analyzing treatment responses. This may obscure species- or genus-specific responses,...

Soils are a critical component of forest ecosystems and the global terrestrial carbon cycle. They regulate the resources that limit plant and microbial activity, support biodiversity, serve as reservoirs of carbon, and influence forest health. Systematic soil data can help fill key knowledge gaps, such as the sensitivity of forest health and functioning to disturbances and agents of change and the capacity of soils to help mitigate climate change through carbon storage. Since 2000, the Nationwide Forest Inventory (NFI) conducted by the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program has...

Establishing riparian zones to protect fish has been a standard forest management practice in western Oregon and Washington for decades. But to effectively place these zones, one needs to know where fish are living. Brooke Penaluna, a research fisheries biologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, has led the development of a new model that predicts the presence of fish more accurately than previous models or other methods, which relied heavily on electrofishing— a labor-intensive method of manually surveying streams. Her new model,...

Individual fire history studies paint a picture of how often and how severely fires burned on specific landscapes, providing valuable points of evidence for land management decisions. Syntheses of multiple fire history studies weave these individual pictures into a panoramic tapestry, providing a more complete understanding of historical fire regimes. For example, syntheses of fire history studies in ponderosa pine communities tell stories about precolonial historical fires frequently burning small areas and occasionally burning large areas, followed by a century with very few fires due to...

Healthy streams play a critical role in supporting plant, fish, and animal communities. However, stream degradation is a global problem that threatens the condition of these important ecosystems. Channel incision is one way that streams can change in response to natural or human processes. This process of degradation leads to lower water tables and a lost connection to the floodplain. As a result, water availability changes for the riparian plant communities, resulting in further degradation.

Field experiments of gap-based silviculture have provided inconsistent evidence that these approaches are effective in regenerating shademidtolerant oaks (Quercus spp.) and hickories (Carya spp.) in upland deciduous forests of the southern Appalachian Mountains, USA.We measured tree regeneration in a long-term field demonstration containing 13- and 30-year-old harvest gaps to evaluate the response of regeneration to group selection harvesting. Oak and hickory regeneration was mapped within the gaps to allow testing for evidence of spatial partitioning among these species. Mixed mesophytic...

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic led to the abrupt suspension of cruise ship visits under the U.S. Center for Disease Control’s “No Sail Order” resulting in loss of jobs and revenues for coastal communities of Southeast Alaska. We conducted case studies in three Southeast Alaska communities to learn how they responded to the abrupt loss of cruise tourism and to the economic and social challenges of COVID-19. Through data gathered in focus groups and convenience surveys, we ascertained the strategies that sustained households, businesses, and cultures amid the health threat and economic...

Tree age information is crucial for a range of environmental, scientific, and conservation-related purposes. It helps in understanding and managing forest resources effectively and sustainably. This study presents an approach to estimate tree age across diverse U.S. forested ecosystems using field inventory and climate datasets. The age-size relationship modeling framework incorporates species-specific and environmental variables, enabling its application across various regions. Model R² values range from 0.51 to 0.87 and relative RMSEs (using the mean as the denominator) ranging from 0.14...