Treesearch

Maple syrup is an iconic as well as economically and culturally important non-timber forest product in North America. The economic benefits derived from maple syrup production are substantial. In 2016, the U.S. produced 4.2 million gallons of syrup worth an estimated $147 million (USDA, 2017b). In addition, sugaring provides many with a deep, personal connection to forestland, a means to develop social capital and support rural identity, and a way to keep a valued family or cultural tradition alive (Hinrichs 1998, Murphy et al. 2012). Yet, producers of maple syrup in the U.S. are currently...

State-owned forest enterprises (SOFEs) in northeast China have experienced past economic loss andenvironmental degradation, causing government to seek reforms. Measurement of technical efficiencyallows us to evaluate overall trends and how reforms affect production of social and environmental goods.Previous assessments have used small samples, short time periods, and viewed SOFEs as if they wereprofit-maximizers. We compared a traditional profit-maximization framework to an alternative "socialfirms" framework for SOFEs to classify inputs and outputs, and data envelopment analysis to...

Air quality is a critical issue affecting the health of billions of people worldwide, yet often little is known about what is in the air we breathe. To reduce air pollution’s health impacts, pollution sources must first be reliably identified. Otherwise, it is impossible to design and effectively enforce environmental standards. However, urban networks of air quality monitors are often too widely spaced to identify the sources of air pollutants, especially for pollutants that do not disperse far from their sources. Developing high-resolution pollution maps with data from these widely...

We present TerraClimate, a dataset of high-spatial resolution (1/24°, ~4-km) monthly climate and climatic water balance for global terrestrial surfaces from 1958–2015. TerraClimate uses climatically aided interpolation, combining high-spatial resolution climatological normals from the WorldClim dataset, with coarser resolution time varying (i.e., monthly) data from other sources to produce a monthly dataset of precipitation, maximum and minimum temperature, wind speed, vapor pressure, and solar radiation. TerraClimate additionally produces monthly surface water balance datasets using a...

In many forested ecosystems, it is increasingly recognized that the probability of burning is substantially reduced within the footprint of previously burned areas. This self‐limiting effect of wildland fire is considered a fundamental emergent property of ecosystems and is partly responsible for structuring landscape heterogeneity (i.e., mosaics of different age classes), thereby reducing the likelihood of uncharacteristically large fires in regions with active fire regimes. However, the strength and longevity of this self‐limiting phenomenon is not well understood in most fire‐prone...

We report 3 new state crayfish records from the Tennessee River drainage in Tishomingo County, Mississippi: 1 is a re-identification of previously published material, and 2 are from unpublished collections. Faxonius yanahlindus (Spinywrist Crayfish), recently described from the middle Tennessee River drainage in northwest Alabama and southern Tennessee, is closely related to F. spinosus (Coosa River Spiny Crayfish) and F. putnami (Phallic Crayfish). In light of the new species description, we re-examined crayfish collected in southern tributaries of the Tennessee River in northeast...

In 2015, a harvest and utilization study was completed on 95 operations throughout North Carolina. There were 2,125 total trees measured: 1,284 or 60 percent were softwood, while 841 or 40 percent were hardwood. Results from this study showed that 85 percent of the total softwood volume measured was utilized for a product, and 15 percent was left as logging residue. Seventyfour percent of the total hardwood volume measured was utilized for a product, while 26 percent was left as logging residue.

Some subcortical insects have devastating effects on native tree communities in new ranges, despite benign interactions with their historical hosts. Examples of how insects, aggressive in their native habitat might respond in novel host environs are less common. One aggressive tree-killing insect undergoing a dramatic range shift is the mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins). Ongoing eastward expansion by the mountain pine beetle through the previously climatically unsuitable Canadian boreal forest may have large-scale impacts on north eastern North American pine forests....

This resource update provides an overview of forest resources in Virginia based on an inventory conducted by the U.S. Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program at the Southern Research Station in cooperation with the Virginia Department of Forestry.

The maps and tables presented here represent potential variability of projected climate change across the conterminous United States during three 30-year periods in this century and emphasizes the importance of evaluating multiple signals of change across large spatial domains. Maps of growing degree days, plant hardiness zones, heat zones, and cumulative drought severity depict the potential for markedly shifting conditions and highlight regions where changes may be multifaceted across these metrics. In addition to the maps, the potential change in these climate variables are summarized...