Treesearch

The breakdown or decay of wood is a prominent process in landscape health and disease. The bulk of the energy captured and stored by natural woodlands, orchards, and agroforestry operations is allocated to produce wood. The release of that stored energy and the cycling of the constituent mineral elements into environmental pools and other organisms is through processes of wood decay. Wood decay is an ordered process, primarily through the biology of specialized fungi and associated microorganisms and arthropods. Traditionally, plant pathologists viewed wood decay in terms of lost economic...

To better understand the impacts of a changing environment and interactions with forest management options for forest resources, including soil, large long-term experiments are required. Such experiments require careful documentation of reference or pre-experimental conditions. This publication describes the Middle Mountain Long-term Soil Productivity (LTSP) Study, located within the Loop Road Research Area of the Monongahela National Forest, WV. This study was initiated in 1997 and pretreatment soil, vegetation, nutrient cycling, and climatic conditions were carefully documented. The...

In the 1970s, Forest Service and academic researchers clearcut the forest in Watershed 7 in the Coweeta Basin to observe how far the perturbation would move the ecosystem and how quickly the ecosystem would return to its predisturbance state. Ourlong-term observations demonstrated that this view of resistance and resilience was too simplistic. Forest disturbance triggered a chain of ecological dynamics that are still evolving after 40 years. Short-term pulses in dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN)(3 years) and streamflows (4 years) were followed by several years in which the system appeared...

Cutting propagation plays a large role in the forestry and horticulture industries where superior genotypes need to be clonally multiplied. Integral to this process is the ability of cuttings to form adventitious roots. Recalcitrance to adventitious root development is a serious hurdle for many woody plant propagation systems including black walnut (Juglans nigra L.), an economically valuable species. The inability of black walnut to reliably form adventitious roots limits propagation of superior genotypes. Adventitious roots originate from different locations, and root induction is...

Mastication is a wildland fuel treatment technique that is rapidly becoming the preferred method for many fire hazard reduction projects, especially in areas where reducing fuels with prescribed fire is particularly challenging. Mastication is the process of mechanically modifying the live and dead surface and canopy biomass by chopping and shredding vegetation to reduce canopy bulk density, raise canopy base height, lower surface fuelbed depth, and increase surface fuelbed bulk density, thereby reducing fire hazard. However, little is known about the properties of masticated fuelbeds as...

Wildfires have become larger and more severe over the past several decades on Colorado’s Front Range, catalyzing greater investments in forest management intended to mitigate wildfire risks. The complex ecological, social, and political context of the Front Range, however, makes forest management challenging, especially where multiple management goals including forest restoration exist. In this report, we present a science-based framework for managers to develop place-based approaches to forest restoration of Front Range ponderosa pine and dry mixed-conifer forests. We first present...

In the western US, grazing management on federal lands containing habitat for fish species listed under the US Endangered Species Act (ESA) has sparked social conflict and litigation for decades. To date, the problem has been addressed through a top-down environmental governance system, but rangeland managers and grazing permittees now believe there is a need for more innovative management strategies. This article explores how social–ecological systems (SES) science can address rangeland management challenges associated with the survival and recovery of ESA-listed fish species on federal...

Forest ecosystems will face direct and indirect impacts from a changing climate over the 21st century. This assessment evaluates the vulnerability of forest ecosystems across the New England region (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, northern New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont) under a range of future climates. We synthesized and summarized information on the contemporary landscape, provided information on past climate trends, and described a range of projected future climates. This information was used to parameterize and run multiple vegetation impact models, which...

Removal of forest floor litter by pine needle raking and prescribed burning is a common practice in longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) stands on Coastal Plain sites in the Southeastern United States. Repeated removal of litter by raking and the loss of surface organic matter from controlled burns can affect the already low fertility of these sites. Although fertilization may compensate forsome nutrient losses, long-term changes in soil chemical properties may still negatively affect productivity. In this experiment, we continue work that examined the effect of burning, fertilization,...

Due to recent outbreaks of native bark beetles, forest ecosystems have experienced substantial changes in landscape structure and function, which also affect nearby human populations. As a result, land managers have been tasked with sustaining ecosystem services in impacted areas by considering the best available science, public perceptions, and monitoring data to develop strategies to suppress bark beetle epidemics, and in some cases to restore affected lands and ecosystem services. The effects of bark beetle outbreaks are often detrimental to the provision of ecosystem services, including...