Treesearch

The Humboldt marten (Martes caurina humboldtensis) historically occurred in California’s coastal redwood (Sequoia sempervirens (D. Don) Endl.)-dominated forests from northern Sonoma County, California to the Oregon border. The subspecies was thought to be extirpated due to over-trapping and loss of habitat until a small, remnant population was rediscovered in 1996 on the Six Rivers National Forest (Slauson, personal communication). Surveys conducted from 2004 to 2011on managed forests owned by Green Diamond Resource Company to the west of the remnant population yielded marten detections at...

Highway construction of the Redwood National Park bypass resulted in a storm-driven accidental infusion of exposed sediments into pristine streams in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, California in October 1989. We evaluated impacts of this ecosystem stress on three amphibians, larval tailed frogs (Ascaphus truei), coastal giant salamanders (Dicamptodon tenebrosus), and southern torrent salamanders (Rhyacotriton variegatus), by comparing densities by mesohabitat type in five sediment-impacted with five unimpacted streams. Impacted streams had six-fold higher pool bowl sediment loads and...

Crowns of old redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens (D. Don) Endl.) are teaming with life. Storm damage followed by recovery via trunk reiteration increases the structural complexity of redwood crowns over time. Bark and wood surfaces within complex redwood crowns accumulate debris and become covered with epiphytes. Arboreal soils develop beneath mats of the leather-leaf fern, Polypodium scouleri, and within pockets of decaying wood colonized by the evergreen huckleberry, Vaccinium ovatum, promoting water storage and allowing desiccation-sensitive creatures to flourish high above the ground....

Documenting species distribution patterns and habitat associations is a necessary prerequisite for developing conservation measures, prioritizing areas for habitat restoration, and establishing baseline conditions for long-term monitoring programs. The coastal tailed frog (Ascaphus truei) ranges from coastal British Columbia to northwestern California and is one of several species of co-occurring amphibians that breed in cold headwater streams. Several accounts of tailed frog distribution suggest that the species’ range has been unchanged during the age of industrial timber harvesting....

Precommercial thinning is an important tool for coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens (D Don) Endl.) forest management but is often followed by black bear (Ursus americanus) damage in northern parts of redwood’s natural range (Fritz 1951; Giusti 1988, 1990; Hosack and Fulgham 1998). The bears scrape off bark and feed on the sugar-rich phloem of coast redwood and coast Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii (Mirb.) Franco) (Kimball et al. 1998). A prior study at the same study area within the Mill Creek watershed in Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park, near Crescent City, in Del...

A total of 789 black bear damaged trees were investigate over a multi-year period on 14 different study sites chosen on lands of four participating timber companies. The sites ranged from 30 to 50 years of age. Four different conifer species were found to have black bear damage: coastal redwood (Sequoia sempervirens (D. Don) Endl.), Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco), Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis (Bong.) Carr.), and western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla (Raf.) Sarg.). Numerous variables were measured on each black bear damaged tree (diameter at breast height [DBH; 1.37 m],...

Imported forest pests have changed North American forests and caused staggering monetary losses in the centuries since the country was founded. Since most problem-causing non-native pests are innocuous in their home ranges, where they have coevolved with their host trees, experts cannot predict which pathogens or insects will have lethal effect on other continents. Many non-native pests are unknown to science until they cause problems in their new homes. One common response to the threat of non-native insects and diseases in our forests is to appeal to science to develop technical means...

We compiled data from federal, state, and private academic databases to characterize the changing socioeconomics of the redwood region, which is part of the broader geography of the American West. The American West has turned economically away from commodity markets such as timber toward an economy dependent on knowledge and innovation, with job growth in service industries. We illustrate this shift by first comparing two distinct areas of the redwood region, the non-metropolitan northern counties (Del Norte, Mendocino, and Humboldt) and the metropolitan southern counties (Sonoma, San...

Managers of second-growth forests at Redwood National Park and the Bureau of Land Management’s Headwaters Forest Reserve encourage the development of late seral forest characteristics using mechanical thinning, where competing vegetation is removed to promote growth of residual trees. Yet the ability to quantify and reliably predict outcomes of treatments such as these is hindered by the long time scales at which forests respond to thinning. Here we present analyses of tree growth at Redwood National Park (RNP) and Headwaters Forest Reserve (HDWT) from sites that have had > 5 years to...

Variable-density thinning (VDT) has promise as a forest restoration tool that accelerates development of old-growth redwood (Sequoia sempervirens (D.Don) Endl.) forest characteristics (O’Hara et al. 2010) but can lead to bear damage in north coastal California (Hosack and Fulgham 1998, Perry et al. 2016). Three novel VDT prescriptions (O’Hara et al. 2012) were tested across an extensive area at the Mill Creek addition of Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park, near Crescent City, in Del Norte County, California. This area is primarily composed of young, crowded forests dominated by Douglas-fir...