Treesearch

Escape routes are essential components of wildland firefighter safety, providing pre-defined pathways to a safety zone. Among the many factors that affect travel rates along an escape route, landscape conditions such as slope, lowlying vegetation density, and ground surface roughness are particularly influential, and can be measured using airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data. In order to develop a robust, quantitative understanding of the effects of these landscape conditions on travel rates, we performed an experiment wherein study participants were timed while walking along...

This publication provides an overview of forest resources in Delaware based on inventories conducted by the U.S. Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program of the Northern Research Station. From 2004-2013, FIA employed an annual inventory with a cycle length of 5 years, measuring data on 20 percent of all sample plots each year in Delaware. Beginning in 2014, FIA is on a 7-year cycle, inventorying 14.3 percent of all plots annually. For the 2016 inventory, estimates for current variables such as area, volume, and biomass are based on394 plots (138 forested) collected from...

The design of forest inventories and development of new sampling methods useful in such inventories normally have a two-fold target of design unbiasedness and minimum variance in mind. Many considerations such as costs go into the choices of sampling method for operational and other levels of inventory. However, the variance in terms of meeting a specified level of precision is always among the most important criteria. Similarly, in designing new sampling methods, one always seeks to decrease the variance of the new method compared to existing methods. This paper provides a review of some...

The effectiveness of a four-component “super lure” consisting of ethanol (E) and the cerambycid pheromones syn-2,3-hexanediol (D6), racemic 3-hydroxyhexan-2-one (K6), and racemic 3-hydroxyoctan-2-one (K8) on trap catches of Cerambycidae (Coleoptera) was determined in southeast United States with seven trapping experiments in 2011–2013. We captured 74 species of longhorn beetles in our three-year study. Ethanol significantly increased the mean catches of seven species and increased the number of cerambycid species detected. Traps with the “super lure” were effective for 8 of 13 species of...

This special issue of Forest Phytophthoras serves as part of the proceedings from the Sixth Sudden Oak Death Science Symposium held June 21 -23, 2016 at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, CA, USA. The symposium marked almost 16 years to the day that David Rizzo (UC Davis) and Matteo Garbelotto (UC Berkeley) identified the cause of sudden oak death to be a previously unknown Phytophthora species, later named Phytophthora ramorum. Many of the approximately 200 participants at the conference have dedicated the past 15 years, a large portion of their life’s work, to protect U.S. forests from...

Forests at risk to diseases caused by invasive Phytophthora pathogens can be grouped into two broad classes: those already invaded by the focal pathogen where disease has emerged or those at significant risk of invasion and subsequent emergence of disease. This dichotomy represents distinct management scenarios – treating after or before disease emerges – with a set of epidemiological, ecological, and practical management characteristics that determine optimal actions and associated costs. Here we present the initial outcomes from two management experiments aimed at restoring forest...

The Hawaiian Islands are among the most isolated and recently inhabited places on Earth. Discovered by Polynesian voyagers some 1000 years ago, people arrived to find unique wildlife and plants arrayed across a remarkable range of ecosystems. Polynesian settlers relied on traditional methods to cultivate canoe crops across the wide range of climate and soils. Early Hawaiian societies adapted to regular climate variations, including periods of extreme drought. Today, as drought events become more severe, contemporary communities must also learn to adapt.

Fens are common wetlands in the Beartooth Mountains on the Shoshone National Forest, Clarks Fork Ranger District, in Park County, Wyoming. Fens harbor plant species found in no other habitats, and some rare plants occurring in Beartooth fens are found nowhere else in Wyoming. This report summarizes the studies on Beartooth fens from 1962 to 2009, which have contributed to current knowledge of rare plant distributions and biodiversity conservation. The study area is the Wyoming portion of the Beartooth Mountains in the Middle Rocky Mountains. Here, we profile 18 fens that occur over the...

The Forest Service’s Forest Inventory and Analysis Program (FIA) is the primary source of information about our forests’ status and trends. A network of nationally consistent field observations forms FIA’s core, and active collaboration with clients and peer organizations ensures that the resulting inventory remains agile, comprehensive, and relevant. An FIA Science Stakeholder Meeting was held October 24-26th, 2017, to bring key FIA personnel together with important partners and peers. The theme for this meeting, “Doing More with the Core,” targeted innovation around how FIA analyzes,...

Introduced forest pests have become one of the major threats to forests, and biological control is one of the few environmentally acceptable management practices. Assessing the impacts of a biocontrol program includes evaluating the establishment of biocontrol agents, the control of target pest, the impact on the affected organism, and the indirect impacts that the biocontrol agent may have on the whole community. We assessed the recovery of forest vegetation following the mortality of ash trees caused by the invasive emerald ash borer (EAB) pest in forest stands where biocontrol agents...