Treesearch

Creation of small canopy gaps around understory eastern hemlocks (Tsuga canadensis (L.) Carrière) can increase resilience to hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae Annand), an invasive insect pest in eastern North America. In this study, the diversity and community composition of bees were quantified by monitoring pan traps in canopy gaps (mean size 0.06 ha, created 2.5—3 yrs earlier) and paired control plots (mature, intact forest) in western North Carolina and Virginia. Mean bee richness and abundance were significantly greater in silvicultural gaps. There were significant compositional...

The oxygen evolution reaction (OER) plays a central role as an anode in electrocatalytic processes such as energy conversion and storage and the generation of molecular oxygen from the electrolysis of water. Currently, precious metal oxides such as IrO2 and RuO2 are recognized as reference OER electrocatalysts with reasonably high activity; however, their widespread use in practical devices has been severely hindered by their high cost and scarcity. It is essential to design alternative OER electrocatalysts made of low-cost and abundant earth elements with significant activity and robustnes...

Changing climate conditions, wildfires, and tree harvests could affect the area of mature and old-growth forests in the United States. We used a stochastic modeling system to project future areal extents of mature and old-growth forests on National Forest System (NFS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land across the conterminous United States, and to assess threats to these forests under a variety of socioeconomic and climate futures, to 2070. The area of old-growth forest is expected to increase 19-27% on NFS and BLM lands while mature forest trends (0.8% decrease to 2.5% increase)...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program provides this resource update yearly as an overview of forest resources in Alabama. These estimates are derived from field data collected across a systematic network of fixed-radius forest monitoring plots located on both public and private land. New updates are provided annually as a subset of plots within the State are remeasured. Each year, field crews visit and measure a subset of all FIA plots across the entire State (the size of the subset varies by State and year). Combining all...

A novel ternary deep eutectic solvent (TDES) composed of glycine hydrochloride, ethylene glycol, and p-toluenesulfonic acid was synthesized. The prepared TDES exhibited highly efficient capacity for the pretreatment of bamboo biomass (Phyllostachys edulis). About 95 % of xylan and 89 % of lignin could be removed from the bamboo feedstock after being pretreated with the TDES at 100 °C for 1 h. In addition, a nearly complete glucose yield of 98.7 % could be achieved, which was 9.4 times higher than that of the untreated bamboo. The pH value of the TDES is an important factor affecting the...

Terrestrial and marine ecosystems constitute the primary components of the Earth’s biosphere, yet their photosynthetic productions are typically studied separately, which limits understanding of planetary carbon uptake and biosphere health. Here, using multiple satellite-derived products, we identify contrasting net primary production (NPP) trends between land and ocean, probably reflecting their differential sensitivity to climate warming, especially in tropical regions. Planetary NPP shows an overall increase of 0.11 ± 0.13 PgC yr−1 (P = 0.05) from 2003 to 2021, driven by a significant...

Effective landscape planning relies on community insights through participatory design to achieve local needs. Visual media can assist community engagement, and visuals created using generative AI text-to-image models are increasingly adopted for such purposes. We explore a new approach of including generative images in participatory planning through a case study with the Diverse Corn Belt Project in the US Corn Belt. Our method is applicable to other contexts, and adds to the literature in three ways. First, we propose a compromise between real-time image generation and extended time...

While much of the literature focuses on plant and prokaryote tolerance towards abiotic stresses, environmental resistance by fungi remains understudied. Many fungi have traits that help them to tolerate extreme environmental perturbations. Bird’s nest fungi produce ‘peridioles’ which consist of basidiospores, basidia, hyphae, and melanized walls, but their tolerance towards environmental stresses is currently unknown. We exposed the peridioles of three distantly related bird’s nest fungi species (Cyathus poepigii, Crucibulum parvulum, and Nidularia pulvinata) to extremely high temperatures,...

We studied the stoichiometry of 6 forest stands dominated by Spathodea campanulata (African Tulip Tree; hereafter Spathodea) on alluvial (n = 3) and karst (n = 3) substrates in the north-central region of Puerto Rico. The stands were on lands previously used for Saccharum officinarum (Sugar Cane) cultivation, subsistence agriculture, and grazing, and are representative of novel forest emergence and secondary succession in the study region. The functioning of these novel forests is poorly understood, and we sought to improve our understanding by studying the stoichiometry of forest stands...

Forests generate numerous services upon which society depends. In the United States, much of this comes from private owners including small-scale family forest owners, who may face barriers to participating in timber and ecosystem services markets, and economic drivers that induce them to convert forests to other land uses. This study focuses on state-administered financial payment programs for private forest landowners, which provide payments in exchange for doing something socially desirable, or refraining from doing something socially undesirable related to the management or use of...