Treesearch

Following wildfires, forest managers often consider salvage logging burned trees to recover monetary value of timber, reduce fuel loads, or to meet other objectives. Relatively little is known about the cumulative hydrologic effects of wildfire and subsequent timber harvest using logging equipment. We used controlled rill experiments in logged and unlogged (control) forests burned at high severity in northern Montana, eastern Washington, and southern British Columbia to quantify rill overland flow and sediment production rates (fluxes) after ground-based salvage logging. We tested different...

We propose an economic analysis using utility and productivity, and efficiency theories to provide fire managers a decision support tool to determine the most efficient fire management programs levels. By incorporating managers’ accumulated fire suppression experiences (capitalized experience) in the analysis we help fire managers determine fire suppression productivity and efficient budget allocation. Furthermore, monitoring of the management index (MI) helps identify operational deficiencies in the different districts where the analysis is applied. This is so because internally the area...

Trend data through 2011 are provided on the value and volume of wood and wood products production for the United States to aid in assessing sustainability of socioeconomic benefits of forests. The volume of roundwood used to make products, the weight produced, and the value of U.S. shipments have fluctuated in recent years. But there have been decreases in the weight of oriented strandboard production and the value of furniture production. U.S. demand for products is likely to continue to increase with increasing population and gross domestic product. If the cost of providing wood products...

Bees and butterflies generally favor open forest habitats regardless of forest type, geographic region, or methods used to create these habitats. Dense shrub layers of native or nonnative species beneath forest canopies negatively impact herbaceous plant cover and diversity, and pollinators. The presence of nonnative flowers as a source of nectar, pollen, or larval food can have positive or negative effects on pollinators depending on the situation, but in cases where the nonnatives exclude native plants, the results are almost always negative. Roads and roadside corridors offer an...

Decaying coarse woody debris can affect the underlying soil either by augmenting nutrients that can be exploited by tree roots, or by diminishing nutrient availability through stimulation of microbial nutrient immobilization. We analyzed C, N, microbial biomass C and root length in closely paired soil samples taken under versus 20–50 cm away from large trunks of two species felled by Hugo (1989) and Georges (1998) three times during wet and dry seasons over the two years following the study conducted by Georges. Soil microbial biomass, % C and % N were significantly higher under than away...

In a Mediterranean climate where much of the precipitation falls during winter, snowpacks serve as the primary source of dry season runoff. Increased warming has led to significant changes in hydrology of the western United States. An important question in this context is how to best manage forested catchments for water and other ecosystem services? Answering this basic question requires detailed understanding of hydro-logic functioning of these catchments. Here, we depict the differences in hydrologic response of 10 catchments. Size of the study catchments ranges from 50 to 475 ha, and...

Protoplast isolation and subsequent plant regeneration of Albizia julibrissin was achieved from leaf and callus explants. Leaf tissue from 4 to 5-week-old in vitro seedlings was the best source for high-yield protoplast isolation. This approach produced 7.77 × 105 protoplasts (Pp) per gram fresh weight with 94 % viability; after 60 min pre-plasmolysis with 0.7 M sorbitol followed by digestion in a solution of cell and protoplast wash plus 0.7 M mannitol, 1.5 % cellulase Onozuka R10, and 1 % pectolyase Y-23 for 6 h. Liquid Kao and Michayluk medium containing 2.7 μM α-naphthaleneacetic acid...

An emerging hypothesis in fire ecology is that pyrodiversity increases species diversity.We test whether pyrodiversity—defined as the standard deviation of fire severity—increases avian biodiversity at two spatial scales, and whether and how this relationship may change in the decade following fire. We use a dynamic Bayesian community model applied to a multi-year dataset of bird surveys at 1106 points sampled across 97 fires in montane California. Our results provide strong support for a positive relationship between pyrodiversity and bird diversity. This relationship interacts with time...

growing body of literature examines the vulnerability, risk, resilience, and adaptation of indigenous peoples to climate change. This synthesis of literature brings together research pertaining to the impacts of climate change on sovereignty, culture, health, and economies that are currently being experienced by Alaska Native and American Indian tribes and other indigenous communities in the United States. The knowledge and science of how climate change impacts are affecting indigenous peoples contributes to the development of policies, plans, and programs for adapting to climate change...

Healthy Rivers Connect Humans and Ecosystems James Nash says he is part trout. Growing up on a ranch in the Wallowa Valley of northeast Oregon, he disappeared as often as he could to the banks of the Wallowa River, which runs for more than two miles through his family’s land. Once, while exploring the bottomland, he discovered some old ruts and grooves in the ground. “At first I didn’t know what they were,” he said. “But even as an 8-year-old, I could tell those channels would be better fishing.” He had found an old natural channel of the Wallowa River.