Treesearch

Large and severe wildfires have raised concerns about the future of forested landscapes in the southwestern United States, especially under repeated burning. In 2011, under extreme weather and drought conditions, the Las Conchas fire burned over several previous burns as well as forests not recently exposed to fire. Our purpose was to examine the influences of prior wildfires on plant community composition and structure, subsequent burn severity, and vegetation response. To assess these relationships, we used satellite-derived measures of burn severity and a nonmetric multidimensional...

When symbionts are inherited by offspring, they can have substantial ecological and evolutionary consequences because they occur in all host life stages. Although natural frequencies of inherited symbionts are commonly <100 %, few studies investigate the ecological drivers of variation in symbiont prevalence. In plants, inherited fungal endophytes can improve resistance to herbivory, growth under drought, and competitive ability. We evaluated whether native ungulate herbivory increased the prevalence of a fungal endophyte in the common, native bunchgrass, Festuca campestris (rough fescue,...

Theoretically, the functional traits of native species should determine how natives respond to invader-driven changes. To explore this idea, we simulated a large-scale plant invasion using dead spotted knapweed (Centaurea stoebe) stems to determine if native spiders' web-building behaviors could explain differences in spider population responses to structural changes arising from C. stoebe invasion. After two years, irregular web-spiders were >30 times more abundant and orb weavers were >23 times more abundant on simulated invasion plots compared to controls. Additionally, irregular...

Three recombinant GH5 endoglucanases chosen for their contrasting hydrolytic activities, and a commercial endoglucanase were used to treat cellulose nanofibers (CNFs) after they were milled from bleached eucalyptus pulp with a supermasscolloider. This enzyme ‘‘post-treatment’’ resulted in different properties for the CNFs depending on enzyme treatment. The degree of polymerization, water retention value and enzymatic digestibility were used to estimate the extent of fibrillation. Morphologies of CNFs were observed by SEM and TEM. Electron microscopy images indicated endoglucanase posttreatm...

The catechol alcohols, caffeyl and 5-hydroxyconiferyl alcohol, may be incorporated into lignin either naturally or through genetic manipulation. Due to the presence of o-OH groups, these compounds form benzodioxanes, a departure from the interunit connections found in lignins derived from the cinnamyl alcohols. In nature, lignins composed of caffeyl and 5- hydroxyconiferyl alcohol are linear homopolymers and, as such, may have properties that make them amenable for use in valueadded products, such as lignin-based carbon fibers. In the current work, results from density functional theory...

The third 5-year annualized inventory of Maine's forests was completed in 2013 after more than 3170 forested plots were measured. Maine contains more than 17.6 million acres of forest land, an area that has been quite stable since 1960, covering more than 82 percent of the total land area. The number of live trees greater than 1 inch in diameter are approaching 24.5 billion trees. Aboveground biomass of all live trees has increased slightly since 2008. Over the same period, the average annual volume for tree growth has increased 30 percent and tree mortality has decreased 15 percent. Tree...

The recently discovered lignin composed of caffeoyl alcohol monolignols or C-lignin is particularly intriguing given its homogeneous, linear polymeric structure and exclusive benzodioxane linkage between monomers. By virtue of this simplified chemistry, the potential emerges for improved valorization strategies with C-lignin relative to other natural heterogeneous lignins. To better understand caffeoyl alcohol polymers, we characterize the thermodynamics of the radical recombination dimerization reactions forming the benzodioxane linkage and the bond dissociation into radical monolignol...

Phenolic compounds significantly inhibit microbial fermentation of biomass hydrolysates. To understand thequantitative structure-inhibition relationship of phenolic aldehydes on alcoholic fermentation, the effect of 11 differentsubstituted benzaldehydes on the final ethanol yield was examined. The results showed that the degree of phenolic benzaldehyde inhibition was strongly associated with the position of phenolic hydroxyl groups but not the number of phenolic hydroxyl groups.It was observed that ortho-substituted 2-hydroxybenzaldehyde resulted in 15−20-fold higher inhibition than the...

Increasingly, objectives for forests with moderate- or mixed-severity fire regimes are to restore successionally diverse landscapes that are resistant and resilient to current and future stressors. Maintaining native species and characteristic processes requires this successional diversity, but methods to achieve it are poorly explained in the literature. In the Inland Pacific US, large, old, early seral trees were a key historical feature of many young and old forest successional patches, especially where fires frequently occurred. Large, old trees are naturally fire-tolerant, but today...

Climate projections for the Midwestern United States predict southerly climates to shift northward. These shifts in climate could alter distributions of species across North America through changes in climate (i.e., temperature and precipitation), or through climate-induced changes on land cover. Our objective was to determine the relative impacts of land cover and climate on the abundance of five bird species in the Central United States that have habitat requirements ranging from grassland and shrubland to forest. We substituted space for time to examine potential impacts of a changing...