Treesearch

Eglin Air Force Base (AFB) in Florida, in the United States, conserves a large reservoir of native longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) stands that land managers maintain by using frequent fires. We predicted tree density, basal area, and dominant tree species from 195 forest inventory plots, low-density airborne LiDAR, and Landsat data available across the entirety of Eglin AFB. We used the Random Forests (RF) machine learning algorithm to predict the 3 overstory responses via univariate regression or classification, or multivariate k-NN imputation. Ten predictor variables explained ∼...

In the southeastern United States, many forest managers are interested in restoring longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) to upland sites that currently support loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.). We quantified the effects of four canopy treatments (uncut Control; MedBA, harvest to 9 m2·ha−1; LowBA, harvest to 5 m2·ha−1; and Clearcut) and three cultural treatments (NT, no treatment; H, herbicide release of longleaf pine seedlings; and H+F, herbicide release plus fertilization) on resource availability and growing conditions in relation to longleaf pine seedling response for 3 years. Harvesting...

This special issue of Applied Soil Ecology contains the Proceedings of the 10th International Symposium on EarthwormEcology (ISEE-10), held in Athens, Georgia, USA in June of 2014. ISEE-10 was attended by 120+ delegates representing 24 nationalities (Fig. 1). The papers collected here represent only a small fraction of the more than 150 oral and poster presentations that were delivered at the Symposium, but these papers still offer the reader a glimpse into the breadth and diversity of topics that were considered in the scientific program. That ISEE has reached its 10th iteration is...

Contact rates vary widely among individuals in socially structured wildlife populations. Understanding the interplay of factors responsible for this variation is essential for planning effective disease management. Feral swine (Sus scrofa) are a socially structured species which pose an increasing threat to livestock and human health, and little is known about contact structure. We analyzed 11 GPS data sets from across the United States to understand the interplay of ecological and demographic factors on variation in co-location rates, a proxy for contact rates. Between-sounder contact...

A flume was used to estimate the carrying capacity of streambed substrates for juvenile steelhead or rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss seeking refuge from simulated freshets. The simulated freshets had mean water column velocities of c. 1·1 m s−1. The number of O. mykiss finding cover within the interstices of the substrate was documented for different substrate sizes and levels of embeddedness. The availability of suitable refuges determined the carrying capacity of the substrate for O. mykiss. For the size of the O. mykiss tested [mean ± S.D. fork length (LF) = 122 ± 12·6 mm], the number...

Catalysis is a fundamental technology that is widely used in the food, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, and agricultural sectors to produce chemical products on an industrial scale. Well-defined molecular organometallic species are a cornerstone of catalytic methodology, and the activity and selectivity of these complexes can be modulated by judicious choice of metal andsurrounding ligands. Catalysts containing precious metals such as Pd, Rh, Ir, and Ru are typically very efficient, as related reactions require extremely low catalyst loadings. However, precious metals have very limited...

To examine short- and long-term changes in hurricane-prone sub-montane rain forests on Dominica in the Lesser Antilles of the eastern Caribbean, we established 17 permanent, 0.25-ha vegetation plots clustered in 3 regions of the island—northeast, northwest, and southwest. We counted all trees ≥10 cm diameter almost 30 years after Hurricane David caused substantial tree mortality, primarily in the southern half of the island. We identified 1 vegetation association (Dacryodes–Sloanea) with 2 variants depending on whether Amanoa caribaea was co-dominant. We found that differences in forest...

PM2.5 inventories have been developed in major Chinese cities to quantify the contributions from various sources based on annual emissions. This approach, however, could substantially underestimate the contribution from open straw burning during the harvest or other active burning periods. This study examines this issue by estimating monthly and annual straw-burning PM2.5 emissions in China and comparing with them with the corresponding emissions from other anthropogenic sources. Annually burned straw PM2.5 emissions during 1997∼2013 for 31 China provinces were calculated based on crop and...

An afforestation project was initiated in the western plain of Taiwan to convert abandoned farming lands into forests to improve the ecological and environmental conditions. This study was conducted to understand the potential impacts of this land cover change on evapotranspiration (ET) and other land surface processes and the differences in the impacts under clear and rainy weather conditions. Numerical simulations with the land surface covered with crops and forests were conducted using an atmosphere-land coupled model during a summer monsoon season. Sensitivity experiments were conducted...

Earthworm introductions and invasions are ongoing, with significant consequences for ecological characteristics and function where populations of invasive species reach high densities. In North America the influx of people, goods and materials to coastal cities has long been recognized to be related to introduction and establishment of many different invasive organisms. We conducted surveys for soil invertebrates in the Washington, DC area along the Potomac River corridor to examine the influence of historic soil profile disrupting disturbances on the composition of soil invertebrate...