Treesearch

This resource update contains the findings of a canvass of all primary wood-using plants. It complements the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) annual inventory of volume and removals. The canvass was conducted to determine the amount and source of wood receipts and annual timber product imports/exports. Only primary wood-using mills were canvassed. Primary mills are those that process roundwood in log or bolt form or as chipped roundwood. Examples of industrial roundwood products are saw logs, pulpwood, veneer logs, poles, and logs used for composite board products. Mills producing...

Flood peak magnitudes and frequency estimates are key components of any effective nationwide flood risk management and flood damage abatement program. In this study, we evaluated normalized peak design discharges (Qp) for 1,387 hydrologic unit code 16 to 20 (HUC16-20) watersheds in the White Mountain National Forest (WMNF), New Hampshire and in five Experimental Forest (EF) regions across the United States managed by USDA Forest Service (USDA-FS). Nonstationary regional frequency analysis (RFA) and single site frequency analysis (FA) with long-term high-resolution observed streamflow data...

The Boggy Slough Conservation Area (BSCA), located west of Lufkin, TX, is a 19,055-acre property in Houston and Trinity Counties. The property has a mix of upland and bottomland forested ecosystems and a long history of management for conservation values. Since the early 20th century the property has been under private ownership, with the Temple family and their forest products corporation as owners for most of this time. The T.L.L. Temple Foundation purchased the property in 2013 to honor the Temple family, the corporate history, and their combined legacy in east Texas, and to demonstrate...

Aim: Efforts to understand how pollinating insect diversity is distributed across large geographic areas are rare despite the importance of such work for conserving regional diversity. We sought to relate the diversity of bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea), hover flies (Diptera: Syrphidae), and butterflies (Lepidoptera) to ecoregion, landscape context, canopy openness, and forest composition across southeastern U.S. forests. Location: Nineteen experimental forests across nine states in the southeastern U.S. Methods: We established 5–7 plots on each experimental forest. In each, we sampled...

In 2009, we determined the effects of the enantiomeric composition of the kairomone, α-pinene, on trap catches of arboreal beetles (Coleoptera) in stands of eastern pine trees with resin dominated by (+)-α-pinene. We hypothesized that the responses of beetles would correlate with the predominant enantiomer of α-pinene found in host pines. Lures of (+)-, racemic (±), and (−)-α-pinene were added separately to ethanol-baited multiple-funnel traps. Species such as Monarthrum mali (Fitch), Dendroctonus terebrans (Olivier), Ips grandicollis (Eichhoff), and Pachylobius picivorus (Germar) (Coleopte...

Community forests (CFs) involve communities in decision-making about, management of and access to forests, and have potential to benefit both communities and forests. However, they lack a single definition, clear distinction from related topics, or method for identification. This perspectives article explores historical and current literature on CFs and proposes a conceptual framework for understanding CFs and related concepts in the U.S. context. Through that exploration, we propose a conceptual framework for understanding their meaning and relationship. We propose three potential...

The Forest Health Monitoring Program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service produces an annual national report that presents recent forest health status and trends from a national or multistate regional perspective and introduces new techniques to analyze forest health condition. In this 23rd edition of annual reports, national Insect and Disease Survey (IDS) data are used to identify recent spatial patterns of areas affected by insects and diseases. Satellite data are employed to detect geographic patterns of forest fire occurrence. Data collected by the Forest Inventory...

Managed burning of forests can provide benefits to society including mitigated wildfire risk, improved habitat, and more. However, adverse outcomes of escaped fire or smoke pose risks. I reviewed the evolution of the law regulating forest management burns, explored the current legal architecture, and analyzed the economic incentives for involved actors, in order to identify policy options. Liability standards through most of the twentieth century increasingly placed risk burden on landowners and burners, but increased recognition of the benefits of burns led many States to reverse this...

Torreya taxifoliaArn. (Florida torreya) is a critically endangered (International Union for Conservation of Nature 3.1) conifer with a very limited native range in the USA, occurring in two counties in Florida and one in Georgia where it persists in ravines along the Apalachicola River. The species suffered a major decline, ∼ 99% loss, beginning in the 1930s, with a total population estimated at 357,500 in the early 1900s decreasing to 1,000 individuals currently remaining in the wild. The initial decline was attributed to an unknown fungal disease with Fusarium torreyae(T. Aoki, J. A....

Exhaust from diesel combustion engines is an important contributor to urban air pollution and poses significant risk to human health. Diesel exhaust contains a chemical class known as nitrated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (nitro-PAHs) and is enriched in 1-nitropyrene (1-NP), which has the potential to serve as a marker of diesel exhaust. The isomeric nitro-PAHs 2-nitropyrene (2-NP) and 2-nitrofluoranthene (2-NFL) are secondary pollutants arising from photochemical oxidation of pyrene and fluoranthene, respectively. Like other important air toxics, there is not extensive monitoring of...