Treesearch

Long-term monitoring programs that can detect a population change over time can be useful for managers interested in assessing population trends in response to forest management activities for a particular species. Such long-term monitoring programs have been designed for the Northern Goshawk (Accipiter gentilis), but not for the more elusive Sharp-shinned (A. striatus) and Cooper's hawks (A. cooperii). The objectives of this study were to (1) determine if it was possible to survey for these two Accipiters at the same time successfully using a new survey technique, and (2) estimate...

Resting habitat used by fishers (Pekania pennanti) has been relatively well studied but information on the persistence of their resting structures over time is unknown. We selected for reexamination 73 of 195 resting structures used by by fishers in northwestern California and compared their condition on the date they were found with their condition 8.2–12.1 years later. Resting structures were classified into three functional groups: live trees, snags, and logs. Each group was classified further into structural stages of decay or decomposition. A total of 19.2% of resting structures...

Some mammalian predators acquire both food and shelter from their prey, by eating them and using the refugia the prey construct. I searched the literature for examples of predators that exhibit this behavior and summarize their taxonomic affiliations, relative sizes, and distributions. I hypothesized that size ratios of species involved in this dynamic would be near 1.0, and that most of these interactions would occur at intermediate and high latitudes. Seventeen species of Carnivorans exploited at least 23 species of herbivores as food and for their refugia. Most of them (76.4 %) were in...

In the debate over global warming, treeline position is considered an important ecological indicator of climate change. Currently, analysis of upward treeline shift is often based on various spatial data processed by geomatic techniques. In this work, considering a selection of 31 reference papers, we assessed how the scientific community is using different methods to map treeline position and/or shifts using spatial datasets. We found that a significant number of published studies suffer from a low degree of awareness of processed data, which outcomes in potentially unreliable results...

We analyzed a series of increment cores collected from 260 adult dominant or co-dominant quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) trees from national forests across Colorado and southern Wyoming in 2009 and 2010. Half of the cores were collected from trees in stands with a high amount of crown dieback, and half were from lightly damaged stands. We define the level of stand damage based on stand survey data in which lightly damaged stands had average crown dieback of 16% and heavily damaged stands averaged 41%. Upon analysis, two-thirds of the cores collected did not exhibit radial growth...

White-headed woodpeckers (Picoides albolarvatus) are important cavity excavators that recently have become the focus of much research because of concerns over population declines. Past studies have focused on nest site selection and survival but information is needed on factors influencing their space use when away from the nest. We examined space use by white-headed woodpeckers during the nesting (May–Jul) and post-nesting (Jul–Oct) periods and compared the role of environmental factors (e.g., landcover) and socio-demographic factors (e.g., age, breeding success) in home range size and...

Invasive Species Science Updates are designed to keep managers and other users up-to-date with recently completed and ongoing research by RMRS scientists, as well as highlight breaking news related to invasive species issues. The newsletter is produced by the RMRS Invasive Species Working Group (ISWG), which is a core group of scientists who volunteer to coordinate outreach of RMRS invasive species science to managers and the public through this newsletter, our website, and periodic white papers.In this and future issues of the newsletter we want to continue to recognize partnerships and...

New residential construction is a critical driver of the demand for lumber, structural panels and engineered wood products in Canada. For the period 2010 through 2013, residential construction accounted for roughly 23 percent of the lumber consumed in Canada and 47 percent of structural panel usage. Insufficient data concerning imports and exports prevent estimates of the residential share of engineered wood products consumption. The focus of this study is for the year 2013. Based on the data provided by Home Innovation Research Labs survey of home builders, 1.262 billion board feet (bf)...

Precipitation, evapotranspiration (ET), and soil moisture are the key controls for the productivity and functioning of temperate grassland ecosystems in Inner Mongolia, northern China. Quantifying the soil moisture dynamics and water balances in the grasslands is essential to sustainable grassland management under global climate change. We conducted a case study on the variability and characteristics of soil moisture dynamics from 1991 to 2012 by combining field monitoring and computer simulation using a physically based model, MIKE SHE, at the field scale. Our long-term monitoring data...

A novel type of highly flexible and all-solid-state supercapacitor that uses cellulose nanofibril (CNF)/reduced graphene oxide (RGO)/carbon nanotube (CNT) hybrid aerogels as electrodes and H2SO4 poly (vinyl alcohol) PVA gel as the electrolyte was developed and is reported here. These flexible solid-state supercapacitors were fabricated without any binders, current collectors, or electroactive additives. Because of the porous structure of the CNF/RGO/CNT aerogel electrodes and the excellent electrolyte absorption properties of the CNFs present in the aerogel electrodes, the resulting...