Treesearch

The Landscape Fire and Resource Management Planning Tools program (LANDFIRE) is a multi-agency (U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service and U.S. Department of the Interior) national geospatial suite of datasets. Born from the Congressional National Fire Plan in support of the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy, LANDFIRE’s prototype was launched in 2002. Chartered by the Wildland Fire Leadership Council in 2004, this year the program celebrates 20 years of applied science.

Predicting the distribution, structure, and biomass of mangrove forests is an area of high research interest. Across the Atlantic East Pacific biogeographic region, three species are common and abundant members of local mangrove communities; Rhizophora mangle, Avicennia germinans, and Laguncularia racemosa. Biomass prediction for these species has relied on two approaches: site- specific allometries based on the idea that environmental/climatic differences between sites drive growth differences, or the use of common allometric equations based on the idea that site driven differences are...

The importance of mangroves in marine community stability has become increasingly clear. Understanding the factors structuring mangrove communities, how they respond to disturbance, and how much biomass they contain has become a research priority. The study of mangroves using approaches adapted from terrestrial systems is common yet challenging, highlighting the need for novel approaches. In recent years, remote sensing techniques (lidar and photogrammetry) have provided insight into mangrove composition, extent, and size variability. Here, we build upon this previous work by examining the...

Rapid, accurate determination of wood moisture content is paramount for the wood industry, infrastructure maintenance, studies of plant physiology, and forest management. Near-IR reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) is a widely used nondestructive technique for analyzing the properties of materials, including MC. Small, portable, handheld NIR spectrometers represent an emerging technology with strong potential for rapidly, affordably estimating materials properties. Here, we used a SCiOTM miniature handheld NIR spectrometer and a partial least squares regression model to predict wood MC. The...

Laser-induced graphene (LIG) has emerged as a versatile carbon material for broad applications. However, the synthesis of high-quality LIG materials, especially with low defects, remains underexplored. This study was thus focused on developing a facile and cost-effective alternative to producing low-defect LIG, especially using lignin as a renewable precursor. The results showed that lignin treated by methyl ethyl ketone yielded LIG with a markedly low-defect level (ID/IG ratio of 0.12) by direct laser writing under ambient conditions. The triboelectric tactile sensor fabricated from...

Droughts of increasing severity and frequency are a primary cause of forest mortality associated with climate change. Yet, fundamental knowledge gaps regarding the complex physiology of trees limit the development of more effective management strategies to mitigate drought effects on forests. Here, we highlight some of the basic research needed to better understand tree drought physiology and how new technologies and interdisciplinary approaches can be used to address them. Our discussion focuses on how trees change wood development to mitigate water stress, hormonal responses to drought,...

Plants display a range of temporal patterns of inter-annual reproduction, from relatively constant seed production to “mast seeding,” the synchronized and highly variable interannual seed production of plants within a population. Previous efforts have compiled global records of seed production in long-lived plants to gain insight into seed production, forest and animal population dynamics, and the effects of global change on masting. Existing datasets focus on seed production dynamics at the population scale but are limited in their ability to examine community-level mast seeding dynamics...

Background Over the last four decades, wildfires in forests of the continental western United States have significantly increased in both size and severity after more than a century of fire suppression and exclusion. Many of these forests historically experienced frequent fire and were fuel limited. To date, fuel reduction treatments have been small and too widely dispersed to have impacted this trend. Currently new land management plans are being developed on most of the 154 National Forests that will guide and support on the ground management practices for the next 15–20 years. Results...

Tree growth is a key mechanism driving carbon sequestration in forest ecosystems. Environmental conditions are important regulators of tree growth that can vary considerably between nearby urban and rural forests. For example, trees growing in cities often experience hotter and drier conditions than their rural counterparts while also being exposed to higher levels of light, pollution, and nutrient inputs. However, the extent to which these intrinsic differences in the growing conditions of trees in urban versus rural forests influence tree growth response to climate is not well known. In...

This paper explores case studies of how artists working with scientists and land managers affiliated with the Urban Field Station Collaborative Arts Program (UFS Arts) are fostering new relations of care with urban nature and thereby informing landscape decisions. The 'wicked' problems related to sustainability demand novel, holistic approaches to transformation that engage multiple ways of knowing. We present 4 examples from UFS Arts by triangulating data across programmatic documentation, evaluation, and ethnographic materials from 2016-present. Matthew López-Jensen's Tree Love and Nikki...