Treesearch

Scymnus (Neopullus) camptodromus Yu and Liu (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) was brought to the United States from China as a potential biological control agent for hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae Annand) (Hemiptera: Adelgidae). Scymnus camptodromus phenology is closely synchronized with that of A. tsugae and has several characteristics of a promising biological control agent. As a prerequisite to field release, S. camptodromus was evaluated for potential nontarget impacts. In host range studies, the predator was given the choice of sympatric adelgid and nonadelgid prey items. Nontarget...

Ownership of the U.S. southern timberland rests largely on private forest landowners’ hands. As such, their harvest and regeneration choices can significantly impact the region’s roundwood supply. In most cases, private forest landowners do not consider timber production among the top reasons for holding their lands. However, most research indicates that favorable timber markets (high demand of wood reflecting in high stumpage prices) can motivate landowners’ participation. It follows then that landowners with access to strong timber markets (strength indicated by the number of primary...

Logging utilization research results have informed land managers of changes in utilization of forest growing stock for more than 40 years. The logging utilization residue ratio- growing stock residue volume/mill delivered volume- can be applied to historic or projected timber harvest volumes to predict woody residue volumes at varied spatial scales. Researchers at the University of Montana’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research and USFS Southern Research Station are investigating variability in residue ratios across Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. This project has presented...

Projections of Alaska timber products output, the derived demand for logs, lumber, residues, and niche products, and timber harvest by owner are developed by using a trend-based analysis. This is the fifth such analysis performed since 1990 to assist planners in meeting statutory requirements for estimating planning cycle demand for timber from the Tongass National Forest. Results reflect the consequences of recent changes in the Alaska forest sector and trends in markets for Alaska products. Demand for Alaska national forest timber currently depends on markets for sawn wood and exports of...

A tree canopy cover (TCC) layer is one of three elements in the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 2011 suite of nationwide geospatial data layers. In 2010, the USDA Forest Service (USFS) committed to creating the TCC layer as a member of the Multi-Resolution Land Cover (MRLC) consortium. A general methodology for creating the TCC layer was reported at the 2012 FIA Symposium in Knoxville, Tennessee by several USFS researchers. Since that time, remote sensing specialists at the USFS Remote Sensing Applications Center (RSAC) have translated those methods into a process capable of being...

The USDA Agroforestry Strategic Framework and the 2014 Farm Bill call for inventory and monitoring of agroforestry practices; however, collecting such data over very large non-forested areas is costly. The Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program at the Northern Research Station has addressed this challenge by forming a targeted task team whose primary purpose is to conduct an image-based inventory of tree cover in the heavily agricultural north central United States. The team conducts applied research and performs operational mapping of treed lands and other land cover using high-resolu...

Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) Lidar was selected by NASA for funding under its Earth Venture Instrument-2 program. A full-waveform lidar instrument will be attached to the International Space Station (ISS) and will provide unprecedented detail about the structure of the world’s forest between 52°S and 52°N (the area covered by the ISS ground track). One of GEDI’s science objectives is to quantify the distribution of above-ground forest biomass at fine spatial resolution, i.e., at the 500x500 meter pixel level. We will present the sampling design and estimators for average...

The National Forest System (NFS) Pacific Northwest Region (R6) has been flying LiDAR on a per project basis. Additional field data was also collected in situ to many of these LiDAR projects to aid in the development of predictive models and estimate values which are unattainable through LiDAR data alone (e.g. species composition, tree volume, and downed woody material). Until now, the protocols for collecting vegetation field data within LiDAR project areas have varied from project to project, leading to the inability to share, use, or analyze data across multiple project areas. The R6...

Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) plot location coordinate precision is often insufficient for use with high resolution remotely sensed data, thereby limiting the use of these plots for geospatial applications and reducing the validity of models that assume the locations are precise. A practical and efficient method is needed to improve coordinate precision. To address this need, the USDA Forest Service’s Remote Sensing Steering Committee has funded an applied research project to evaluate alternative methods that capitalize on lidar data availability to improve plot location precision....

DNR’s forest inventory group has completed its first version of a new remote-sensing based forest inventory system covering 1.4 million acres of DNR forest lands. We use a combination of field plots, lidar, NAIP, and a NAIP-derived canopy surface DSM. Given that height drives many key inventory variables (e.g. height, volume, biomass, carbon), remote-sensing derived height information provides a powerful tool to make fine scale inference about height related forest attributes. Predictions can also be aggregated to sub-stand, stand, or strata levels. Remote-sensing derived forest attributes...