Treesearch

In forest ecosystems there are numerous factors that influence nitrate (NO3) availability and retention in ways that can significantly affect receiving waters. Unfortunately these factors often co-exist and interact making it difficult to establish the importance of each individually. Three reference watersheds at the Fernow Experimental Forest (FEF) provide a unique opportunity to evaluate the influence of tree species on soil NO3 availability across spatial scales because they differ in stream-water NO3 concentrations despite sharing the same macro-climate, geology, hydrology, dominant...

We combine experimental and modeling results from a headwater catchment at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest (HBEF), New Hampshire, USA, to explore the link between stream solute dynamics and water age. A theoretical framework based on water age dynamics, which represents a general basis for characterizing solute transport at the catchment scale, is here applied to conservative and weatheringderived solutes. Based on the available information about the hydrology of the site, an integrated transport model was developed and used to compute hydrochemical fluxes. The model was designed to...

Stable water isotopes provide a means of tracing many hydrologic processes, including poorly understood dynamics like soil water interactions with the atmosphere. We present a four-year dataset of biweekly water isotope samples from eight fluxes and stores in a headwater catchment at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, New Hampshire, USA. We use Dansgaard's deuterium excess (d) parameter to infer hydrologic processes that cause stable water isotope fractionation. Although we expected to observe a decrease in d from precipitation to soil water because of evaporation, instead we observed...

Atmospheric acid deposition of sulfate and nitrate has declined markedly in the northeastern United States due to emissions controls. We investigated long-term trends in soil water (1984–2011) and stream water (1982–2011) chemistry along an elevation gradient of a forested watershed to evaluate the progress of recovery of drainage waters from acidic deposition at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, USA. We found slowed losses of base cations from soil and decreasedmobilization of dissolved inorganic aluminum. Stream water pH at the watershed...

Forest information is desired for broader applications than we typically serve. Among those users are the education and outreach communities. These groups are actively trying to engage and teach both youth and adults in areas such as GIS/spatial analysis, natural resource education, general math/science, invasive species, climate change, water quality, and forest management, via a variety of venues including classroom instruction, Master Forester workshops, Woods walks, specific issue-based workshops, and citizen science training sessions. The advent of modeled geospatial datasets of...

The Rocky Mountain Research Station’s Fire Effects Information System (FEIS) team synthesizes information about wildland fires, their history in U.S. ecosystems, and their effects on U.S. wildland plants, lichens, and animals. Found at www.feis-crs.org/feis/, FEIS publications can be used for many purposes, including land use planning, restoration and rehabilitation planning, wildlife and range projects, and related environmental assessments and impact statements. While traditionally used for fire management decisions, FEIS can also be used for NEPA, restoration, and other planning needs...

As a signatory to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the United States annually prepares an inventory of carbon that has been emitted and sequestered among sectors (e.g., energy, agriculture, and forests). For many years, the United States developed an inventory of forest carbon by comparing contemporary forest inventories to inventories that were collected using different techniques and definitions from more than 20 years ago. Recognizing the need to improve the U.S. forest carbon inventory budget, the United States is adopting the Forest Carbon Accounting Framework...

This study explores the spatial association between social vulnerability and smoke plume dispersion at the census block group level for the 13 southern states in the USDA Forest Service’s Region 8. Using environmental justice as a conceptual basis, we use Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis to identify clusters or “hot spots” for the incidence of both higher than average socially marginal populations and plume dispersion. The larger health disparities and environmental justice literature suggests that lower income and minority populations in the U.S. face greater exposure than middle/upper...

Since uncertainty remains about how white rot fungi oxidize and degrade lignin in wood, it would be useful to monitor changes in fungal gene expression during the onset of ligninolysis on a natural substrate. We grew Phanerochaete chrysosporium on solid spruce wood and included oxidant-sensing beads bearing the fluorometric dye BODIPY 581/591 in the cultures. Confocal fluorescence microscopy of the beads showed that extracellular oxidation commenced 2 to 3 days after inoculation, coincident with cessation of fungal growth. Whole transcriptome shotgun sequencing (RNA-seq) analyses based on...

About 10 million ha of forests are classi­ed as having moderate to high ­re hazards in the Western United States (Stephens and Ruth 2005), many of which are characterized by ponderosa pine (Pinusponderosa), an integral component of three forest cover types and a major component of >65 percent of all forests in the Western United States (Burns and Honkala 1990). Prior to Euro-American settlement, many ponderosa pine forests were open and parklike, as frequent thinning of small-diameter [<19 cm diameter at breast height (d.b.h.)] and ­re-intolerant trees by low-intensity surface ­res and...