Treesearch

A 2014 review by Ringman et al. examined established theories addressing why modified wood has increased decay resistance and concluded that the most probable cause of inhibition and/or delay of the initiation of brown rot decay is lowering the equilibrium moisture content for given environmental conditions. A 2013 paper by Jakes et al. examined moisture induced wood damage mechanisms that do not appear in dry wood but have onsets at moisture contents below fibre saturation, including wood decay and fastener corrosion, and observed that these damage mechanisms require chemical transport...

Globally, landfills are being transformed into other uses because land resources scarce, property values are increasing, and governments seek to reduce urban blight and adaptively reuse space. Park planners and city managers are likely to find that gauging public perceptions of a landfill-to-park project transformation and promoting such sites to potential visitors as highly challenging tasks, but important components of sustainability efforts. A landfill-to-park project currently underway is the transformation of the former Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island, New York into Freshkills Park.

Predictive understanding of northern peatland hydrology is a necessary precursor to understanding the fate of massive carbon stores in these systems under the influence of present and future climate change. Current models have begun to address microtopographic controls on peatland hydrology, but none have included a prognostic calculation of peatland water table depth for a vegetated wetland, independent of prescribed regional water tables. We introduce here a new configuration of the Community Land Model (CLM) which includes a fully prognostic water table calculation for a vegetated...

Wildfire is a major threat to natural resources and native species in Hawai'i, but the frequency and extent of wildfires across the archipelago has not been well quantified. Our objective was to summarize the available wildfire data for Hawai‘i and synthesize the social and ecological dimensions of wildfire drivers, impacts, and management responses. We constructed a 110-yr span of wildfire records for the state of Hawai'i to examine historical trends (1904-2011) and summarized relationships between contemporary wildfire occurrence (2005-2011) and land use/land cover types and human...

Commercial lumber production in the Lake States, which began in the early 1800s with eastern white pine (Pinus strobus L.), shifted to hardwoods in the late 1800s (Whitney 1994). Much of the hardwood forest was rapidly cut over; as a consequence, mill capacity exceeded available stumpage by the 1920s (Eyre and Zillgitt 1953). The forest industry recognized the need for sustained-yield practices, but faced numerous financial and managerial problems and most landowners continued to liquidate their timber.

In 1940, construction began on numerous military installations in central Louisiana that would train millions of young men and women entering the U.S. Army for service during World War II. Over 500,000 troops trained at Camp Claiborne alone during its 6 years of existence. The area was selected because of availability of Federal land from the Kisatchie National Forest, access of about 3,400 square miles of land for maneuvers through cost-free agreements with private landowners, and open conditions that favored deployment of men and equipment for training purposes. Camp Claiborne became the...

White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are common in forests and farmlands throughout the United States and Canada. While their propensity for eating gardens and ornamental plants is well-known to frustrated homeowners, few outside the wildlife and forestry professions are aware of the profound effects deer have on forest understory composition and growth. Even when populations are not exceedingly high, deer have a controlling effect on forest vegetation in many regions, including the northeastern and north central U.S. and southern Canada where their range overlaps with that of the...

The emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis; EAB) is causing widespread mortality of ash (Fraxinus spp.) and climate change is altering habitats of tree species throughout large portions of North America. Black ash (F. nigra), a moist-soil species common in the Northwoods of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, USA, is under a double threat of losing habitat from climate change and near annihilation from EAB. Because black ash often occurs in nearly pure stands, planting non-ash species is a management strategy already underway or being planned for thousands of acres. Tools are needed to...

Assessing the effect of climate change on carbon sequestration in tropical forest ecosystems is important to inform monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) for reducing deforestation and forest degradation (REDD), and to effectively assess forest management options under climate change. Two process-based models, Forest-DNDC and Biome-BGC, with different spatial modeling scales were evaluated to estimate the potential effect of climate change on carbon sequestration in a tropical dry semi-deciduous forest in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. The results from the simulations using the...