Treesearch

Change in social-ecological systems often produces a cascade of unanticipated consequences. Natural resource professionals and other stakeholders need to understand the possible implications of cascading change to prepare for it. The Futures Wheel is a "smart group" method that uses a structured brainstorming process to uncover and evaluate multiple levels of consequences resulting from all types of change. The output is a map of possible direct and indirect, positive and negative impacts that can be analyzed to develop strategies to promote desirable consequences and avoid undesirable...

Outdoor recreation plays a significant role in American lives. It provides physical challenges and well-being, helps develop lifelong skills, provokes interest and inquiry, inspires wonder and awe of the natural world, and often provides an alternative to daily routines. Recreation contributes greatly to the physical, mental, and spiritual health of individuals, bonds family and friends, and instills pride in natural and cultural heritage. Federal lands contribute significantly, and in many cases uniquely, to the provision of nature-based outdoor recreation opportunities.

Two prominent critiques of volunteer tourism are that it is a top-down imposed form of development treating host communities as passive recipients of international aid, and that the impacts of volunteer tourism in host communities are not systematically evaluated. To address this we identified a pre-existing participatory methodology for assessing community sustainability (the compass of sustainability) and adapted it as a rapid low-cost indicator tool for volunteer tourism impact evaluation. We created and tested a development methodology that could be applied through local community...

Trout in Georgia could experience early impacts from climate change as the streams in the region are located at the southern most edge of their North American home range. This study surveyed trout anglers in Georgia to understand how anglers perceive the potential impact of climate change on trout, and whether and how their perception and response to declines in trout populations vary among anglers of different value orientations. A multivariate cluster analysis based on anglers' beliefs about protection and use of nature and sport fish yielded four segments, and anglers showed a notable...

As urbanization can involve multiple alterations to the soil environment, it is uncertain how urbanization effects soil nitrogen cycling. We established 22–0.04 ha plots in six different land cover types—rural slash pine (Pinus elliottii) plantations (n=3), rural natural pine forests (n=3), rural natural oak forests (n=4), urban pine forests (n=3), urban oak forests (n=4) and urban lawns (n=5) to investigate how net soil nitrogen mineralization rates and soil microbial biomass differed between urban forests and rural forests and between urban forests and urban lawns in the Florida panhandle...

A study was conducted to identify geographical variation in loblolly pine bark and wood properties at the whole-tree level and to quantify the responses in whole-tree bark and wood properties following contrasting silvicultural practices that included planting density, weed control, and fertilization. Trees were destructively sampled from both conventionally managed stands and various designed experimental trials established across the southern United States by various research cooperatives and forest product industries to quantify the bark and wood properties of loblolly pine. Bark...

While scholarship on the Gullah Geechee (GG) people has been extensive, little research has examined heritage tourism’s potential to empower or disempower the GG. In an attempt to shed light on this, the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor (GGCHC) was chosen as a case-study site because of its 2006 designation by Congress to protect and promote the unique attributes of the GG’s cultural heritage. Qualitative interviews were conducted to unearth how heritage tourism was psychologically, socially, politically and economically empowering or disempowering the GG. The interviews described...

Wildfire has brought about ecological, economic, and social consequences that engender human responses in many parts of the world. How to respond to wildfire risk is a common challenge across the globe particularly in areas where lands are controlled by many small private owners because effective wildfire prevention and protection require coordinated efforts of neighboring stakeholders. We explore (i) wildfire response strategies adopted by family forestland owners in the southern United States, one of the most important and productive forest regions in the world, through a landowner...

While the growing literature on forest ecosystem services has examined the value and significance of a range ofservices, our understanding of the health-related benefits of ecosystem services from forests is still limited. Tocharacterize the role of forest resources in reducing community vulnerability to the heat effects of climatechange, a general index of heat vulnerability (HEVI) was developed through Principle Components Analysis(PCA) and subsequently used within ANVOA and Poisson regression to assess the relationship between theamount and type of forest resources (species, management...

Although several studies have described roost use by Rafinesque’s big-eared bats (Corynorhinus rafinesquii), few studies have examined roost selection. We examined roost use and selection by Rafinesque’s big-eared bat at the tree, stand, and landscape scales during the maternity season in pristine old-growth habitat in the Coastal Plain of South Carolina. We located 43 roosts (14 maternity, 29 solitary) through cavity searches and radio-telemetry. Maternity colonies and solitary individuals selected roosts based on similar characteristics. The best model explaining roost selection by all...