Treesearch

Big sagebrush can be seeded successfully on climatically suitable sites in the Great Basin using the proper seeding guidelines. These guidelines include using sufficient quantities of high-quality seed of the correct subspecies and ecotype, seeding in late fall to mid-winter, making sure that the seed is not planted too deeply, and seeding into an environment with reduced competition. Reducing the seeding rates of highly competitive grasses will increase the chances of sagebrush establishment. Aerial seeding the first winter after a burn following drilling of larger-seeded species at...

Declines in Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus, hereafter sage-grouse) populations could be attributed to low chick survival, which may be influenced by the availability of food and cover at sites used by females rearing broods. Habitat attributes important to broods may vary regionally; thus, it is necessary to understand factors affecting regional sage-grouse brood-rearing site selection, especially when estimating the impacts of development. We monitored brood-rearing female sage-grouse equipped with solar Argos Global Positioning System Platform Transmitter Terminals from...

Sustaining forest resources requires a better understanding of forest ecosystem processes, and how management decisions and climate change may affect these processes in the future. While plot and inventory data provide our most detailed information on forest carbon, energy, and water cycling, applying this understanding to broader spatial and temporal domains requires scaling approaches. Remote sensing provides a powerful resource for ‘‘upscaling’’ process understanding to regional and continental domains. The increased range of available remote sensing modalities, including interferometric...

Disturbance is a key driver of carbon (C) dynamics in forests. Insect epidemics, wildfires, and timber harvest have greatly affected North American C budgets in the last century. Research is needed to understand how forest C dynamics (source duration and recovery time) following disturbance vary as a function of disturbance type, severity, forest type, and initial C stocks. We used the Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS) to simulate total C stocks (excluding soil) for 100 years following three types of disturbance (fire, harvest, and insects) with four levels of severity. We initiated the...

High fire activity in western North America is associated with drought. Drought and fire prevail under negative El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) phases in the Southwest and with positive phases in the Northwest. Here, I infer climate effects on historic fire patterns in the geographically intermediate, eastern Great Basin and seek out evidence of human influence on reconstructed fire regimes. Surface fire chronologies were constructed for 10 sites using tree-ring-based fire scars. Regional (67) and local (247) fire years and no-fire (187) years were...

Blackbrush (Coleogyne ramosissima: Rosaceae) is a slow-growing, non-clonal shrub that is regionally dominant on xeric, shallow soils in the North American Mojave Desert-Great Basin transition zone and southern Colorado Plateau. Blackbrush seed production is concentrated in mast years, and most seeds are cached and later consumed by heteromyid rodents. Vegetation histories show that blackbrush stands can persist apparently unchanged for over a century. We used dendrochronological techniques to examine plant age distributions, recruitment patterns and growth rates, to ascertain how blackbrush...

Environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling is a powerful tool for detecting invasive and native aquatic species. Often, species of conservation interest co-occur with other, closely related taxa. Here, we developed qPCR (quantitative PCR) markers which distinguish westslope cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii lewsi), Yellowstone cutthroat trout (O. clarkii bouvieri), and rainbow trout (O. mykiss), which are of conservation interest both as native species and as invasive species across each other’s native ranges. We found that local polymorphisms within westslope cutthroat trout and rainbow trout...

AimsUsing a network of permanent plots, we determined how multiple old-growth forests changed over an 18–19-year period at a statewide scale. This examination of change allowed us to assess how the compositional and structural stability of each forest varied with site characteristics (topography, physiography and productivity) and stochastic disturbance.MethodsIn 2011, we resampled 150 plots distributed across five oldgrowth hardwood forests in Indiana, USA that were originally sampled in 1992–1993. Within each plot, we relocated and remeasured the diameter at breast height (dbh) of all...

Future expected changes in climate and human activity threaten many riparian habitats, particularly in the southwestern U.S. Using Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt3.3.3) modeling, we characterized habitat relationships and generated spatial predictions of habitat suitability for the Lucy’s warbler (Oreothlypis luciae), the Southwestern willow flycatcher (Empidonax traillii extimus) and the Western yellow-billed cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus). Our goal was to provide site- and species-specific information that can be used by managers to identify areas for habitat conservation and/or restoration along...

A vibration testing method based on free vibration theory in a ‘‘free–free” support condition was investigated for evaluating the modulus of elasticity (MOE) of full-size wood composite panels (WCPs). Vibration experiments were conducted on three types of WCPs (medium density fibreboard, particleboard, and plywood) to determine the dynamic MOE of the panels. Static bending test was performed on small specimens cut from the panels to determine the static MOE. A strong linear relationship was found between dynamic MOE of full size panels and static MOE of small specimens. Dynamic MOE of...