Treesearch

The depletion of root-available calcium in northern forests soils exposed to decades of increased acid deposition adversely affects forest health and productivity. Laboratory studies indicated the potential of wood-decay fungi to restore lost calcium to the rooting zone of trees. This study reports changes in concentrations of Ca, Mg, and K during decay of sapwood of spruce, maple, hemlock, and birch at two locations in northern New England, USA. Concentrations of exchangeable Ca, Mg, and Al in decayed wood residues after 10 and 12 years of ground contact were also compared. Significant...

This resource update provides an overview of the forest resources in New York based on inventories conducted by the U.S. Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program of the Northern Research Station. Estimates are based on field data collected using the FIA annualized sample design and are updated yearly. (See footnote on page 4). Information about the national and regional FIA program is available online at http://fia.fs.fed.us. Since 2002, FIA has implemented an annual inventory in New York. For the 2014 inventory, estimates for current variables such as area, volume, and...

Climate change will affect tree species growth and distribution; however, under the same climatic conditions species may differ in their response according to site conditions. We evaluated the climate-driven patterns of growth for six dominant deciduous tree species in the southern Appalachians. We categorized species into two functional groups based on their stomatal regulation and xylem architecture: isohydric, diffuse-porous and anisohydric, ringporous. We hypothesized that within the same climatic regime: (1) species-specific differences in growth will be conditional on topographically-...

Social interactions are widely recognized as a potential influence on risk-related behaviors. We present a mediation model in which social interactions (classified as formal/informal and generic-fire-specific) are associated with beliefs about wildfire risk and mitigation options, which in turn shape wildfire mitigation behaviors. We test this model using survey data from fire-prone areas of Colorado. In several cases, our results are consistent with the mediation hypotheses for mitigation actions specifically targeting vegetative fuel reduction. Perceived wildfire probability partially...

Modeling the behavior of crown fires is challenging due to the complex set of coupled processes that drive the characteristics of a spreading wildfire and the large range of spatial and temporal scales over which these processes occur. Detailed physics-based modeling approaches such as FIRETEC and the Wildland Urban Interface Fire Dynamics Simulator (WFDS) simulate fire behavior using computational fluid dynamics based methods to numerically solve the three-dimensional, time dependent, model equations that govern, to some approximation, the component physical processes and their interaction...

Research across a variety of risk domains finds that the risk perceptions of professionals and the public differ. Such risk perception gaps occur if professionals and the public understand individual risk factors differently or if they aggregate risk factors into overall risk differently. The nature of such divergences, whether based on objective inaccuracies or on differing perspectives, is important to understand. However, evidence of risk perception gaps typically pertains to general, overall risk levels; evidence of and details about mismatches between the specific level of risk faced...

Sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.) decline disease, decreased growth, and regeneration failure have been related to a low supply of Ca and Mg. There is increased interest in augmenting cation availability via liming, but there is little information on the amounts of lime required and the longevity of the lime treatment. A single application of 22.4 Mg ha-1 of dolomitic limestone in 1985 at four forested sites in Potter County, PA has shown that soil, soil water, and sugar maple foliage chemistry are significantly altered by liming and the changes in soils and foliage persist as long as...

As our world becomes increasingly urbanized, cities are often where we come into contact with the natural world—not just in parks and urban nature preserves, but in more familiar places like residential yards. We conducted bird surveys and social surveys in Chicago-area residential landscapes near forest preserves (primarily in middle- and high-income areas) to examine residents' perceptions of the birds that co-inhabit their neighborhoods and the relationship of those perceptions with characteristics of the bird community. We found that residents value many aspects of neighborhood...

On February 4, 2014, a seven-member expert panel provided objective technical information on the potential effectiveness and feasibility of activities to manage raptors (northern harriers and great horned owls) to aid the recovery of western snowy plovers. The panel discussed and scored the 26 raptor control techniques in nine main categories of habitat modification, exclusions, hazing, live capture and relocation, nest or egg depredation, lethal hunting and removal, conditioned taste aversion, avicides, and combinations of techniques. The panel also identified areas of information that...

Community-based forest management such as Community Forests Enterprises (CFEs), has potential to generate positive socio-environmental and economic outcomes. We performed a detailed survey of financial and production parameters for 30 of the approximately 992 CFEs in Mexico in order to estimate costs, income, profits and sustainability, but only two of these had harvest far above annual growth, and five of those were only a fraction more than annual growth.All of the 30 CFEs harvested more timber than they grew in 2011. suggesting issues with sustainability, but only two of these had...