Treesearch

A laboratory experiment was performed to examine the impact of simulated acid rain (SAR) on nutrient leaching, microbial biomass, and microbial activities in a lateritic red soil in South China. The soil column leaching experiment was conducted over a 60-day period with the following six SAR pH treatments (levels): 2.5, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, and 5.0 and one control treatment (pH = 7). Compared with the control treatment, the concentrations of soil organic matter, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, total potassium, soil microbial biomass carbon (MBC), soil microbial biomass nitrogen (MBN), and...

Research from a variety of disciplines suggests that online technologies (i.e., Web 2.0 and social media) have considerable potential for spurring proenvironmental action; however, relatively little work examines how to effectively capitalize on these communication and organization tools. This review paper describes the Technologies for Proenvironmental Action Model (TPAM), a conceptual framework that explicates how different functions of Web 2.0 and social media (i.e., informational, relational, and experiential) can generate and/or facilitate personal, social, and contextual pathways to...

The Albemarle Sound, a 6-million-acre watershed, contains some of the largest areas of bottomland hardwood habitat in the Eastern United States. Using close to 30 years of data from the Forest Inventory and Analysis Program, a study of the current status and trends in the Albemarle Sound’s bottomland forest system was conducted. In 2012, bottomlands totaled approximately 800,000 acres and were composed of mainly swamps/ bogs and floodplains. Swamps/bogs were dominated by tupelo (Nyssa) species and cypress (Taxodium distichum), while floodplains were dominated by tupelo, red maple (Acer...

Evaluation of tree injury often begins with a loss assessment. For winter storm injury, percent crow loss or branch breakage is often estimated. For injury from fire or some mechanical source to the lower trunk, the height and width of the killed vascular cambium and resulting scar are often measured. Both crown breakage and stem wounds provide the opportunity for infection and over time can result in wood decay. Procedures to measure, estimate, and report those losses might be simple or complex and may fit into a flowchart or recipe book. But should these measurements or estimates be the...

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...