Treesearch

Satellite imagery can potentially reduce the costs and time associated with ground-based forest inventories; however, for satellite imagery to provide reliable forest inventory data, it must produce consistent results from one time period to the next. The objective of this study was to temporally validate a Landsat-based volume estimation model in a four county study area for possible use in large-scale forest inventories. Data were derived from Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) imagery of Choctaw, Clay, Oktibbeha, and Winston counties in central Mississippi and compared with field inventory...

The relationship between tree size (quadratic mean diameter) and tree density (number of trees per unit area) has been a topic of research and discussion for many decades. Starting with Reineke in 1933, the maximum size-density relationship, on a log-log scale, has been assumed to be linear. Several techniques, including linear quantile regression, have been employed to obtain parameters of the self-thinning line. Some authors recently considered that restriction on the maximum diameter at lower spatial densities resulted in a curvilinear relationship. In this study, a nonlinear quantile...

This study: (1) examined competitive interactions between switchgrass and loblolly pine grown in co-culture, and (2) assessed early growth rates of loblolly pine as affected by differing switchgrass competition treatments. Co-cultures were established and monitored on two Upper Coastal Plain sites for 2 years. The Pontotoc site has a history of agricultural use with some likely residual fertility, while the Starr site has a history of forest use, although it has been maintained for several decades as a mowed field. Five treatments were employed at each site: (1) switchgrass only (SG); (2)...

Lawn has been used for landscaping, gardening, and beautification of homes and cities for a long time. The evolution of the lawn reflects important cultural and biophysical interactions between humans and nature. The American lawn, which was from Europe and has been a part of the American dream for home ownership and culture, has become an area going against nature for its extensively using chemicals and generated pollutions. Tracing how the lawn is becoming an important part of culture, this article focuses on more recent pollution and other environ-mental problems resulted from the lawn...

The Bear River contributes more water to the eastern Great Basin than any other river system. It is also the most significant source of water for the burgeoning Wasatch Front metropolitan area in northern Utah. Despite its importance for water resources for the region’s agricultural, urban, and wildlife needs, our understanding of the variability of Bear River’s stream flow derives entirely from the short instrumental record (1943–2010). Here we present a 1200-year calibrated and verified tree-ring reconstruction of stream flow for the Bear River that explains 67% of the variance of the...

High rates of triploidy have recently been described in quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) of the Intermountain West, raising questions about the contributions of triploidy to stand persistence and dynamics. In this study, we investigated cytotype differences between diploid and triploid aspen clones using dendrochronological techniques. We used tree-ring data collected from stems within an aspen stand near Fish Lake, Utah, to test for differences in stem age, population structure, growth, and response to climate. This stand contains the well-known Pando clone, which is purported...

There is growing interest in managing southern pine forests for both carbon sequestration and bioenergy. For instance, thinning otherwise unmerchantable trees in naturally regenerated pine-dominated forests should generate biomass without conflicting with more traditional forest products. However, we lack the tools to accurately quantify the biomass in these submerchantable size classes. To help remedy this, we destructively sampled 54 small-diameter loblolly pines (Pinus taeda L.) from stands on the Crossett Experimental Forest (CEF) in southeastern Arkansas. After harvesting, each tree...

Forests contain a large amount of carbon (C) stored as tree biomass (above and below ground), detritus, and soil organic material. The aboveground tree biomass is the most rapid change component in this forest C pool. Thus, management of forest resources can influence the net C exchange with the atmosphere by changing the amount of C stored, particularly in landscapes dominated by forests, such as in the southeastern United States. Our work focuses on the influence of prescribed burning and thinning on total live aboveground tree (TLAT) biomass in the William B. Bankhead National Forest,...

"Wood is an obvious alternative energy source": Johnson and others (2007) declare the potential of short-rotation intensively-managed woody crop systems to produce biomass for energy. While obvious as an energy source, costs of production need to be measured to assess the economic viability of selected tree species as woody perennial energy crops

Chinese tallow tree [Triadica sebifera (L.) Small, formerly Sapium sebiferum (L.) Roxb.] is a monoecious and deciduous tree, native to central and southern China. As a nonnative invasive tree species, it has aggressively invaded forestlands in southeastern United States, particularly the low- and bottom-land forests along the coastal region of the Gulf of Mexico. This study, on the basis of a destructive sample of 11 tallow trees collected from a bottomland oak-gum-cypress forest in the southern Mississippi, developed a group of individual tree level models to reflect the growth of...