Treesearch

Forested streamside management zones (SMZs) provide numerous societal benefits including protection of water quality and enhancement of in-stream and riparian habitats. However, values of residual timber in SMZs are often ignored, yet maintenance of unnecessarily wide SMZs can potentially reduce merchantable timber. Therefore, forestland owners, managers, and logging contractors are interested in determining minimum SMZ widths and stocking levels that can effectively maintain water quality while minimizing residual SMZ stand values. A larger SMZ efficacy study evaluated the efficacy of...

Unique thermal and hydrologic regimes of rock-glacier and periglacial talus environments support little-studied mountain ecosystems. We report the first studies of vascular plant and arthropod diversity for these habitats in the central Sierra Nevada, California, USA. Surfaces of active rock glaciers develop scattered islands of soil that provide habitat for vegetation. Total plant cover relative to the entire surface area of two rock glaciers was 0.2-1.7%. Vascular plant diversity was high relative to reference sites, with 16-28 species observed on 0.1-1 ha total area of soils patches on...

A randomized sample of 250 loblolly (Pinus taeda L.) and shortleaf (Pinus echinata Mill.) pine ring counts was collected from the Good and Poor Farm Forestry compartments on the Crossett Experimental Forest. These mature, pine-dominated stands have been managed using uneven-aged silviculture since 1937. Our sample shows that both of these compartments have many different age classes although few distinct cohorts. Over the decades, pine recruitment followed the dozens of timber harvests and occasional natural mortality events (e.g., lightning strikes, ice storms, windthrow, insects, and...

A team of scientists integrated recent research to inform forest managers, stakeholders, and interested parties concerned with promoting socioecological resilience in the Sierra Nevada, southern Cascade Range, and Modoc Plateau. Among the focal topics were forest and fire ecology; soils; aquatic ecosystems; forest carnivores including Pacific fisher, marten, and California spotted owl; air quality; and the social, economic, and cultural components of socioecological systems. The synthesis adopted a holistic perspective by focusing on issues that cross scientific disciplines and considering...

This volume contains the abstracts of the 2,430 oral and poster papers presented at the 2014 IUFRO World Congress held in Salt Lake City, Utah in October 2014.

We quantified carbon (C) dynamics of forests in Washington, US using theoretical models of C dynamics as a function of forest age. We fit empirical models to chronosequences of forest inventory data at two scales: a coarse-scale ecosystem classification (ecosections) and forest types (potential vegetation) within ecosections. We hypothesized that analysis at the finer scale of forest types would reduce variability, yielding better fitting models. We fit models for three temporal dynamics: accumulation of live biomass, accumulation of dead biomass, and net primary productivity. We compared...

The North Cascadia Adaptation Partnership (NCAP) is a science-management partnership consisting of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service Mount Baker-Snoqualmie and Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forests and Pacific Northwest Research Station; North Cascades National Park Complex; Mount Rainier National Park; and University of Washington Climate Impacts Group. These organizations worked with numerous stakeholders over 2 years to identify climate change issues relevant to resource management in the North Cascades and to find solutions that will facilitate the transition of the...

Western juniper has increased in density and distribution in the interior Pacific Northwest since the late 1800s. Management goals for many juniper woodlands are now focused on reducing tree densities and promoting biodiversity, prompting the use of fuel reduction treatments. Fuel reduction often involves mechanical cutting and disturbances such as slash pile burning and skid trail formation. While these activities may reduce tree densities, the extent to which they will restore native biodiversity and community composition, particularly in woodlands invaded by exotic annual grasses, is...