Treesearch

Flow diversions are widespread and numerous throughout the semi-arid mountains of the western United States. Diversions vary greatly in their structure and ability to divert water, but can alter the magnitude and duration of base and peak flows, depending upon their size and management. Channel geometry and riparian plant communities have adapted to unique hydrologic and geomorphic conditions existing in the areas subject to fluvial processes. We use geomorphic and vegetation data from low-gradient (¡Ü3%) streams in the Rocky Mountains of north-central Colorado to assess potential effects...

Rising atmospheric CO2 and resulting warming are expected to impact freshwater resources in the tropics, but few studies have documented how natural stream flow regimes in tropical watersheds will respond to changing rainfall patterns. To address this data gap, we utilized a space-for-time substitution across a naturally occurring and highly constrained (i.e., similar geomorphic, abiotic, and biotic features) model hydrological system encompassing a 3000 mm mean annual rainfall (MAR) gradient on Hawai'i Island. We monitored stream flow at 15 min intervals in 12 streams across these...

The distribution and future fate of ectothermic organisms in a warming world will be dictated by thermalscapes across landscapes. That is particularly true for stream fishes and cold-water species like trout, salmon, and char that are already constrained to high elevations and latitudes. The extreme climates in those environments also preclude invasions by most non-native species, so identifying especially cold habitats capable of absorbing future climate change while still supporting native populations would highlight important refugia. By coupling crowd-sourced biological datasets with...

Liming, the application of carbonate materials (e.g., CaCO3, CaMg(CO3)2) to soils and surface waters, has been used extensively in Europe, and to a lesser extent in Canada and the United States, to mitigate the effects of acid deposition on forest and aquatic ecosystems. This literature review was conducted to assess the effects of liming on ecologically and economically important sugar maple dominated ecosystems of northeastern North America, where it is increasingly used to treat sugar maple dieback. Potential direct and indirect effects were considered to determine whether the use of...

The communication system through which information flows during a disaster can be conceived of as a set of relationships among sources and recipients who are concerned about key information characteristics. The recipient perspective is often neglected within this system. In this article, we explore recipient perspectives related to what information was used, useful, and trustworthy in a wildfire context. Using a survey (n = 873) on five large wildfires in 2009 and 2010, we found significant gaps between the sources that were used by the most respondents and those that that they rated as...

This resource update provides an overview of forest resources in Michigan 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.* The annual inventory started in 1999. For the 2014 inventory, estimates for current variables such as area, volume, and biomass are based on 6,635 plot samples collected from 2009-2014. Change variables such as net growth, removals, and mortality are based on 6,116 samples...

Islands are conventionally (and narrowly) referred to as isolated lands in surrounding waters. However, in broad senses and when loosely defined, ‘islands’ also include insular areas or entities such as mountain tops, lakes (e.g., potholes in northern Great Plains in North America), oasis (in deserts), and springs (especially in deserts) that support unique species assemblages relative to surrounding habitats (e.g., Brown, 1978; Lomolino et al., 2006). Mostly because of the insular nature, habitats on oceanic islands are often different from those on the nearest mainland even when latitudes...

We describe the rules, norms, and strategies (institutional statements) that characterize ecological restoration across 10 organizations in the Chicago Wilderness region. Our use of Ostrom's IAD ADICO grammar tool is novel in both context (non-extractive resource management) and data type (qualitative interviews). Results suggest that, in contrast to a focus on rules in the literature, restoration is overwhelmingly guided by strategies (institutional statements void of tangible or emotional sanctions). Moreover, a small, but critical set of norms exist. From over 1,700 institutional...

The effects of habitat alteration and climatic instability have resulted in the loss of bird populations throughout the globe. Tropical birds in particular may be sensitive to climate and habitat change because of their niche specialization, often sedentary nature, and unique life-cycle phenologies. Despite the potential influence of habitat and climatic interactions on tropical birds, we lack comparisons of avian demographics from variably aged forests subject to different climatic phenomena. Here, we measured relationships between forest type and climatic perturbations on White-collared...

With air quality, liability, and safety concerns, prescribed burning and managed wildfire are often considered impractical treatments for extensive fuels reduction in western US forests. For California's Sierra Nevada forests, we evaluated the alternative and analyzed the amount and distribution of constraints on mechanical fuels treatments on USDA Forest Service land. With the use of current standards and guides, feedback from practicing silviculturists, and GIS databases, we developed a hierarchy of biological (i.e., nonproductive forest), legal (i.e., wilderness), operational (i.e.,...