Treesearch

Hurricane Katrina had a devastating impact on bottomland hardwood forests in 2005. Artificial regeneration was considered the most appropriate method for reforesting these areas, but few studies have evaluated methods for artificially regenerating oaks on clear cut sites in the southern United States. First-year survival and growth of two oak species, live oak (Quercus virginiana Mill.) and Nuttall oak (Quercus texana Buckl.), and three planting stocks [1-0 bareroot, conventional containerized, and Root Production Method (RPM)™ seedlings] were compared. Seedlings were established using...

A study evaluating the response of oak natural reproduction to a shelterwood harvest and midstory competition control in an upland hardwood stand within the Ozark Highlands of Arkansas was conducted. The study site was located in the dissected Springfield Plateau physiographic region on the University of Arkansas, Division of Agriculture Livestock and Forestry Research Station near Batesville, AR. Five-acre treatment plots were established within a 140-acre shelterwood harvest on north-facing slopes (site indices 65 to 75 for oaks) in a 110-year-old upland hardwood stand. The overstory was...

To compare methods for bottomland hardwood reforestation on marginal farmlands in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley, four afforestation treatments (natural colonization, sown oak acorns, planted oak seedlings, cottonwood–oak interplant) were established in 1995 on former soybean cropland. Natural, sown, and planted-oak plots were not managed after establishment. Interplant plots received intensive management including two seasons of weed-control disking between planted cottonwoods, after which oaks were interplanted. Previous work found that forest canopy development was accelerated by...

While invasions of individual non-native phytophagous insect species are known to affect growth and mortality of host trees, little is known about how multiple invasions combine to alter forest dynamics over large regions. In this study we integrate geographical data describing historical invasion spread of the hemlock woolly adelgid, Adelges tsugae, and beech scale, Cryptococcus fagisuga, with regional forest inventory data collected by the US Forest Service's Forest Inventory and Analysis program to quantify the individual and combined impacts of these pest species. This analysis...

1.) We compared standard multiple-funnel, modified multiple-funnel, intercept panel and canopy malaise (SLAM) traps with top and bottom collecting cups for their effectiveness (species richness, rarity, abundance) at capturing Cerambycidae in eastern North America. 2.) Experiments were conducted in New York, Louisiana, Massachusetts and Georgia in 2011 and 2012. A combination of pheromones and host volatiles chosen to match local forest types were used as lures. 3.) Species richness tended to be higher in SLAM and modified funnel traps than standard funnel and intercept panel traps. SLAM...

Habitat suitability models can provide guidelines for species conservation by predicting where species of interest are likely to occur. Presence-only models are widely used but typically provide only relative indices of habitat suitability (HSIs), necessitating rigorous evaluation often using independently collected presence-absence data. We refined and evaluated presence-only habitat suitability models for nesting white-headed woodpeckers (Picoides albolarvatus), a narrowly distributed species of conservation concern that occupies dry conifer forests of the Inland Pacific Northwest, USA....

Since the 1950s, the world’s urban population has grown more than 400% to 3.9 billion today. About 60% of the total population is expected to live in urban areas by the year 2025. For the United States (U.S.), 80% of the population lives in urban areas. The Earth has entered into the Anthropocene, a new geological epoch dominated by urbanization and people.

Effective surveillance is critical to managing biological invasions via early detection and eradication. The efficiency of surveillance systems may be affected by the spatial arrangement of sample locations. We investigate how the spatial arrangement of sample points, ranging from random to fixed grid arrangements, affects the probability of detecting a target population (survey sensitivity) and the overall cost of detecting and eradicating populations invading over time. For single period surveys, regular sampling patterns outperform the equivalent number of random samples at intermediate...

This report discusses characteristics of seven tree cavities used as day-roosts by female northern long-eared bats (Myotis septentrionalis) during the maternity season in a deciduous forest in north-central Kentucky. Understanding the characteristics of cavities selected by bats will help us better understand the ecology of cavity roosting bats and the tree species and condition necessary for providing day-roost habitat. Cavity openings were created by either fungal decay or primary excavators. Length and volume of cavities were positively related to number of entrances. Mean area of...