Treesearch

Relationships among cavity-nesting birds, trees, and wood decay fungi pose interesting management challenges and research questions in many systems. Ornithologists need to understand the relationships between cavity-nesting birds and fungi in order to understand the habitat requirements of these birds. Typically, researchers rely on fruiting body surveys to identify the fungal players in these relationships. Fruiting body surveys enable nondestructive sampling, but vastly underestimate fungal presence and diversity and may miss species of critical importance to cavity-nesting birds; thus...

Ponderosa pines are the most important timber producing species in Mexico, and they also represent a major portion of the Usa and Canada timber production. These pines form near pure stands with simple and stable stand structure. They suffer only occasional disturbances, and they sustain a limited capacity to hold biodiversity and other senvironmental services. The driving force in the stand dynamics is a need for direct light during all their lives. Most ponderosas can successfully regenerate under partial shade, but they must be released soon afterwards. Seedlings appear almost immediatel...

Silviculture is the art, science and practice of controlling the establishment, composition, health, quality and growth of forests to accomplish a set of management objectives. This publication offers an approach to silviculture of the forests of Quintana Roo in which mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla King), the commercially most important tree species in Latin America, is found (Whitmore 2003). We designate these forests as mahogany forests. Much silvicultural knowledge has been gained by studying and observing which practices have or have not achieved the expected results in practice. This...

Brown-rot fungi degrade almost exclusively wood cellulosic materials participating in the, carbon cycle and soil formation of many forest regions, these are especially important on boreal and cultivated coniferous forests. These fungi and forests may have a common co-evolutionary history. Studying wood-inhabiting fungi in cultivated pine forests in Southern Brazil, we have analyzed morphologically and molecularly specimens of Sarcoporia polyspora, which has shown to be a rare and aggressive decomposer previously unreported from South America. Nuclear ribosomal ITS region sequences from...

The leaf roller Salbia lotanalis Druce (Lepidoptera: Crambidae), a potential biological control agent of Miconia calvescens de Candolle (Melastomataceae), was studied in Costa Rica. Larvae were collected from a field site near San Jose and the insect was reared in the laboratory to study its biology and behavior. Chaetotaxy and morphology of final-instar larvae were described. Using head capsule width measurements, we determined five larval instars in S. lotanalis. The insect was easily reared in the laboratory on M. calvescens seedlings and the life cycle of the insect was completed in...

For niche differences to maintain coexistence of sympatric species, each species must grow and/or survive better than each of the others in at least one set of conditions (i.e., performance trade-offs). However, the extent of niche differentiation in tropical forests remains highly debated. We present the first test of performance trade-offs for wild seedlings in a tropical forest. We measured seedling relative growth rate (RGR) and survival of four common native woody species across 18 light, substrate, and topography microhabitats over 2.5 years within Hawaiian montane wet forest, an...

Protected areas are a cornerstone for biodiversity conservation, but they also provide amenities that attract housing development on inholdings and adjacent private lands. We explored how this development affects biodiversity within and near protected areas among six ecological regions throughout the United States. We quantified the effect of housing density within, at the boundary, and outside protected areas, and natural land cover within protected areas, on the proportional abundance and proportional richness of three avian guilds within protected areas. We developed three guilds from...

We report the first records of 6 Ascomycete truffle taxa in Turkey: Genea verrucosa Vittad., Genea klotzschii Berk. & Broome, Stephensia bombycina (Vittad.) Tul. & C.Tul., Terfezia olbiensis Tul. & C.Tul., Tuber excavatum Vittad., and Tuber rufum Pico. We also report new localities within Turkey for Picoa juniperi Vittad., Terfezia leptoderma Tul. & C.Tul., Choiromyces meandriformis Vittad., Tuber brumale Vittad., Tuber nitidum Vittad., and Tuber mesentericum Vittad.

Twenty genera of hypogeous fungi or truffles are reported and illustrated from the State of Tamaulipas. The truffles belong to the following phyla: Glomeromycota (Glomus); Zygomycota (Endogone); hypogeous Ascomycota (Elaphomyces, Genabea, Genea, Hydnobolites, Pachyphloeus, Tuber); and Basidiomycota (Arcangeliella, Aroramyces, Cystangium, Gautieria, Gymnomyces, Hymenogster; Hysterangium, Melanogaster, Octaviania, Rhizopogon, Sclerogaster and Thaxterogasier) . Comments on their ecology and taxonomic status are provided for most genera.

Decomposing litter in forest ecosystems supplies nutrients to plants, carbon to heterotrophic soil microorganisms and is a large source of CO2 to the atmosphere. Despite its essential role in carbon and nutrient cycling, the temperature sensitivityof leaf litter decay in tropical forest ecosystems remains poorly resolved, especially in tropical montane wet forests where the warming trend may be amplified compared to tropical wet forests at lower elevations. We quantified leaf litter decomposition rates along a highly constrained 5.2 °C mean annual temperature (MAT) gradient in tropical...