Treesearch

Climate is the primary force that controls forest composition and the broad-scale distribution of forests. The climate has always been changing, but the changes now underway are different—they are faster and they are intermingled with other disturbances promoted by increasing human pressures. The projected climate change during the twenty-first century will alter forest habitats—dramatically for some species. These pressures will simultaneously affect the survival, growth, and regeneration of a species. Here, we present an approach to visualizing the risk to individual tree...

The seasonal dynamics of foliage arthropod populations are poorly studied in tropical dry forests despite the importance of these studies for understanding arthropod population responses to environmental change.We monitored the abundance, temporal distributions, and body size of arthropods in five naturalized alien and one native tree species to characterize arthropod seasonality in dry novel Prosopis–Leucaena woodlands in Puerto Rico. A branch clipping method was used monthly to sample foliage arthropod abundance over 39 mo. Seasonal patterns of rainfall and abundance within various...

In today’s global economy, French forest product manufacturers are in direct competition with manufacturers of other countries. Which countries are dominant in international trade in forest products? What are the implications of global price changes on French trade in forest products? This chapter describes the place of France in global markets and how the country’s changes in imports and exports of industrial roundwood, lumber, panels, and paper are related to global forest product market developments.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of crop insurance premiums being determined by small samples of yields that are spatially correlated. If spatial autocorrelation and small sample size are not properly accounted for in premium ratings, the premium rates may inaccurately reflect the risk of a loss.

Background: Planted forests are increasingly important in world forestry, natural resources conservation, and climate change policies. There is great interest in their potential for carbon sequestration and conservation of natural forests while they remain an essential source of fuelwood and industrial roundwood. Methods: A method was developed for estimating the importance of planted forests in the global forestry sector. This was based on calculation of a global economic equilibrium with or without planted forests, using an adaptation of the Global Forest Products Model (GFPM) to...

An overview of the GFPM software structure is given in Section 1.1 in terms of the overall processing flows and the main components of the GFPM. Section 1.2 describes the role of batch files in controlling the execution of the GFPM programs, and details of the sequence of program execution corresponding to each of the “Main Menu” options of the GFPM. Next, each component is described in detail in Sections 1.3, 1.4, and 1.5, including the main programs in that component, the control mechanism, and the data flow.

The Global Forest Products Model (GFPM) is an economic model of global production, consumption, and trade of forest products. An earlier version of the model is described in Buongiorno et al. (2003). The GFPM 2014 has data and parameters to simulate changes of the forest sector from 2010 to 2030. Buongiorno and Zhu (2014) describe how to use the model for simulation. Like the simulation procedures, the base-year calibration procedure described here uses the BPMPD optimizer (Mészáros 1999) to represent market equilibria

Early-seral ecosystems make important contributions to regional biodiversity by supporting high abundance and diversity of many plant and animal species that are otherwise rare or absent from closed-canopy forests. Therefore, the period of post-fire tree establishment is a key stage in forest stand and ecosystem development that can be viewed in the context of competing management interests in diverse early-seral ecosystems vs. rapid forest development for ecological or commercial objectives. Previous work in Douglas-fir/western hemlock forests of the Pacific Northwest suggests stands...

The importance of the herbaceous layer in regulating ecosystem processes in deciduous forests is generally unknown. We use a manipulative study in a rich, mesophytic cove forest in the southern Appalachians to test the following hypotheses: (i) the herbaceous functional group (HFG) in mesophytic coves accelerates carbon and nutrient cycling, (ii) high litter quality input and rapid nutrient turnover associated with HFG will have a positive effect on overstory tree growth, and (iii) the HFG regulates tree regeneration with negative effects on seedling establishment due to competition for...

In the eastern United States, the practice of salvage logging is common to reclaim economic losses and/or reduce fuel loading following a natural disturbance. A current hypothesis states that two disturbances in rapid succession (i.e., compounded disturbance) have a cumulative severity of impact and may displace the successional trajectory further than either disturbance occurring separately. On 20 April 2011, Bankhead National Forest in Alabama was affected by an EF1 tornado with accompanying straight-line winds. Much of the damage was salvaged, however adjacent disturbance in a Wilderness...