Treesearch

Recreation managers across the U.S. from both federal, state, and local agencies are often faced with the complex task of distributing recreational opportunities in areas where use is limited for one reason or another. Whether these opportunities are for limited campsites, backcountry hiking, multi-night river floats, or vehicle entry to an area with limited parking, managers must determine how to fairly and equitably distribute, or allocate, these opportunities among the public. Calls for an allocation framework were first voiced as use limits began to be implemented at an increasing rate...

Effective conservation requires a variety of perspectives that center on different ways of knowing. Disciplinary diversity and inclusion (DDI) offers an important means of integrating different ways of knowing into pressing conservation challenges. However, DDI means more than multiple disciplinary approaches to conservation; cognitive diversity and epistemic justice are key. In 2020, the Disciplinary Inclusion Task Force was formed via a grassroots movement of the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB) to assess the extent of DDI and to chart a path to increase DDI. First, we assessed...

Increasing bulk density with depth in a peat profile has been seen as key to the formation of peat. Increasing bulk density with depth causing the changes in porosity and permeability of peat soils has been proposed as a mechanism to explain how waterlogged, stagnant conditions persist in peat bog soils. However, a previous study (Clay & Worrall, 2015; Soil Use & Management, 31, 77) observed, in passing, that this was not always the case, but this previous study could not test the nature of the peat bulk density profile. Thus, this present study examined 22 peat cores from 13 locations...

End coatings are typically used to help prevent end checks on sawn lumber during the drying process. These drying defects can cause a loss of valuable lumber. This study was conducted to look at the effectiveness of three different types of end coatings. After 1 year of air-drying, boards with each of the three end coatings were compared with each other, and they were also compared with untreated control boards. Although all three end coatings were found to be effective in decreasing the amount and severity of drying defects compared with the untreated controls, there were no significant...

The diversity of freshwater species is declining faster than the diversity of species in the oceans or on land. Many of these freshwater aquatic species live in and around waterways that pass through national forests and other federal land. Habitat management is key for these species to persist, but to do that effectively, resource managers need information about where the species live and potential current and future threats. Rebecca Flitcroft, a research fish biologist with the USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, led an effort to comprehensively classify and map all...

We describe the latest version of the NASA Earth eXchange Downscaled Climate Projections 30 arcseconds (NEX-DCP30-CMIP6). The archive contains downscaled historical and future projections for 1950–2100 based on output from Phase 6 of the Climate Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6). The downscaled products were produced using a daily variant of the monthly bias correction/spatial disaggregation (BCSD) method and are at 30-arcsecond horizontal resolution. Four variables (maximum temperature, minimum temperature, precipitation, and vapour pressure) from five CMIP6 experiments (historical,...

The Oregon Coast Adaptation Partnership (OCAP) was developed to identify climate change issues relevant for resource management on federal lands (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service; U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management) in coastal Oregon. This science-management partnership assessed the vulnerability of natural resources to climate change and developed adaptation options that minimize negative impacts of climate change and facilitate transition of ecosystems to a warmer climate. The vulnerability assessment focused on climate, water resources, fisheries,...

Fire and drought are expected to increase in frequency and severity in temperate forests due to climate change. To evaluate whether drought increases the likelihood of post-fire tree mortality, we used a large database of tree survival and mortality from 32 years of wildland fires covering four dominant western North American conifers. We used Bayesian hierarchical modeling to predict the probability of individual tree mortality after fire based on species - Pinus contorta (lodgepole pine), Abies concolor (white fir), Pseudotsuga menziesii (Douglas-fir), and Pinus ponderosa (ponderosa...

Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) is an important component of high-elevation ecosystems throughout the northern Rocky Mountains; however, the species was recently listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act due to widespread mortality throughout its native range. Land managers tasked with whitebark pine conservation and restoration require information on strategies that can positively influence whitebark pine establishment and promote growth and defense of preexisting trees on the landscape. Our study investigated the response of whitebark pine tree growth and resin duct...

Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) in the Columbia River basin are threatened by anthropogenic changes to migratory corridors, estuaries, and natal habitats. Streams provide spatially heterogeneous natal habitats essential for salmon spawning and rearing life stages. We fit a statistical state-space model to salmon populations in Idaho’s Middle Fork Salmon River (MFSR) to assess spatial variation in natal productivity and population growth. Our model integrated multiple long-term data sets to estimate variation in per-capita smolt production and smolt-to-adult (SAR) survival. Smolt...