Treesearch

The U.S. Coastal Plain consists of seven sections: the Northern Atlantic, Eastern Atlantic, Peninsular Florida, Southern Gulf, Middle Gulf-East, Middle Gulf-West, and Western Gulf. It covers a large area, consists of a diverse array of habitats, and supports a diverse array of uses. This report presents forecasts from the Southern Forest Futures Project that are specific to the Coastal Plain, along with associated challenges to forest management in this subregion: warmer temperatures; increases in urban land use; population increases; more planted pine; increased harvesting for bioenergy;...

Traditional uses of the forest (timber, forage) have been giving way to other uses more in demand (recreation, ecosystem services). An observable consequence of this process of forest land use conversion is an increase in more difficult and extreme wildfires. Wildland forest management and protection program budgets are limited, and managers are requesting help in finding ways to objectively assign their limited protection resources based on the intrinsic environmental characteristics of a site and the site's interrelationship with available firefighting resources and existing infrastructur...

Substantial investments in fuel management activities on national forests in the western US are part of a national strategy to reduce human and ecological losses from catastrophic wildfire and create fire resilient landscapes. Prioritizing these investments within and among national forests remains a challenge, partly because a comprehensive assessment that establishes the current wildfire risk and exposure does not exist, making it difficult to identify national priorities and target specific areas for fuel management. To gain a broader understanding of wildfire exposure in the national...

When wildlife habitat overlaps with industrial development animals may be harmed. Because wildlife and people select resources to maximize biological fitness and economic return, respectively, we estimated risk, the probability of eagles encountering and being affected by turbines, by overlaying models of resource selection for each entity. This conceptual framework can be applied across multiple spatial scales to understand and mitigate impacts of industry on wildlife. We estimated risk to Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) from wind energy development in 3 topographically distinct regions...

One of the major abiotic stress conditions limiting healthy growth of trees is salinity stress. The use of gene manipulation for increased tolerance to abiotic stress has been successful in many plant species. Overexpression of the Arabidopsis SALT TOLERANT1 (STO1) gene leads to increased concentrations of 9-cis-epoxycarotenoid dioxygenase3, a vital enzyme in Arabidopsis abscisic acid biosynthesis. In the present work, the Arabidopsis STO1 gene (AtSTO1) was overexpressed in poplar to determine if the transgene would confer enhanced salt tolerance to the generated transgenics. The results...

In 2010-2011, we studied the European oak borer (EOB), Agrilus sulcicollis Lacordaire (Coleoptera: Buprestidae), in Michigan, United States of America, and made comparisons with the native twolined chestnut borer (TLCB), Agrilus bilineatus (Weber). EOB adult flight began and peaked before TLCB. More EOB females were captured on purple and white compared with yellow and green sticky traps. More TLCB females were captured on purple, followed by yellow, green, and white, respectively. Male EOB and TLCB did not show a significant colour preference. EOB completed development primarily from...

The 2008 wildfires in the Big Sur region of California’s central coast—the first to occur in forests impacted by Phytophthora ramorum, the non-native, invasive pathogen that causes sudden oak death—provided the rare opportunity to study the response of scolytid and other subcortical beetles to this novel disturbance interaction. We used sticky card traps attached to the main stem of tanoak, Notholithocarpus densiflorus, the tree species most susceptible to P. ramorum, to determine which subcortical beetle species may be using tanoak as a host and to compare insect landing rates on these...

The high level of spatial and temporal heterogeneity in soil N cycling processes hinders our ability to develop an ecosystem-wide understanding of this cycle. This study examined how incorporating an intensive assessment of spatial variability for soil moisture, C, nutrients, and soil texture can better explain ecosystem N cycling at the plot scale. Five sites distributed across a regionally representative vegetation and elevation gradient at the Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory in the southern Appalachian Mountains were sampled five times between November 2010 and March 2012. We used...

Discusses 2007 production and receipts of pulpwood in the Northern Region. Breaks down production from four subregions—Central States, Lake States, Mid-Atlantic States, and New England States—by species group for each state and compares production with that of previous years. Includes production for 2007 for the Plains States by species group and product form.

This chapter provides principles, literature and a case study about the economics of agroforestry. We examine necessary conditions for achieving efficiency in agroforestry system design and economic analysis tools for assessing efficiency and adoptability of agroforestry. The tools presented here (capital budgeting, linear progranuning, production frontier analysis and risk analysis) can help determine when agroforestry is a feasible option and provide arguments for cases when agroforestry systems are economically, socially and environmentally appropriate, fostering improved sustainable...