Treesearch

Biodiversity conveys numerous functional benefits to forested ecosystems, including community stability and resilience. In the context of managing forests for climate change mitigation/adaptation, maximizing and/or maintaining aboveground biomass will require understanding the interactions between tree biodiversity, site productivity, and the stocking of live trees. Species richness may not be the most appropriate tree biodiversity metric in this context as it weights all species as equally important. Measures that account for evolutionary relationships among species should be more...

We address three key questions for restoration ecology in the Southern Appalachian Mountains. First, what is the role of fire, especially when used as a management tool for oak-dominated ecosystems? Second, what is the relationship between early successional habitat and biodiversity? And third, how do we regenerate oak ecosystems? To answer these questions, first, we examine the historic role of fire in the mountains, discuss its effects on forest resources, and summarize a strategy for restoring fire to ecosystems with a long history of fire exclusion. Second, we examine the relationship...

Provides current and historical information on housing market in the United States. Information includes trends for housing permits and starts, housing under construction, and housing completions for single and multifamily units, and sales and construction. This report will be updated regularly.

This resource update provides an overview of forest resources in Wisconsin based on an inventory conducted by the U.S. Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program at the Northern Research Station in cooperation with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Data estimates are based on field data collected using the FIA annualized sample design and are updated yearly. The estimates presented in this update are for the measurement year 2013 with comparisons made to data reported in 2008. The sample plot population in Wisconsin consists of 12,545 plots, collected across a...

Scientists report their research in journals, which are special booklets that enable scientists to share information with one another. This journal, Natural IQ, was created so that scientists can share their research with you and with other middle school students. Each article tells you about scientific research conducted by scientists in the Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. If you want to know more about the Forest Service, you can read about it on the inside back cover of this journal, or you can visit the Natural Inquirer Web site at http://www.naturalinquirer.org....

The conservation of species at risk of extinction requires data to support decisions at landscape to regional scales. There is a need for information that can assist with locating suitable habitats in fragmented and degraded landscapes to aid the reintroduction of at-risk plant species. In addition, desiccation and water stress can be significant barriers to the success of at-risk plant reintroduction programs. We examine how airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data can be used to model microtopographic features that reduce water stress and increase resource availability, providing...

Ecosystems have been adjusting to changes in climate over time, but projections are that future global climate will change at rates faster than that previously experienced in geologic time. It is not necessarily the amount of change, but rather this rate of change that is most threatening to plant species - the climate appears to be changing faster than plants can adapt or migrate. Long-lived species, such as trees, will lag behind short-lived species in their ability to adapt and track suitable climate conditions. Although growing season length will continue to lengthen under climate...

As a growing body of science shows, climate change impacts on wildlife are already profound—from shifting species’ ranges and altering the synchronicity of food sources to changing the availability of water. Such impacts are only expected to increase in the coming decades. As climate change shapes complex, interwoven ecological processes, novel conditions and ecosystems will continue to emerge. This reality poses unprecedented challenges, but also opportunities for natural resource managers as they plan for the decades to come. Addressing the impacts of climate change on wildlife and...

The quantity and characteristics of coarse woody debris (CWD) were examined in four distinct pine ecosystems of north-western (NW) Spain, NW Russia and the NW USA. Despite differences in species, ecological conditions and management histories, in all four ecosystems the mean snag volume was less than that of logs, most of the CWD mass was in an intermediate degree of decay, and mature stands had the greatest amount of CWD mass, followed by middle-age and then young stands. The CWD ratio (ratio of dead to live wood volume) ranged from 2.8% to 126.6%, depending on pine ecosystem and stand...

This resource update provides an overview of forest resources in Louisiana based on an inventory conducted by the U.S. Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program at the Southern Research Station in cooperation with the Mississippi Forestry Commission. Estimates are based on field data collected using the FIA annualized sample design and are updated yearly. The estimates presented in this update are for the measurement year 2012 with comparisons made to data reported in 2011. The sample plot population in Louisiana consists of 5,579 plots, collected across a period of 7...