Treesearch

This science update contains the findings of a 2011 canvass of all primary wood-using plants in North Carolina, and presents changes in product output and residue use since 2009. It complements the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) annual inventory of volume and removals from the State’s timberland. The canvass was conducted to determine the amount and source of wood receipts and annual timber product drain, by county, in 2011 and to determine interstate and cross-regional movement of industrial roundwood. Only primary wood-using mills were canvassed. Primary mills are those that process...

Historically, tree biomass at large scales has been estimated by applying dimensional analysis techniques and field measurements such as diameter at breast height (dbh) in allometric regression equations. Equations often have been developed using differing methods and applied only to certain species or isolated areas. We previously had compiled and combined (in meta-analysis) available diameter-based allometric regression equations for estimating total aboveground and component dry-weight biomass for US trees. This had resulted in a set of 10 consistent, national-scale aboveground biomass...

This science update contains the findings of a 2011 canvass of all primary wood-using plants in Mississippi, and presents changes in product output and residue use since 2009. It complements the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) annual inventory of volume and removals from the State’s timberland. The canvass was conducted to determine the amount and source of wood receipts and annual timber product drain, by county, in 2011 and to determine interstate and cross-regional movement of industrial roundwood. Only primary wood-using mills were canvassed. Primary mills are those that process...

This science update contains the findings of a 2011 canvass of all primary wood-using plants in Louisiana, and presents changes in product output and residue use since 2009. It complements the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) annual inventory of volume and removals from the State’s timberland. The canvass was conducted to determine the amount and source of wood receipts and annual timber product drain, by county, in 2011 and to determine interstate and cross-regional movement of industrial roundwood. Only primary wood-using mills were canvassed. Primary mills are those that process...

A study of commercial timber-harvesting activities in Idaho was conducted during 2008 and 2011 to characterize current tree utilization, logging operations, and changes from previous Idaho logging utilization studies. A two-stage simple random sampling design was used to select sites and felled trees for measurement within active logging sites. Thirty-three logging sites and 815 felled trees were measured. Results of the 2008/2011 study indicated that harvesting efforts removed 1,011 cubic feet (cf) of timber volume from growing stock for every 1,000 cubic feet (mcf) delivered to the mill,...

Bio-invasions occur in management mosaics where local control affects spread and damage across political boundaries. We address two obstacles to local implementation of optimal regional control of a bio-invasion that damages public and private resources across jurisdictions: lack of local funds to protect the public resource and lack of access to protect the private resource. To evaluate these obstacles, we develop a spatial-dynamic model of the optimal control of emerald ash borer (EAB) in the Twin Cities metropolitan area of Minnesota, USA. We focus on managing valuable host trees with...

As a landscape ecologist conducting research on eastern forests for the US Forest Service (e.g., www.nrs.fs.fed.us/atlas), I was eager to learn about how the eastern National Forests came to be, as these forests now play such an important part of the natural world and provide a large carbon sink. The book did not disappoint and I'm confident that it will be informative and interesting to a large swath of people with interests in the eastern US landscape or environmental history.

Three major challenges are present when studying anthropogenic impacts on soil profile properties: (i) site selection; (ii) sampling and modeling native and cultivated soil-landscape relationships; and (iii) graphically and statistically comparing native and cultivated sites to model soil profile changes. This study addressed those challenges by measuring and modeling selected soil profile properties of paired (native) forest and analogous nonnative (cultivated) loess hillslopes in central Missouri. The paired hillslopes in Saline County were mapped as Mollic Hapludalfs and the paired...

Regionally-distinctive open oak forest ecosystems have been replaced either by intensive agriculture and grazing fields or by denser forests throughout eastern North America and Europe. To quantify changes in tree communities and density in the Missouri Plains, a grassland-forest landscape, we used historical surveys from1815 to 1864 and current surveys from 2004 to 2008. To estimate density for historical communities, we used the Morisita plotless density estimator and applied corrections for surveyor bias. To estimate density for current forests, we used Random Forests, an ensemble...

The Carolina northern flying squirrel Glaucomys sabrinus coloratus is an endangered subspecies that is restricted to high elevation forests in the southern Appalachian Mountains. Owing to rugged terrain and nocturnal habits, the subspecies' natural history, home range characteristics and habitat preferences are poorly known. We radio-tracked 3 female and 2 male Carolina northern flying squirrels during late winter through spring 2012 in the Pisgah National Forest, North Carolina, USA. Tracked squirrels used 13 yellow birch Betula alleghaniensis and 9 red spruce Picea rubens as diurnal...