Treesearch

Particle emissions from open burning of southwestern (SW) and southeastern (SE) U.S. fuel types during 77 controlled laboratory burns are presented. The fuels include SW vegetation types: ceanothus, chamise/scrub oak, coastal sage scrub, California sagebrush, manzanita, maritime chaparral, masticated mesquite, oak savanna, and oak woodland, as well as SE vegetation types: 1 year, 2 year rough, pocosin, chipped understory, understory hardwood, and pine litter. The SW fuels burned at higher modified combustion efficiency (MCE) than the SE fuels resulting in lower particulate matter mass...

Morphological variation of ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Dougl. ex Laws.), growing north of Mexico, is described. A map shows distributions of five putative races that are analyzed and discussed. Characteristics of branches, shoots, and needles were measured for 10 or fewer trees growing on 147 plots located at 1,500-ft elevational intervals along latitudinal transects. Characteristics of cones were measured from 120 of these plots. Cones from 78 plots yielded seeds for study. Subspecific boundaries were based on both visual interpretations for many traits and statistical cluster...

Among the world’s largest coastal and river basins, the Lower Mississippi River Alluvial Valley (LMRAV)is one of the most disturbed by human activities. This study ascertained the impacts of reforestation on water outflow attenuation (i.e., water flow out of the watershed outlet) and sediment load reduction in the Lower Yazoo River Watershed (LYRW) within the LMRAV using the US-EPA’s BASINS-HSPF model.The model was calibrated and validated with available experimental data prior to its application. Two simulation scenarios were then performed: one was chosen to predict the water outflow and...

This annual bulletin provides federal income tax reporting tips to assist forest landowners and their advisers in filing their 2013 income tax returns. The information presented here is current as of Sept. 15, 2013.

The USDA Forest Service’s Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Program applies specific sampling and analysis procedures to estimate a variety of forest attributes. FIA’s Interior West region uses post-stratification, where strata consist of forest/nonforest polygons based on MODIS imagery, and assumes that nonresponse plots are distributed at random across each stratum. The sample of New Mexico’s forests during 2005-2013 did not meet this assumption due to a large number of private landowners who denied permission to access plots on their properties. We developed a modified stratification...

Wildfire activity continues to plague communities in the American West. Three causes are often identified as key contributors to the wildfire problem: accumulated fuels on public lands due to a history of suppressing wildfires; climate change; and an influx of residents into fire prone areas referred to as the wildland-urban interface (WUI). The latter of these contributors is the focus of much attention. Encouraging homeowners to mitigate wildfire risk on private land has been identified as essential to reducing the devastating effects of wildfires. However, little is known about WUI...

Wildfire activity continues to plague communities in the American West. Three causes are often identified as key contributors to the wildfire problem: accumulated fuels on public lands due to a history of suppressing wildfires; climate change; and an influx of residents into fire prone areas referred to as the wildland-urban interface (WUI). The latter of these contributors is the focus of much attention. Encouraging homeowners to mitigate wildfire risk on private land has been identified as essential to reducing the devastating effects of wildfires. However, little is known about WUI...

The past decades have seen numerous U.S. secondary wood processing companies shift their production to overseas locations, mainly in Southeast Asia. The remaining companies have been hit hard by the downturn in housing markets and the following recession. Thus, many large customers of the U.S. hardwood lumber industry have reduced or stopped the purchase of products, leaving mostly smaller firms as the drivers of demand for the U.S. hardwood industry. Therefore, it has become important to understand these small firms’ needs in the current business environment. This study consisted of a...

Abiotic variables are critical drivers of succession in most primary seres, but how their influence on biota changes over time is rarely examined. Landslides provide good model systems for examining abiotic influences because they are spatially and temporally heterogeneous habitats with distinct abiotic and biotic gradients and post-landslide erosion. In an 18-year study on 6 Puerto Rican landslides, we used structural equation models to interpret the changing effects of abiotic influences (landslide dimensions, slope, aspect, elevation, parent material and related soil properties) on seed...

The second forest inventory of the three main islands of the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) was completed in 2009 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service’s Southern Research Station, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program, and by the International Institute of Tropical Forestry, in collaboration with the Virgin Islands Department of Agriculture.