Treesearch

The Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS) is a forest dynamics modeling system with geographic variants covering forested areas of the contiguous United States. FVS was developed in the early 1980s and is used throughout the United Sates for predicting forest development and the effects of alternative forest management actions. FVS variants are also used in Canada and Europe. The Sixth Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS) Conference, held March 7-9, 2023, in Fort Collins Colorado, consisted of 29 offered presentations and two invited panel discussions organized into three main topic areas: Model...

Idaho has unique legislation declaring that the state pay for wildfire suppression on state lands and forested private lands. Representatives of the Idaho Department of Lands, the governor’s office, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, and Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management met repeatedly starting around 2020 to decide who would pay for wildfire suppression. The interagency working group couldn’t agree on how to define “forested land.”

Urban fires that result from wildfires are an emerging, extreme event affecting communities and urban forests globally. However, much of the fire effects on urban ecosystems literature is primarily focused on Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) areas, correlates of building loss, risk mitigation, and wildland vegetation and fuels. Three recent urban fires in California USA provided an opportunity to explore these effects on urban forests: the 2017 Tubbs (Santa Rosa) and Thomas (Ventura) fires and the 2018 Camp fire that burned Paradise. Accordingly, we analyzed pre- and post-fire neighborhood...

Wildfires in the southwestern United States are increasingly frequent and severe, but whether these trends exceed historical norms remains contested. Here we combine dendroecological records, satellite-derived burn severity, and field-measured tree mortality to compare historical (1700-1880) and contemporary (1985-2020) fire regimes at tree-ring fire-scar sites in Arizona and New Mexico. We found that contemporary fire frequency, including recent, record fire years, is still <20% of historical levels. Since 1985, the fire return interval averages 58.8 years, compared to 11.4 years before...

To celebrate the 1972 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, a conference was held on the evolution of the Ecosystem Approach during the past half-century to learn how to enhance successful implementation of ecosystem-based approaches for resource management, conservation, and societal problems worldwide. Among several conference workshops, one focused on the origins and history of ecosystem approaches, which was attended by 14 researchers with global expertise in conservation biology, ecology, economics, ecosystem modeling, limnology, resource and ecosystem management, policymaking,...

In 2014, Phytophthora root rot was identified as a serious problem in nursery plants grown for habitat restoration in California. To support efforts to produce restoration nursery stock free of Phytophthora species, we developed a standardized leachate baiting method that can be conducted by nursery staff. Each plant in an array of up to 42 container-grown nursery plants is irrigated six times at 15-min intervals with a standardized water volume. Irrigation leachate is collected in a specialized vessel containing a green (unripe) pear bait. Test sensitivity was assessed using arrays of...

Indigenous Knowledge, Practice, and Belief Systems (IKPBS) are an ecological and cultural framework with which Indigenous communities have (and continue to) adaptively manage their land since time immemorial. In the current context of climate change and colonial forest and fire management in the western US, Indigenously-led ecological research and cultural revitalization offers a path forward where tribal sovereignty of land stewardship is maintained and the resiliency of natural systems are reestablished. We describe our process of developing an Indigenous-Directed Research (IDR) partnersh...

Understanding how different tree species affect soil microbial communities is crucial for sustainable forestry and ecosystem management practices. Despite Black walnut (Juglans nigra L.) forestry having a rich history, the overall comprehension of how this hardwood species influences soil remains incomplete. In earlier studies, we examined the effects of hardwood plantations on soil chemical properties and their interaction with microbial biomass, however, we highlight the importance of studying the soil microbial communities and their relationship with soil properties in greater depth....

Soil fungal communities are critical for forest ecosystem functions in the Central Hardwood Region (CHR) of the USA. This evaluation, which took place in 2022–2023, investigates the influence of Juglans nigra (BW, black walnut) and Quercus rubra (NRO, Northern red oak) on soil properties and fungal community structures across three CHR sites. The objectives of this study are to investigate how the fungal communities identified beneath J. nigra and Q. rubra serve to influence biodiversity and soil health within hardwood plantations. Soils from two locations in Indiana and one in Michigan...