Treesearch

C4 perennial bioenergy grasses are an economically and ecologically important group whose responses to climate change will be important to the future bioeconomy. These grasses are highly productive and frequently possess large geographic ranges and broad environmental tolerances, which may contribute to the evolution of ecotypes that differ in physiological acclimation capacity and the evolution of distinct functional strategies.C4 perennial bioenergy grasses are predicted to thrive under climate change - C4 photo- synthesis likely evolved to enhance photosynthetic efficiency under...

The need for widespread occurrence data to inform species conservation has prompted interest in large, national-scale environmental DNA (eDNA) monitoring strategies. However, targeted eDNA assays are seldom validated for use across broad geographic areas. Here, we validated 46 new and previously published probe-based qPCR assays targeting invasive species throughout the continental United States. We drew upon current taxonomies, range maps, publicly available sequences, and tissue archives to evaluate all potentially sympatric confamilial species and genetically similar extrafamilial taxa....

While the influence of canopy trees on soils in natural and restored forest environments is well studied, the influence of understory species is not. Here, we evaluate the effects of outplanted native woody understory on invasive grass biomass and soil nutrient properties in heavily grass-invaded 30 +year-old plantations of a native N-fixing tree Acacia koa in Hawai‘i. We analyze soils from under A. koa trees with versus without planted woody understory and compare these to soils from under remnant pasture trees of the pre-deforestation dominant, Metrosideros polymorpha where passive...

Premise: Intraspecific variation in drought resistance traits, such as drought escape, appear to be frequent within wild, ruderal forb species. Understanding how these traits are arrayed across the landscape, particularly in association with climate, is critical to developing forbs for wildland restoration programs. Use of forbs is requisite for maintaining biological diversity and ecological services. Methods: Using 6074 greenhouse‐grown Chaenactis douglasii seedlings from 95 wild, seed‐sourced populations across the western United States, we recorded bolting phenology and estimated...

Animals often rely on the presence of multiple, spatially segregated cover types to satisfy their ecological needs; the juxtaposition of these cover types is called landscape complementation. In ecosystems that have been homogenized because of human land use, such as fire-suppressed forests, management activities have the potential to increase the heterogeneity of cover types and, therefore, landscape complementation. We modeled changes to California spotted owl (Strix occidentalis occidentalis) nesting/roosting habitat, foraging habitat and habitat co-occurrence (i.e. landscape complementa...

Expected future scenarios including climate change, a greater incidence of urban conflagrations, and continued fuel-load accumulations will increase demands on the wildfire management system in the United States, resulting in increased difficulty managing wildfires. There is a need to expand concepts of effectiveness to manage more extreme and complex events.

Stakeholders and rights-holders around the world are increasingly calling on the private sector and governments to ensure that development projects respond to and respect their needs, while advancing multiple goals of job creation, rural development, conservation, and more. Yet how projects meet diverse needs and goals is underexamined, in particular as private companies’ and governments’ needs and goals do not necessarily align with those of the people who will be affected by them. Additionally, the stakes may be particularly high in a world affected by climate change, where “green...

The southeastern United States was historically characterized by open forests featuring fire-adapted species before land-use change. We compared tree composition and densities of historical tree surveys (1802 to 1841) to contemporary tree surveys, with the application of a similarity metric, in the Coastal Plain ecological province of Mississippi, southeastern USA. We detected the boundary between historical pine and oak-pine open forests and differentiated historical and current forests. In the Coastal Plain, historical open forests converted from fire-tolerant longleaf pine (Pinus...

1.The invasive hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA), Adelges tsugae (Annand) (Hemiptera: Adelgidae), has spread throughout most of the range of eastern hemlock, Tsuga canan-densis (L.), and the entire range of Carolina hemlock, Tsuga caroliniana (Engelman), in the United States. 2. Integrated pest management (IPM) of HWA combines chemical applications with the release of biological control agents on untreated trees within the same stand. Laricobius spp., Rosenhauer (Coleoptera: Derodontidae), have been used as biological control agents of HWA since 2003 and have subterranean and arboreal life...