Treesearch

Wildfires are becoming an increasing challenge to the sustainability of boreal peatland (BP) ecosystems and can alter the stability of boreal carbon storage. However, predicting the occurrence of rare and extreme BP fires proves to be challenging, and gaining a quantitative understanding of the factors, both natural and anthropogenic, inducing BP fires remains elusive. Here, we quantified the predictability of BP fires and their primary controlling factors from 1997 to 2015 using a two-step correcting machine learning (ML) framework that combines multiple ML classifiers, regression models,...

The emerging field of convivial conservation (CC) draws on the tradition of political ecology (PE) to present a “radical” alternative to contemporary environmentalisms, speaking to the challenges of conservation in the Anthropocene as well as the global ascent of reactionary populism. Building on previous work arguing for the ongoing value of dialogue between PE and the American West, I here develop a conversation between CC and another radical intervention, the collaborative conservation of the West’s so-called “radical center” (RC). Using the nexus of wolf–livestock conflict and public...

Forests around the globe are facing unprecedented threats from biotic and abiotic factors that challenge the overall health of ecosystems and potentially contribute to climate warming through positive feedback to atmospheric CO2. Presently, some of the greatest challenges pertain to the rapid spread and resulting tree mortality caused by nonnative forest insects. Increased global trade and more favorable climates due to climate change have facilitated the establishment of non-native forest insects in new areas where conditions were previously unsuitable for their growth and survival. The...

Global environmental change is pushing many socio-environmental systems towards critical thresholds, where ecological systems' states are on the precipice of tipping points and interventions are needed to navigate or avert impending transitions. Flickering, where a system vacillates between alternative stable states, is an early warning signal of transitions to alternative ecological regimes. However, while flickering may presage an ecological tipping point, these dynamics also pose unique challenges for human adaptation. We link an ecological model that can exhibit flickering to a model...

Population monitoring is an essential component of biodiversity conservation and management, but low detection probabilities for rare and/or cryptic species makes estimating abundance and occupancy challenging. Passive acoustic monitoring combined with machine learning algorithms represents a potential path forward to effectively and efficiently monitor the occurrence of rare vocalizing species across entire forest landscapes. Our objectives were to develop and implement a convolutional neural network (PNW-Cnet) to identify vocalizations of a rare and threatened forest nesting bird species...

Background - Declines in biodiversity and ecosystem health due to climate change are raising urgent concerns. In response, large-scale multispecies monitoring programmes are being implemented that increasingly adopt sensor-based approaches such as acoustic recording. These approaches rely heavily on ecological data science. However, developing reliable algorithms for processing sensor-based data relies heavily on labelled datasets of sufficient quality and quantity. We present a dataset of 1,575 dawn chorus soundscape recordings, 141 being fully annotated (n = 32,994 annotations) with...

Planting hardwood trees on retired marginal agricultural land is one of the main strategies used to restore forested wetlands. Evaluating effectiveness of wetland restoration requires efficient monitoring to evaluate recovery trajectories and desired conditions. Recent advancements in unmanned aerial system (UAS) technologies have prompted wide-scale adoption of UAS platforms in providing a range of ecological data. In this study, we examined the use of UAS Structure from Motion (SfM) derived point clouds in estimating tree density, canopy height, and percent canopy cover for bottomland...

Currently barrens communities only represent about 1% of their original area in the Great Lakes region. To maintain or restore barrens vegetation, prescribed fire is often applied to limit the regeneration of undesirable species and shrubs. Vegetation community response is a combination of direct fire effects on the vegetation vitality and the indirect effect of soil nitrogen (N) loss that favors nutrient-poor adapted barren communities. In this study, we assessed forest floor and upper mineral soil (0–5 cm) pools of carbon (C), N, and mercury (Hg) before and after prescribed fire of the...

Horizon scanning is a process to generate foresight – insight into how the future could unfold. Horizon scanning involves systematically searching a wide range of information sources for early signals of change, collecting those signals in a database, and exploring their possible implications for the future. The focus is often on external change in the broad contextual environment of a field or organization, i.e., the social, economic, technological, and governance domains. External change could be highly disruptive and is unlikely to be on the radar of decision makers. Early awareness of...

A wildland fire experiment was conducted on a 40-ha tall grass prairie in Texas to study fire-atmosphere interactions. The experiment coincided with a Red Flag Warning, signifying specific weather conditions associated with an elevated risk of wildfire ignition and rapid spread. This provided a rare opportunity to observe wildland fire behavior and its impact on atmospheric flows under conditions deliberately avoided in similar experiments. This study analyzed the high frequency meteorological data collected during the experiment using threedimensional sonic anemometers mounted on a 43-m...