Treesearch

Visibility analyses, used in many disciplines, rely on viewshed algorithms that map locations visible to an observer based on a given surface model. Mapping continuous visibility over broad extents is uncommon due to extreme computational expense. This study introduces a novel method for spatially-exhaustive visibility mapping using airborne lidar and random forests that requires only a sparse sample of viewsheds. In 24 topographically and vegetatively diverse landscapes across the contiguous US, 1000 random point viewsheds were generated at four different observation radii (125 m, 250 m,...

Understanding interactions between environmental stress and genetic variation is crucial to predict the adaptive capacity of species to climate change. Leaf temperature is both a driver and a responsive indicator of plant physiological response to thermal stress, and methods to monitor it are needed. Foliar temperatures vary across leaf to canopy scales and are influenced by genetic factors, challenging efforts to map and model this critical variable. Thermal imagery collected using unoccupied aerial systems (UAS) offers an innovative way to measure thermal variation in plants across...

The past 100 years of empirical research in ecology have generated tremendous knowledge about the component interactions that structure ecological communities. Yet, we still lack the ability to reassemble these puzzle pieces to predict community responses to perturbations, a challenge that grows increasingly urgent given rapid global change. We summarize key advances in community ecology that have set the stage for modeling ecological systems and briefly review the evolution of ecological modeling efforts to identify critical hurdles to progress. We find that while Robert May demonstrated...

As climate changes in coming decades, ponderosa pine forest persistence may be increasingly dictated by their regeneration. Sustained regeneration failure has been predicted for forests of the southwestern US (SWUS) even in absence of stand-replacing wildfire, but regeneration in undisturbed and lightly disturbed forests has been studied infrequently and at a limited number of locations. We characterized 77 ponderosa pine sites in 7 SWUS locations, documented regeneration occurring over the past ∼20 years, and utilized gridded meteorological estimates and water balance modeling to determine...

The 2019 Museum Fire burned in a mountainous region near the city of Flagstaff, AZ, USA. Due to the high risk of post-fire debris flows and flooding entering the city, we deployed a network of seismometers within the burn area and downstream drainages to examine the efficacy of seismic monitoring for post-fire flows. Seismic instruments were deployed during the 2019, 2020, and 2021 monsoon seasons following the fire and recorded several debris flow and flood events, as well as signals associated with rainfall, lightning and wind. Signal power, frequency content, and wave polarization were...

Although wolves are wide-ranging generalist carnivores throughout their life cycle, during the pup-rearing season wolf activity is focused on natal den sites where pup survival depends upon pack members provisioning food. Because prey availability is influenced by habitat quality within the home range, we investigated the relative importance of prey species for adults and pups and further examined the relationship between habitat characteristics, wolf diet, and litter size on Prince of Wales Island (POW) in Southeast Alaska. During 2012-2020, we detected 13 active den sites within the home...

Selenium (Se) contamination of public lands and water is a result of irrigated agriculture and mining activities in areas rich in Se geologic deposits. Pariette Draw is part of the northern Colorado Plateau and is an area of concern for Se contamination in the Pariette Wetlands. Pariette Wetlands, a wetland built in the 1970s to provide wildlife habitat, is distinguished by its arid climate and a short growing season of hot dry summers followed by cold winters with several months below freezing. An understanding of how Se is mobilized and removed within the wetland will provide management...

Insect outbreaks affect forest structure and function and represent a major category of forest disturbance globally. However, the resulting impacts on evapotranspiration (ET), and especially hydrological partitioning between the abiotic (evaporation) and biotic (transpiration) components of total ET, are not well constrained. As a result, we combined remote sensing, eddy covariance, and hydrological modeling approaches to determine the effects of bark beetle outbreak on ET and its partitioning at multiple scales throughout the Southern Rocky Mountain Ecoregion (SRME), USA. At the eddy...

Polyomaviruses are oncogenic viruses that are generally thought to have co-evolved with their hosts. While primate and rodent polyomaviruses are increasingly well-studied, less is known about polyomaviruses that infect other mammals. In an effort to gain insight into polyomaviruses associated with carnivores, we surveyed fecal samples collected in the USA from bobcats (Lynx rufus), pumas (Puma concolor), Canada lynxes (Lynx canadensis), and grizzly bears (Ursus arctos). Using a viral metagenomic approach, we identified six novel polyomavirus genomes. Surprisingly, four of the six genomes...

Bark beetle (Dendroctonus spp.) epidemics generate snags, providing nesting and foraging opportunities for woodpeckers and other disturbance-associated wildlife. Forest managers need to know how long snags persist to include wildlife habitat conservation in their objectives, but published studies of snag persistence following disturbance under-represent beetle-killed forest. We analyzed snag persistence rates in relation to environmental covariates following a mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) epidemic in the Elkhorn Mountains (Montana, U.S.A.) over a 6-year study period...