Treesearch

Global efforts to protect biodiversity have fallen short and global threats, including energy development, are prevalent. Assessing impacts of energy development helps determine if protected areas, particularly wilderness areas, can conserve biodiversity, natural habitats, and sustain ecological processes inherent in ecosystems. We quantified the amount of energy development around wilderness areas, evaluated rate of change in energy development, assessed if nearby public land provides a safeguard from energy development, and identified wilderness areas surrounded by the most energy...

This paper reviews the current knowledge of hydrological processes in Chilean temperate forests which extend along western South America from latitude 29◦ S to 56◦ S. This geographic region includes a diverse range of natural and planted forests and a broad sweep of vegetation, edaphic, topographic, geologic, and climatic settings which create a unique natural laboratory. Many local communities, endangered freshwater ecosystems, and downstream economic activities in Chile rely on water flows from forested catchments. This review aims to (i) provide a comprehensive overview of Chilean...

Restoration planning requires a reliable seed supply, yet many projects occur in response to unplanned events. Identifying regions of greater disturbance risk could efficiently guide seed procurement. Using fire in U.S. Cold Deserts as an example, we demonstrate how historic disturbance can inform seed production choices. We compared differences in fire frequency, area burned, and percent of area burned among different management areas, identifying regions of particular need.We also present a case study focused on fire occurrence within important wildlife habitat, specifically looking at...

Old-growth forests are globally valued for their ecological attributes, cultural significance, and in many cases their rarity. Yet, defining and quantifying these forests has been a difficult task. This study developed an approach to consistently estimate extent of old-growth forest on United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service National Forest System (NFS) lands, using NFS regional old-growth definitions applied to the US national forest inventory (conducted by the USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis [FIA] program). This method was developed in response to...

Cellulose nanofibril (CNF) substrates that are inexpensive, biodegradable, and quickly incinerable, are potential substrates for disposable RF applications. In this paper, high-performance flexible microwave lumped elements and filters fabricated on flexible CNF substrates are reported. A spiral inductor with a resonance frequency of 29.8 GHz and quality (Q) factor of 8.5 and a metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitor with a resonance frequency of 45 GHz and Q factor of 85.2 were achieved in a 200 μm thick CNF substrate. Meanwhile, the inductor and capacitor exhibit outstanding mechanical...

Sustainable timber use is vital to the health of American forests, and building materials represent a significant market for wood materials. However, due to the combustible nature of wood, wood building products are at risk of both becoming target fuel and contributing to the fuel load/fire spread. To reduce the risks, fire protection measures, such as fire-retardant treatments, can be employed. Here, a summary of current research related to the fire protection of wood building products is provided from exterior uses in the wildland-urban interface to interior applications for tall wood...

Lignin is a waste product in the paper industry and lignocellulosic biorefineries, in addition to being the second most abundant renewable biopolymer on Earth. Valorization of useless lignin into high value-added advanced materials not only helps address the environmentally detrimental biowaste but also satisfies the societal need for energy. While lignin has been converted into porous carbon, made into slurry, and pasted onto metal forms as an electrode for lithium-ion batteries and supercapacitors, there remains issues with how to scale up the process while achieving great area and mass...

Decades of research have brought increasing focus to the biotic and abiotic factors associated with bark beetle infestation of North American conifers. Information is lacking, however, regarding beetle-caused mortality for ponderosa pine of the Colorado Plateau. From 1995 to 2019, we installed and periodically remeasured permanent plots in this forest type with a goal of identifying factors related to infestation probability including tree and stand characters, and abiotic factors such as temperature and precipitation. Forty-eight sites were distributed throughout the Colorado Plateau,...

Wildfire has been an important force in shaping biological diversity in forests of western North America. Patterns of reburning helped to maintain heterogenous landscapes with low tree densities that naturally limited the extent of severe stand-replacing fires. However, anthropogenic impacts over the past two centuries have dramatically altered fire activity and its ecological function, creating conditions that promote large and intense fires with no historical analog. Fuels reduction treatments represent proven methods to mitigate extreme fire events, but there is controversy over their...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service Pacific Northwest (PNW) Research Station has launched a research initiative to improve and organize policy-relevant understanding of forest carbon accounting and fill knowledge gaps about forest carbon dynamics. There are several dimensions to forest carbon accounting, including tracking wood products flow from the forest to various destinations. More information is needed to improve the accounting of timber harvested within the Pacific coast region (PCR; British Columbia, California, Oregon, and Washington) but processed elsewhere. We used...