Treesearch

This research applies a temporally and spatially explicit model to analyze timber harvesting’s impact on campground utilization on United States Forest Service (USFS) land across the Western U.S. Timber harvesting and camping can occur near one another due to multiple-use management strategies used by the USFS. However, intensive forest management can change the degree of perceived naturalness of a forest and may therefore negatively impact recreation. We investigate several facets of harvesting activity, such as proximity to camping, type of harvesting, regional differences, and persisting...

Understanding wildfire behavior requires knowledge of how physical processes interact with fuels, topography, and weather and can be hard to approach or explain for those without a background in engineering or physical sciences. A greater familiarity with the physics of fire behavior translates to not only a better-prepared fire management workforce but also improved fire behavior prediction models. Both are critical for developing proactive approaches to managing wildfires and using fire itself as a stewardship tool.A new book, Wildland Fire Behaviour: Dynamics, Principles, and Processes,...

Wildfires can serve as both threats and opportunities, depending on one’s perspective. For people who live in the wildland-urban interface (WUI), where human development and natural vegetation intersect, wildfires pose an evident danger to lives and property. Conversely, for natural resource managers on Federal lands, wildfires present an opportunity to maintain or restore ecosystem health. The key to striking a balance between fire as a threat and as an opportunity lies in effective fuel management strategies.

Oaks (Quercus spp) are one of the most important sources of timber, mast for wildlife, and ecosystem services across the eastern US. Increasingly, this genus is at risk from diseases including oak wilt, which is one of the most serious threats to oaks, caused by the fungus, Bretziella fagacearum. The upper Midwest has over 5 million ha of oak forests, much of which is on rocky glaciated soils where traditional methods of containing below-ground spread of oak wilt (e.g., vibratory plow lines) are not feasible. We evaluated an alternative containment method of girdling and herbicide (GH) of...

The effectiveness of physical barriers against subterranean termites was evaluated in a 34-wk field test in coastal Mississippi by installing Obex11, a commercial polyethylene flashing, and Termimesh, a stainless-steel mesh in 3-ply 280 mm (width) × 450 mm (length) cross laminated timber (CLT) walls. Damage showed that both barriers performed significantly better than the no barrier control with respect to termite damage as evaluated by visual rating and mud tube length. Obex11, however, like the no barrier control, was more vulnerable to attack by Ambrosiodmus minor (Stebbing), an...

The Canada lynx is listed as a threatened species, and as such, the identification and conservation of lynx habitats is of significant concern. Lynxes require areas with high amounts of horizontal cover made up of ground vegetation. Lidar offers a robust method of quantifying vegetation structure, and airborne lidar has been acquired across large areas of potential lynx habitat. Unfortunately, airborne lidar is often not able to directly measure understory horizontal cover due to occlusion from the upper branches. Terrestrial lidar does directly measure understory horizontal cover and can...

Barriers such as hydroelectric dams inhibit migratory pathways essential to many aquatic species, resulting in significant losses of species, their unique life-history forms, and genetic diversity. Understanding the impacts of dam removal to species recovery at these different biological levels is crucial to fully understand the restoration response. We used the removal of two large dams on the Elwha River as an opportunity to characterize how restored connectivity impacts the reestablishment of two fish species, Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) and Steelhead/rainbow trout...

Fire is a pervasive driver of trait evolution in animals and its importance may be magnified as fire regimes rapidly change in the coming decades. This was the thesis of our paper published recently in Trends in Ecology and Evolution [1]. In their response letter, Nimmo et al. [2] reinforce our thesis and suggest expansion of some of our conceptual models.