Treesearch

Natural disturbances are major drivers of tropical forest dynamics, yet their role in Central Africa’s old-growth rainforests, the world’s second largest tropical forest block, remains poorly quantified. Here we present the first regional assessment of windthrow, the uprooting or breakage of trees by wind. Using Landsat imagery from 2019 to 2020, we detected 74 windthrow events ≥30 ha, collectively affecting ~18,600 ha. These events were concentrated in eastern regions where mesoscale convective systems and extreme rainfall are most frequent. Sizes of windthrow events followed a Weibull...

Protected areas are considered a critical antidote to global biodiversity loss. Yet, protected areas have not effectively preserved freshwater biodiversity compared to other taxonomic groups, in part because they are not designed or managed with freshwater ecosystems in mind. Additionally, historical and current human activities have degraded freshwater biodiversity, and climate driven transformation constrains the ability of protected areas to preserve freshwater biodiversity into the future. Management intervention is an important tool to ensure protected areas support current and future...

Recreation's expanding footprint increasingly overlaps habitats once considered refuges from human disturbance. Yet our ability to predict wildlife responses across broad spatial scales to balance recreational opportunities and wildlife refugia remains limited. We integrated data from an experimental audio playback study quantifying antipredator responses of large mammals to recreation noise with estimates of human use derived from fine-scale GPS data from smartphone applications. We tested whether variation in responses to recreation noises was mediated by exposure history to human...

Homeowner wildfire risk mitigation and preparedness are important components of community wildfire readiness. This report describes the data collected through two efforts conducted in the Nikiski, Alaska, study area: (1) parcel-level rapid wildfire risk assessments performed by trained assessors and (2) homeowner surveys in which respondents provided self-assessments of their parcel-level wildfire risk. This project was undertaken to support the Kenai Peninsula Borough Office of Emergency Management, and the Nikiski Fire Service Area to inform decisions about wildfire adaptation. The...

For homeowners living in the wildland-urban interface, wildfire outreach programs encourage wildfire risk mitigation and evacuation preparedness as steps to protect homes and lives in the event of a wildfire. Wildfire risk mitigation may include activities such as removing vegetation from around structures and storing combustible materials (e.g. firewood or propane tanks) away from homes. Signing up to receive evacuation notifications, packing a to-go bag, or identifying evacuation routes are examples of evacuation preparedness.

An increase in the occurrence of large, high severity wildfires in the western Pacific Northwest (PNW), USA, has created an urgent need for science to better inform forest management and policy decisions to maintain source water quality in the region. The western PNW faces similar challenges to other regions with shifting wildfire regimes and large population centers reliant on surface water from forested catchments. However, the uniquely wet and highly seasonal climate of the western PNW suggests that findings from other, more frequently burned regions may not be directly applicable. To...

Alfalfa is a widely cultivated forage crop with high nutritional value, and it relies heavily on pollinators for successful reproduction owing to its keel petal structure. Numerous studies have shown the differences in pollinator diversity at different landscapes and/or regions, subsequently impacting plant reproduction. However, there is still insufficient evidence on variation in pollinator diversity at different sites with different landscapes and its effects on alfalfa reproduction. In this study, we investigated the diversity and abundance of floral visitors, and their impacts on...

Biodiversity can enhance forest resistance to drought, but the forms of diversity involved and conditions under which diversity confers resistance remain unclear. We used Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) plot data to examine whether four variables—structural richness (variation in tree heights, stand density, canopy cover and/or spatial heterogeneity), species richness (number of tree species), structural evenness and species evenness—are associated with the resistance of net primary productivity to drought and whether these relationships change with drought severity and by ecoregion....

Homeowner wildfire risk mitigation and preparedness are important components of community wildfire readiness. This report describes the data collected through two efforts conducted in the Funny River, Alaska, study area: (1) parcel-level rapid wildfire risk assessments performed by trained assessors and (2) homeowner surveys in which respondents provided self-assessments of their parcel-level wildfire risk. This project was undertaken to support the Kenai Peninsula Borough Office of Emergency Management and Central Emergency Services to inform decisions about wildfire adaptation. The...

Multi-aged stands dominated by ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) once occupied large areas of the American west at low to mid elevations. Much of this forest type is now even-aged after regenerating from past high-severity disturbance (i.e., wildfire or even-aged harvesting) or is transitioning toward even-aged structure in the absence of natural disturbance processes. Although even-aged forests are well-suited to a subset of management objectives and sites, multi-aged forest structures are often better aligned with the multi-objective framework under which public forestland is commonly...