Treesearch

Our recent contribution to Global Change Biology found that, globally, two-thirds of protected area units and over half of protected land area are unlikely to serve as steppingstones for many species under a warming climate (Parks et al., 2023). In response, Gillingham and Thomas (2023) point to previous evidence that protected areas have acted as steppingstones based on three studies from Great Britain that examined range shifts.Original publication: Parks, Sean A.; Holsinger, Lisa M.; Abatzoglou, John T.; Littlefield, Caitlin E.; Zeller, Katherine A. 2023. Protected areas not likely to...

Context: Native early-successional plants and invasive exotic plants often colonize the same disturbed space and have similar functions, making interactions likely. Knowing whether these interactions are facilitative or competitive across different scales will help determine the influence of such species across a forested landscape. Objective: We evaluated the impacts of an early-successional, nitrogen-fixing native (facilitator), Robinia pseudoacacia, and an allelopathic invasive (inhibitor), Ailanthus altissima, on regeneration, basal area, and diversity of forests at local and regional...

Seed bank compositions provide a record of past disturbances, the legacies of which may last thousands of years. Our goal was to determine if sites defined historically by fire-related (pyrophilic) tree species have seed bank compositions different from sites defined historically by pyrophobic tree species. We selected three 80þ year-old forested sites within the Monongahela National Forest, West Virginia, to represent three pyrophilic zones based on percent-pyrophilic-witness tree cover: Low (0–10%), Medium (40–50%), and High (80–90%). Soil plugs were collected to evaluate the seed bank...

Kirtland's warblers primarily nest in northern Lower Michigan and mostly winter in the central islands of The Bahamas. They were federally delisted under the U.S. Endangered Species Act in October 2019 after 60 years of conservation and management efforts. A search was conducted for all available literature pertaining to Kirtland’s warblers, including historical and current information on conservation efforts, published scientific articles, dissertations, books, newspaper articles, unpublished agency reports and observation data, and personal correspondences pertaining to management. An...

Millions of acres of public and private land in the United States are at risk of losing the native plant communities that are central to the integrity of ecosystems. As plant communities decline, the biodiversity they embody is also being rapidly lost, along with a wealth of ecosystem goods and services important to society. There is a long and growing list of threats to plant communities-invasive species, overgrazing, climate change, and altered fire regimes, to name a few, that have collectively accelerated the deterioration of natural landscapes across the country.

Healthy forests are critically important for mitigating the effects of climate change, reducing biodiversity loss, and protecting our water resources. Decades of chronic underfunding combined with the worsening impacts of climate change and wildfire have increased the need for reforestation across the Western United States. This article highlights the challenges impacting tree-seed availability and suggests opportunities for strengthening the tree-seed supply chain to meet reforestation goals in an era of climate change. This paper was presented at The Reforestation Pipeline in the Western...

This report presents a comprehensive history of the Hugo Sauer Nursery and the USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station, Institute for Applied Ecosystem Studies located near Rhinelander, Wisconsin from 1931 to 2023. It details the evolution of the nursery, which started as a Depression-era federal nursery created to reforest the national forests in the upper Midwest, became a state-operated nursery leased by the Wisconsin Conservation Department, and transformed into an experimental testing ground for cutting-edge forestry research. The establishment of the Institute of Forest...

This report is the fourth summary of annualized inventory of Pennsylvania with field data collected from 2013 through 2019. Forest land area has decreased since 2014 to 16.6 million acres. Oak/hickory and maple/beech/birch forest-type groups dominate the forested area and large-diameter stands account for 73 percent of timberland. Net volume on timberland is 37.3 billion cubic feet but increases have slowed due to decreased gross growth and increased mortality. Net growth still outpaced harvest removals by a ratio of 2.1:1. Additional information on forest area, land-use change, fragmentati...

Though ballistic projectile penetration of wood has been studied for centuries, standard models overestimate the thickness of wood required to stop projectiles, often by a large margin. Adhesive lamination via contemporary manufacturing methods can produce mass timber panels of unprecedented thickness, yet industry standard layups of softwood cross-laminated timber (CLT) cannot stop projectiles traveling at velocities specified by current protective design requirements. To develop mass timber panels that comprehensively mitigate blast, ballistic, and forced entry threats, seven reinforced...

A mass timber lateral force resisting system (LFRS) is proposed using a timber buckling restrained brace (TBRB) for improved seismic performance in high seismic applications. To develop a high-performance braced frame, it is essential to quantify the behaviour of the connections including failure modes and moment-rotation capacities. Cyclic and monotonic tests were conducted on six mass timber beam-column connections to investigate the response of mass timber joints connected with slotted-in steel plates and mild steel dowels. The goal of the subassembly tests was to measure the maximum...