Treesearch

This study proposes an efficient biorefining strategy for co-producing of bioethanol, furfural, and lignin nanoparticles (LNPs) from birch wood based on acid hydrotropic fractionation. Birch was fractionated into glucan-rich washed water-insoluble solids (WIS) fraction and xylose-rich spent liquor (SL) fraction with a low p-toluenesulfonic acid (p-TsOH) concentration of 15% (w/v). The obtained WIS was utilized to produce 75.5 g/L ethanol (76.3% ethanol yield based on initial sugars in the enzymatic hydrolysate) through separate hydrolysis and fermentation. Meanwhile, the xylose-rich SL was...

In 2021, Ghana was Africa’s largest gold producer and sixth largest producer worldwide. However, mining wrecks tremendous environmental havoc and poses significant human health risks. Efforts to mitigate these impacts have focused exclusively on regularizing mining, with little recognition of the crucial role farmers play in mining, particularly as agents that lease their land for the same. Ghana’s new tree tenure policy allows cocoa farmers to acquire individualized, allodial rights to commercial timber species on their farms, which permits famers to capture forestry sector payments. We...

This study examined the role of basic (i.e. positive and negative) and complex (i.e. emotional solidarity) emotions in explaining residents’ preference for both intimate and casual social encounters (i.e. social distance) with tourists. Considering a burgeoning rural destination in the U.S. known for its natural and cultural amenities, data were collected on-site and online from 511 residents. A two-step sequence of analysis (i.e. confirmatory factor analysis followed by structural equation modelling) was undertaken to test 12hypotheses within a proposed conceptual model. Eight hypotheses...

Context In western US forests, the increasing frequency of large high-severity fires presents challenges for society. Quantifying how fuel conditions influence high-severity area is important for managing risks of large high-severity fires and understanding how they are changing with climate change. Fuel availability and heterogeneity influence high-severity fire probability, but heterogeneity is insensitive to some aspects of forest connectivity that are important to potential high-severity fire transmission and thus high-severity area. Objectives To quantify the effects of fuel availabili...

Nutria (Myocastor coypus) is a semiaquatic rodent species that is invasive across multiple regions within the United States. Here, we evaluated a qPCR assay previously described for use in Japan for application across invasive populations in the United States. We also compared two environmental DNA sampling methodologies for this assay: field filtration of large volumes of water passed through filters versus direct sampling of small volumes of water. We validated assay specificity, generality, and sensitivity, compared assay performance between two independent laboratories, and successfully...

Uncertainty and change are the hallmarks of contemporary life. Global climate change, ecological regime shifts, and urban transformations catalyze new levels of socio-spatial precarity. Exacerbated by political and economic conditions, accelerating change and uncertainty have disrupted people-place relationships and created anxiety around real and perceived place loss and threat. In this article, we outline the potential of senses of place - both pluralized and politicized - to generate new possibilities for thinking, acting, and designing in response to disruption. Three different case...

As climate change increasingly challenges the capacity of traditional decision-making modalities to contend with mounting complexities and uncertainties, natural resource management agencies have increasingly turned to nontraditional modes of planning and decision-making such as ‘futuring. Futuring methods, such as scenarios, have been increasingly utilized around the world. In the US, however, there has been a limited uptake of these tools across public land management and a preference for more traditional forecasting tools. This article explores some possibilities about why this is the...

Accurately modeling wildland fire behavior is crucial for both planning prescribed burns and responding to wildfires. Predicting fire behavior, however, is difficult. Fuel and atmospheric factors change and interact in complex ways across space and time, even within a single prescribed burn.

Water vapor fluxes are a major component of the surface energy balance, hydrological cycle, and ecosystem processes. As newer sensors are developed for eddy covariance measurements, the role of different technologies and calibration uncertainties on H2O fluxes and surface energy balance closure should be assessed. Here, a field intercomparison is described testing historically significant fast-response hygrometers: Lyman-α, KH2O, LI-7000, LI-7500, LI-7200, EC155, and EC150. This study occurred in southeastern Wyoming in September 2015. Three methods of calibration are investigated:...

We present refinements for equations describing the temperature-wind covariance (v′ T′a ) reported by Massman and Lee (2002); namely, Eqs. (B.24), (B.25), and (B.28) in its Appendix B. The purpose of these equations is to express the wind covariance of air temperature (Ta) in terms of sonic temperature (Ts), as a sonic anemometer directly measures the latter rather than the former. Results of the derivations are summarized in Tables 1 and 2, and these refinements have been quantified using data from the Glacier Lakes Ecosystem Experiments Site (GLEES).