Treesearch

Nearly two-thirds of fossil fuel-fired electricity generation capacity in the United States is expected to reach its typical end of life by 2035. While the closure of fossil fuel-fired power plants will help advance decarbonization goals, the cessation of water use for fossil fuel-fired power plant cooling - the largest water user in the US - will also impact the nation’s water resources. We assess when, where, and how much water will be made available upon the expected retirement of the nation’s nearly one thousand fossil fuel-fired power plants by combining a lifespan-based model of...

The USDA Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program constructs area estimates of forest attributes through a quasi-systematic sample of field plots distributed across the contiguous US. The program is under increasing pressure to provide estimates over small areas, for which the precision of FIA estimates is limited by small sample sizes. Small area estimation (SAE) models can improve the precision of estimates by leveraging relationships between forest attributes and auxiliary data across multiple small areas of interest. SAE models with large model domains are challenged...

We identified 14 emerging and poorly understood threats and opportunities for addressing the global conservation of freshwater mussels over the next decade. A panel of 17 researchers and stakeholders from six continents submitted a total of 56 topicsthat were ranked and prioritized using a consensus-building Delphi technique. Our 14 priority topics fell into five broad themes (autecology, population dynamics, global stressors, global diversity, and ecosystem services) and included understanding dietsthroughout mussel life history; identifying the drivers of population declines; defining...

The effects of ethanol and α-pinene lures on trap catches of forest coleopteran predators and fungivores were evaluated in studies conducted in 2002–2004 to evaluate trap responses of bark and woodboring beetles in the southern United States of America. Traps baited with ethanol, α-pinene, or a combination of the two attracted predator species in six families of Coleoptera. The most abundant species were Coptodera aerata Dejean (Carabidae), Thanasimus dubius Fabricius (Cleridae), Temnoscheila virescens (Fabricius) (Trogossitidae), and Lasconotus spp. (Zopheridae). Most species were...

Individual plant species play valuable roles in meeting restoration goals for pollinators. However, the selection of plant species for pollinator restoration is rarely informed using empirical evidence and is usually developed in agroecosystems, which experience frequent human interventions to ensure plant success as compared to seminatural ecosystems. We highlight concepts and future research needs to design planting mixes that fulfill the ecological requirements of pollinators in seminatural ecosystems. Native plants that are attractive to pollinators, increase the stability of pollinatio...

Fire influences soils, but it is difficult to attribute long-term changes in soils to fire, given the short duration, and irregular return interval of most fires. Prescribed fire, in which landscapes are intentionally burned, offer some experimental control, but study sites where prescribed fire has been applied systematically over decades are rare. We had the opportunity to investigate the effects of prescribed fire on soil horizon thickness in Spodosols from a long-term study in northern Florida, USA, in which three prescribed fire frequency treatments (1, 2, or 4 years) and an unburned...

Objectives: We examined whether greenspace measures (overall percent greenspace and forest, and number of greenspace types) were associated with clinically adjudicated dementia status. Methods: In a sample of non-demented older adults (n = 2141, average age = 75.3 years) from the Cardiovascular Health and Cognition Study, Cox proportional hazard and logistic regression analyses were used to estimate associations of baseline greenspace with risks of incident dementia and MCI, respectively, while adjusting for demographics, co-morbidities, and other neighborhood factors. We derived quartiles...

The dendroecology of larch (Larix gmelinii Rupr.) in the world's northernmost forest provided insight into the complex relationship of tree growth, forest stand establishment, and changing eco-climatic factors. The Ary-Mas forest in the northern Siberia (72° + NL) is an ecological island, surrounded by tundra. We hypothesized that the environmental constraints that limit larch growth in this harsh habitat include soil moisture and winter winds as well as low air temperature. We constructed and analyzed the larch growth index (GI) chronology from the eighteenth century until 2019. We found...

Inter-basin water transfer (IBT) is widely used to mitigate water stress by diverting water from a relatively water-rich region. However, it is unclear how the IBTs’ role evolves with the dynamic hydroclimatic and socioeconomic circumstances. Here, we propose a new Stress Relief Index and an integrated water stress simulation framework to quantify the efficiency of 50 active IBTs across the conterminous United States in alleviating regional water stress. The IBTs vastly reduced the coverage of highly stressed area (8.7 × 104km2) and population (4.3 million people) during 1986–2015. The...

Studies of skidder productivity typically involve a range of conditions that support specific study objectives related to harvest system, terrain, forest attribute, or other aspects of the harvest. Skidder production models often fit the data well because cycle time and productivity are strongly related to load size and skid distance. Changes in skidder design over time have increased load capacity, potential machine speed, and operator comfort. Since the harvest system often limits the observed range in speed and load size, the tradeoffs between those factors have not been a primary focus...