Treesearch

Natural disturbances can maintain forest diversity by creating a heterogeneous resource landscape, which can contribute to coexistence of early- and late-successional species. However, almost all forested ecosystems are also subject to multiple anthropogenic stressors, which could inhibit plant diversity and forest recovery after natural disturbances. Here, we present the first large-scale replicated field experiment testing the interactions among two natural and two anthropogenic disturbances in a mature secondary temperate forest. Specifically, we test the extent to which: 1. a natural...

This report describes status and trends in watershed condition across the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) area over the first 25 years since its inception in 1994. The program charged with this task is the Aquatic and Riparian Effectiveness Monitoring Program (AREMP), which has assembled information from field data collection, spatial datasets, and a host of landscape models to evaluate the status and trends in aquatic resources in streams and watersheds. Field data included hydrologic measurements (stream wetted widths and temperatures), geomorphic responses (instream wood and sediment), and...

The movement of species around the world has greatly increased with rising trade and commerce from globalization (Hulme, 2009; Pyšek et al., 2010) and rapidly changing environments due to climate change (Bebber et al., 2013; Walther et al., 2009). In new areas, species may experience different ecological processes from those that regulate their populations in their native geographic range and/or they may encounter an environment that is particularly sensitive to their presence (Colautti et al., 2004; Jeschke et al., 2012). Consequently, species can become disruptive to novel landscapes....

The Palearctic ground beetle Carabus granulatus Linneaus, 1758 has been accidentally introduced to North America on multiple occasions. We review previous reports of its North American colonization history, and document range expansion into northern California, Montana, New York state, Vermont, and Maine. We also review its several reported interceptions. The species is eurytopic, occupying marginal heathland and open wet forest habitats in the Old World, and is not particularly associated with human habitation. New World populations retain these habitat preferences, with established...

Buprestidae (Coleoptera: Buprestoidea) is one of the three wood-borer beetle groups of major phytosanitary interest worldwide, together with Cerambycidae and Scolytinae (Curculionidae). As in other beetle families, some buprestid species have been unintentionally or intentionally introduced around the world, in some cases causing significant environmental and economic damage in the invaded territories. Despite the phytosanitary relevance of the Buprestidae, information regarding the identity of exotic buprestids, their biogeographic areas of origin, introduction pathways, and larval host...

The silver fly Leucopis hennigrata McAlpine is a predator of the silver fir wooly adelgid, Adelges nordmannianae (Eckstein), a pest in the European production of Christmas trees. While the fly is known to be a common native predator of the adelgid in Georgia, Turkey, and central Europe, it is absent from northern Europe, where the Christmas tree production is an important industry. Therefore, L. hennigrata has been suggested as a classical biological control agent of Ad. nordmannianae in northern Europe. Here, we evaluated the fly's suitability as a classical biological control agent in...

"The Great Acceleration" poses serious challenges to land managers, policy makers, and all who are interested in the global sustainability of socioecological systems. Methods that can effectively address the uncertainty of the future to allow more robust and adaptive planning and management are urgently needed. We present a case study from northeastern Minnesota to highlight how strategic foresight methods and landscape modeling can serve as complementary tools to generate divergent yet plausible participatory scenarios to ultimately model the potential impacts of these scenarios on...

The first biennial Northern Hardwood Conference (NHC 2021) with the theme "Bridging Science and Management for the Future" took place virtually June 15–16, 2021. This inaugural meeting brought together scientists and managers working in the northern hardwood forests of eastern North America. Articles presented in this proceedings document the diverse subjects, cutting edge science, and state of the art practices exchanged among experts and across the subregions of the northern hardwood range. The topics include People and the Forestry Profession, Regeneration and Biotic Interference, Stand...

Forest restoration of landscapes benefits both biodiversity and multiple stakeholder groups. We examined how the concept of hybrid ecosystem restoration could be employed in invaded lowland wet forest in Hawai′i to examine biological, economic, and sociocultural benefits of restoration. We quantified the market prevalence of all species found within the Liko Nā Pilina experimental plots in comparison to an invaded lowland wet forest reference site with remnant native species. Using a combination of formal market and informal interviews with cultural practitioners, we examined the use of...

Fire–vegetation feedbacks potentially maintain global savanna and forest distributions. Accordingly, vegetation in savanna and forest ecosystems should have differential responses to fire, but fire response data for herbaceous vegetation have yet to be synthesized across biomes. Here, we examined herbaceous vegetation responses to experimental fire at 30 sites spanning four continents. Across a variety of metrics, herbaceous vegetation increased in abundance where fire was applied, with larger responses to fire in wetter and in cooler and/or less seasonal systems. Compared to forests,...