Treesearch

The field of urban ecology has progressed since the mid-1990s through four major phases: an ecology in, of, for, and with cities. This progression reflects an interest to address the complexity of urban systems with social- ecological approaches. Further, this progression signifies an interest to address societal issues by co-designing and co-producing research in collaboration with diverse stakeholders from government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), businesses, and community associations. What remains unaddressed in this progression is a research mission orientation. While there...

Monitoring is usually among the first actions taken to help inform recovery planning for declining species, but these data are rarely used formally to inform conservation decision making. For example, Central Valley Chinook salmon were once abundant, but anthropogenic activities have led to widespread habitat loss and degradation resulting in significant population declines. Monitoring data suggest survival through the southern Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, in particular, may be a limiting factor for juvenile Chinook salmon outmigrating from the San Joaquin River and its tributaries....

The Great Basin floristic region spans three Level III ecoregions (Central Basin and Range, Northern Basin and Range, and Snake River Plain) and makes up a large portion of the Intermountain West of the United States. Over 75% of the Great Basin is publicly owned and managed by the US federal land management agencies, with state agencies also managing large areas. The primary human uses of public lands are grazing and recreation, with mining and oil and gas development found in some locations. The Great Basin has a range of mostly arid and semi-arid ecosystems from salt desert through...

Knowledge of local mechanical behaviour of wood is especially important as silvicultural practices are modified to allow wood to compete as a relevant material in high technology applications. Challenges associated with identification of local mechanical behaviour have resulted in simplified test geometries designed to determine one or two constitutive parameters. The objective of this work was to design and simulate an entire experiment developed to simultaneously identify the earlywood and latewood orthotropic stiffnesses in loblolly pine in a single specimen and load geometry. The...

Lycorma delicatula (White) (spotted lanternfly [SLF]), an invasive planthopper from Asia, is an emerging pest in North America. Good phenology models based on the responses of SLF to a broad range of temperatures are needed for predicting when monitoring for SLF needs to be done, when the right stage is present for application of control methods, and what regions of the US are likely to support SLF populations. This information is also needed to develop protocols for rearing large numbers of SLF for use in bioassays or biological control rearing. Without an efficient laboratory rearing...

Population projection models are important tools for conservation and management. They are often used for population status assessments, for threat analyses, and to predict the consequences of conservation actions. Although conservation decisions should be informed by science, critical decisions are often made with very little information to support decision-making. Conversely, postponing decisions until better information is available may reduce the benefit of a conservation decision. When empirical data are limited or lacking, expert elicitation can be used to supplement existing data...

-- Fuel moisture content (FMC) is a crucial driver of forest fires in many regions world-wide. Yet, the dynamics of FMC in forest canopies as well as their physiological and environmental determinants remain poorly understood, especially under extreme drought. -- We embedded a FMC module in the trait-based, plant-hydraulic SurEau-Ecos model to provide innovative process-based predictions of leaf live fuel moisture content (LFMC) and canopy fuel moisture content (CFMC) based on leaf water potential (ψLeaf). SurEau-Ecos- FMC relies on pressure–volume (p-v) curves to simulate LFMC and...

Recent mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) outbreaks have been characterized as unprecedented largely in the absence of information about their occurrence prior to historical documentation. The ability to reconstruct presettlement outbreaks from sediment cores requires the identification and validation of appropriate proxies. In this paper, we provide a Holocene record of vegetation change indicating putative mountain pine beetle outbreaks in a lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta)/mixed-conifer forest at Lake of the Woods, Montana. Using a normalized difference pollen index, we...

Relating environmental DNA (eDNA) signal strength to organism abundance requires a fundamental understanding of eDNA production. A number of studies have demonstrated that eDNA production may scale allometrically - that is, larger organisms tend to exhibit lower mass-specific eDNA production rates, likely due to allometric scaling in key processes related to eDNA production (e.g., surface area, excretion/egestion). While most previous studies have examined intraspecific allometry, physiological rates and organism surface area also scale allometrically across species. We therefore hypothesiz...

Firebrand impingement is a leading cause of home ignitions from wildland fire. The use of porous fencing has recently been proposed as a potential method for mitigating firebrand impingement on homes. A porous fence can act as a windbreak to alter the near-surface flow and induce particle deposition, as demonstrated in other applications, such as the use of snow fences to protect roadways from drifting snow. Conservation advocates have proposed the use of fire-resistant vegetation to act as a fence upwind of homes or subdivisions. Porous fences could also be constructed from fire-resistant...