Treesearch

Despite growing concerns about pollinator declines, evidence that this is a widespread problem affecting entire communities remains limited. There is a particular shortage of pollinator time series from relatively undisturbed natural habitats, such as forests, which are generally thought to provide refuge to biodiversity from anthropogenic stressors. Here, we present the results from standardized pollinator sampling over 15 years (2007–2022) at three relatively undisturbed forested locations in the southeastern United States. We observed significant declines in the richness (39%) and...

Although the importance of natural habitats to pollinator diversity is widely recognized, the value of forests to pollinating insects has been largely overlooked in many parts of the world. In this review, we (i) establish the importance of forests to global pollinator diversity, (ii) explore the relationship between forest cover and pollinator diversity in mixed-use landscapes, and (iii) highlight the contributions of forest-associated pollinators to pollination in adjacent crops. The literaturen shows unambiguously that native forests support a large number of forest-dependent species...

Nonnative insects and pathogens pose major threats to forest ecosystems worldwide, greatly diminishing the ecosystem services trees provide. Given the high global diversity of arthropod and microbial species, their often unknown biological features or even identities, and their ease of accidental transport, there is an urgent need to better forecast the most likely species to cause damage. Several risk assessment approaches have been proposed or implemented to guide preventative measures. However, the underlying assumptions of each approach have rarely been explicitly identified or...

The USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program collects sample plot data on all forest ownerships across the United States. FIA's primary objective is to determine the extent, condition, volume, growth, and use of trees on the Nation's forest land through a comprehensive inventory and analysis of the Nation’s forest resources. The FIA program strives for transparency by making the methods and results of the inventory and analysis available to the public. The standard for distributing FIA data is the FIA Database (FIADB). FIADB data for individual states can be downloade...

Brown rot fungi are primary decomposers of wood and litter in northern forests. Relative to other microbes, these fungi have evolved distinct mechanisms that rapidly depolymerize and metabolize cellulose and hemicellulose without digesting the more recalcitrant lignin. Its efficient degradative system has therefore attracted considerable attention for the development of sustainable biomass conversion technologies. However, there has been a significant lack of genetic tools in brown rot species by which to manipulate genes for both mechanistic studies and engineering applications. To...

1. Large-scale ecological sampling networks, such as national forest inventories (NFIs), collect in situ data to support biodiversity monitoring, forest management and planning, and greenhouse gas reporting. Data harmonization aims to link auxiliary remotely sensed data to field-collected data to expand beyond field sampling plots, but outliers that arise in data harmonization—questionable observations because their values differ substantially from the rest—are rarely addressed. 2. In this paper, we review the sources of commonly occurring outliers, including random chance (statistical...

Despite efforts to prevent their establishment, many invasive species continue to spread and threaten food production, human health, and natural biodiversity. Slowing the spread of established species is often a preferred strategy; however, it is also expensive and necessitates treatment over large areas. Therefore, it is critical to examine how to distribute management efforts over space cost-effectively. Here we consider a continuous-space bioeconomic model and we develop a novel algorithm to find the most cost-effective allocation of treatment efforts throughout a landscape. We show...

Species across the planet are shifting their ranges to track suitable climate conditions in response to climate change. Given that protected areas have higher quality habitat and often harbor higher levels of biodiversity compared to unprotected lands, it is often assumed that protected areas can serve as steppingstones for species undergoing climate-induced range shifts. However, there are several factors that may impede successful range shifts among protected areas, including the distance that must be traveled, unfavorable human land uses and climate conditions along potential movement...

Wild cards are improbable, high impact events. Such events, like the COVID-19 pandemic, have the ability to shape policy by upending entire systems and paradigms. Unfortunately, long-term planning and policymaking rarely account for wild card events. Instead, planning and policymaking typically assume that existing trends will continue without major disruption. Moreover, adequately planning for potential wild card events is challenging because they are inherently difficult to predict. However, planning for wild card events in natural resources and environmental policymaking is vital as...

This document presents forest carbon stocks and stand-level total volume for common reforestation scenarios in the United States. Eight geographic regions and 13 forest types are represented. These tables complement recent estimates of forest carbon stocks in the conterminous United States (Hoover et al. 2021) and were developed with a similar approach, using the USDA Forest Service’s Forest Vegetation Simulator and starting from a "bare ground" condition. The regions, types, and scenarios were selected based on data from the Forest Service and reforestation partner organizations and...