Treesearch

Climate change and land-use change are leading drivers of biodiversity decline, affecting demographic parameters that are important for population persistence. For example, scientists have speculated for decades that climate change may skew adult sex ratios in taxa that express temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD), but limited evidence exists that this phenomenon is occurring in natural settings. For species that are vulnerable to anthropogenic land-use practices, differential mortality among sexes may also skew sex ratios. We sampled the spotted turtle (Clemmys guttata), a...

Ecosystem services provided by the natural enemies of agricultural pests can increase crop yield in low intensity agricultural systems. However, these services are highly variable, and trade-offs may exist between harmful and beneficial species. An increasing proportion of New England farms have adopted farming practices that retain extensive native vegetation, and prior research has shown these practices support native bird populations. To determine the pest control services provided by birds on low-intensity New England farms, we compared pest populations and leaf damage on crops where...

Most studies evaluating effects of biochar on soil properties and plant responses have focused on agricultural soils, with limited focus on forested settings. There is increasing interest in applying biochar in forests because of the perceived benefits to soils and productivity, and because biochar could be produced from large quantities of residual woody biomass that is typically unmerchantable due to its size or quality. To test if findings from agricultural soils are applicable to forest soils, we applied biochars created from black ash or balsam fir woody feedstock pyrolyzed at 350 °C...

Wildfires and housing development have increased since the 1990s, presenting unique challenges for wildfire management. However, it is unclear how the relative influences of housing growth and changing wildfire occurrence have altered risk to homes, or the potential for wildfire to threaten homes. We used a random forests model to predict burn probability in relation to weather variables at 1-km resolution and monthly intervals from 1990 through 2019 in the Southern Rocky Mountains ecoregion. We quantified risk by combining the predicted burn probabilities with decadal housing density. We...

While many practitioners and scholars understand the risks associated with low urban tree diversity, they often lack the ability to rectify this challenge on their own. The complex system of tree production and procurement is shaped by market pressures, nursery and site constraints, local governance, and differing professional objectives among those who grow, specify, and plant trees. To understand constraints to and opportunities for increasing urban tree diversity, we conducted a series of focus groups comprised of nursery growers, landscape architects, and municipal tree managers. Our...

During a statewide crayfish survey of Montana, we documented the southern plains crayfish Procambarus simulans for the first time in the state. Procambarus simulans is native to, and commonly found in, southern and central US states, including Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. We found this species in a single location, the Miles City State Fish Hatchery, in eastern Montana. At 46.38 degrees north latitude, this is the northernmost population of the species reported. The presence of multiple size classes suggests that the crayfish can overwinter and...

The identification of Armillaria and Desarmillaria species associated with Armillaria root disease is important to determine management strategies, due to their variation in pathogenicity and virulence.

Fusarioid fungi that cause damping-off and root diseases can result in significant losses to conifer crops produced in forest nurseries across the USA. These nurseries are vital to reforestation and forest restoration efforts. Understanding the diversity of Fusarioid fungi associated with damping-off and root diseases of conifer seedlings can provide an approach for targeted management techniques to limit seedling losses and pathogen spread to novel landscapes.

Although plant-soil feedbacks (interactions between plants and soils, often mediated by soil microbes, abbreviated as PSFs) are widely known to influence patterns of plant diversity at local and landscape scales, these interactions are rarely examined in the context of important environmental factors. Resolving the roles of environmental factors is important because the environmental context may alter PSF patterns by modifying the strength or even direction of PSFs for certain species. One important environmental factor that is increasing in scale and frequency with climate change is fire,...

Disturbance regimes are often a complex suite of interacting agents that drive forest dynamics. Changes to any one or many of the agents will potentially affect future forest services such as productivity and carbon storage potential. Differences in sensitivity to disturbance events between diffuse-porous and ring-porous tree species, however, are currently unclear despite having important ecological and management implications. We used a dendroecological approach to identify whether diffuse and ring-porous species differ in their disturbance history, response to climate influence, and...