Treesearch

The global biodiversity crisis is escalating rapidly, with nearly a million species facing extinction risk in the near future. Monitoring of Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBV; key variables measured to detect changes in biodiversity) over time is important for biodiversity conservation, which in turn necessitates baseline estimates of EBVs. Using camera-trap data for six years (2013-2018) and a Bayesian multispecies occupancy model, we estimated species richness and species-specific occupancy of a mammalian community in Pakke Tiger Reserve, India. We detected 28 species of mammals in...

The interaction of similar soil forming factors with different parent materials determines soil chemical weathering, influencing soil processes and properties. In the coastal temperate rainforests of southeast Alaska, Spodosols is the dominant soil order in well-drained parent materials regardless of the lithology. Yet, the role of lithology on chemical weathering, base cation depletion, and mineral transformation during pedogenesis remains elusive. Here, we established a lithosequence comprised of soils derived from tonalite, phyllite, slate, and metavolcanic rocks to test the hypothesis...

Forest fuel inventory, monitoring and mapping provide the basis for fuel management activities, including assessing wildfire hazards and risk, prescribed fire planning, designing silvicultural treatments, and predicting fire behaviour and effects at various scales. One of the most significant challenges in developing accurate surface fuel maps is capturing the spatial variability of fuel load within and between different fuel components. In this paper, we compare the performance of four spatial interpolation methods for estimating and mapping fine-scale fuel load in a dry mixed conifer...

Natural resource planners face the challenging task of sustaining the diverse range of human-nature relationships supported by mountain systems. Planners of the Flathead Wild and Scenic River system cannot reasonably consider and communicate each individual human-nature relationship in the planning process. We present a social science approach that facilitates public engagement by having members of the interested public prioritize human and ecological meanings and services. Statistical analysis distills the diverse range of human-nature relationships into a limited number to be considered...

Given the diverse ways that people value nature and the lack of an all-encompassing methodology able to capture such diversity, we call for the acceptance of plural methodologies for the comprehensive and inclusive evaluation of nature. The chapter provides a primer of five different evaluation approaches of nature: (i) economic/instrumental, (ii) ecological/biophysical, (iii) ethical/intrinsic, (iv) social/shared, and (v) relational. While leveraging the strengths and weaknesses of different evaluation methods is challenging, we suggest that defining the different normative assumptions of...

Considerable research has been conducted on the constraints to recreation that traditionally underrepresented communities in the United States confront; however, there remains a lack of synthesis concerning constraints to visitation to federally designated wilderness areas. This scoping review of the current available literature seeks to reveal what constraints have been identified to visitation to federally designated wilderness in the United States and what groups are experiencing them. Constraints identified include discomfort and safety concerns specific to wilderness settings,...

Results of the fourth annual inventory estimate that 89 percent, or 17.5 million acres, of Maine's land base (exclusive of water) is forested, making Maine the most forested state in the Nation. Over 75 percent of Maine’s forest land is dominated by the maple/beech/birch and spruce/fir forest-type groups. The volume of sawtimber on timberland has risen 75 percent since 1959 while average annual net growth (merchantable bole volume) of growing stock on timberland averaged 713 million cubic feet per year from 2013 to 2018. The density of carbon in Maine’s forest land was estimated at 88 tons...

Table Mountain pine (Pinus pungens Lamb.) is an imperiled tree species endemic to the southern and central Appalachian Mountains. Generally reliant on fire for regeneration, its fragmented but widespread distribution has declined in recent decades. We quantified the genetic diversity of 26 populations across the range of the species using data from seven highly polymorphic simple sequence repeat (SSR) loci. The species was relatively inbred whereas differentiation among populations was relatively low. Differentiation was significantly but weakly associated with geographic distance...

The search for drought tolerant species or cultivars is important to address water scarcity caused by climate change in Mediterranean regions. The anisohydric–isohydric behavior concept has been widely used to describe stomatal regulation during drought, simply in terms of variation of minimal water potential (9min) in relation to pre-dawn water potential (9pd). However, its simplicity has sometimes failed to deliver consistent results in describing a complex behavior that results from the coordination of several plant functional traits. While Prunus dulcis (almond) is known as a drought...

Loss of local biodiversity resulting from abrupt environmental change is a significant environmental problem throughout the world. Extinctions of plants are particularly important yet are often overlooked. Drawing from a case in Hawai‘i, a global hotspot for plant and other extinctions, we demonstrate an effort to better understand and determine priorities for the management of an endangered plant (‘Ihi makole or Portulaca sclerocarpa) in the face of rapid and extreme environmental change. Volcanic heat emissions and biological invasions have anecdotally been suggested as possible threats...