Treesearch

Landscape connectivity, the extent to which a landscape facilitates the flow of ecological processes such as organism movement, has grown to become a central focus of applied ecology and conservation science. Several computational algorithms have been developed to understand and map connectivity, and many studies have validated their predictions using empirical data. Yet at present, there is no published comparative analysis which uses a comprehensive simulation framework to measure the accuracy and performance of the dominant methods in connectivity modelling. Given the widespread usage...

Research has shown that urban tree canopy (UTC) provides a multitude of ecosystem services to people in cities, yet the benefits and costs of trees are not always equitably distributed among residents and households. To support urban forest managers and sustainability planning, many studies have analyzed the relationships between UTC and various morphological and social variables. Most of these studies, however, focus on large cities like Baltimore, MD, Los Angeles, CA, and New York, NY. Yet, small and midsized cities are experiencing the most growth globally, often having more opportunity...

The Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness (FC-RONRW) covers 2.4 million acres in central Idaho. Designated by Congress in 1980, the FC-RONRW is administered by four National Forests (Salmon-Challis NF, Payette NF, Nez Perce-Clearwater NF, Bitterroot NF). As in all designated Wilderness, recreation is a fundamental part of the landscape. “The Frank” offers vast opportunities for hiking, camping, hunting, fishing and swimming among its trails, rivers, and lakes. Jagged mountains spread out in all directions, topping out over 10,000 feet in the Bighorn Crags area. This arid land is...

The Wallowa-Whitman National Forest (WWNF) identified forest conditions in the Morgan Nesbit area that are at high risk of loss from disturbances (insects, disease wildlife). By applying a landscape approach, the WWNF has identified 87,000 acres where management will aim to move forest, riparian and grassland conditions toward an ecologically resilient landscape.

Managed wildfires, i.e., naturally ignited wildfires that are managed for resource benefits, have the potential to reduce fuel loads, minimize the effects of future wildfires, and restore critical natural processes across many forest landscapes. In the United States, the 2009 federal wildland fire policy guidance was designed to provide greater flexibility in the use of managed wildfires, but the effects of this policy on wildfires in the western US are not yet fully understood. Our goal was to compare managed and full suppression wildfires and to also analyze the differences between...

What are typical values and dynamic status of live-tree biomass pools in old-growth, mesic, cool temperate forests? A handful of biomass density estimates in eastern North American temperate forests show large biomass/carbon reserves on a per-area basis. However, it is less clear whether these ecosystems are, over multi-decade scales, typically steady-state or non-equilibrial carbon pools. Previous studies have suggested both possibilities, but claims are based on inferences from short-term studies or proxy data sets. An unusually long-term and extensive data set from repeatedly sampled...

Twenty years of monitoring data are assessed for trends in abundance of running buffalo clover (Trifolium stoloniferum), an endangered species found on the Fernow Experimental Forest in northeastern West Virginia, where the clover is found under various forest management intensities. Monitored locations were grouped for analysis into sites with common disturbance histories. Of the 13 sites, about half (46%, six sites) were found to have statistically significant trends between numbers of rooted crowns and time. Three out of eight sites with recent and sustained periodic disturbance showed...

Experiments show that elevated atmospheric CO2 (eCO2) often enhances plant photosynthesis and productivity, yet this effect varies substantially and may be climate sensitive. Understanding if, where and how water supply regulates CO2 enhancement is critical for projecting terrestrial responses to increasing atmospheric CO2 and climate change. Here, using data from 14 long-term ecosystem-scale CO2 experiments, we show that the eCO2 enhancement of annual aboveground net primary productivity is sensitive to annual precipitation and that this sensitivity differs between woody and grassland...

Spruce beetles (Dendroctonus rufipennis) are causing widespread spruce (Picea spp.) mortality in subalpine forests in western North America. Spruce beetles are changing forest structure and composition by killing a dominant overstory species, but we know little about how the understory community responds to the increase in resource availability brought about by spruce mortality, what mechanisms drive its response, or how its response affects other forest properties and processes.

Mesoscale models are a class of atmospheric numerical model designed to simulate atmospheric phenomena with horizontal scales of about 2–200 km, although they are also applied to microscale phenomena with horizontal scales of less than about 2 km. Mesoscale models are capable of simulating wildland fire impacts on atmospheric flows if combustion byproducts (e.g., heat, smoke) are properly represented in the model. One of the primary challenges encountered in applying a mesoscale model to studies of fireperturbed flows is the representation of the fire sensible heat source in the model. Two...