Treesearch

Natural history is the study of organisms in their environments, and has an historic role as the foundation for ecological and biological sciences (e.g., Jerdon 1874). The centrality of natural history was emphasized by Elton (1927) who defined ecology as “scientific natural history.” As an accounting of the “history” of nature, natural history studies entail personal involvement; indeed, even the etymology of “history” suggests seeing, knowing, and accounting of one's inquiries and knowledge ( www.etymonline.com). In this paper, we trace the use and the scientific and social values of...

Smoke from wildfires has become a growing public health issue around the world but especially in western North America and California. At the same time, managers and scientists recommend thinning and intentional use of wildland fires to restore forest health and reduce smoke from poorly controlled wildfires. Because of the changing climate and management paradigms, the evaluation of smoke impacts needs to shift evaluations from the scale of individual fire events to long-term fire regimes and regional impacts under different management strategies. To confront this challenge, we integrated...

The amenity migration phenomenon and outdoor recreation growth has led to rapid amenity-based development of many gateway communities in the American West, particularly in regions adjacent to protected public lands. This amenity-based development typically enhances traditional regional economic indicators of income, employment, and taxes but can result in run-away housing costs, a hollowing out of income distribution, residential sprawl, and conflict among long-term residents and new arrivals. However, little research has focused specifically on how such migration and the existence of...

We investigated the relative importance of daily fire weather, landscape position, climate, recent forest and fuels management, and fire history to explaining patterns of remotely-sensed burn severity - as measured by the Relativized Burn Ratio - in 150 fires occurring from 2001 to 2019, which burned conifer forests of northeastern Washington State, USA. Daily fire weather, annual precipitation anomalies, and species' fire resistance traits were important predictors of wildfire burn severity. In areas burned within the past two to three decades, prior fire decreased the severity of...

Combretum micranthum G. Don, also known as kinkéliba, is native to West Africa where the plant grows wild as a shrub, liana, or tree and is valued for its numerous attributes including health and nutritional benefits. Despite this, genetic information commensurate with its economic value is lacking. The aim of this study was to determine the nuclear DNA content and chromosome numbers of C. micranthum germplasm from eastern Senegal, West Africa. Genome size estimates were determined, for the first time, and chromosome number was analyzed using actively growing root tips. The mean, median,...

Farmers, forest owners, and rural communities are among the groups most exposed to the effects and associated impacts of hurricanes and other extreme climate events in the Caribbean. Yet, little is known about their preparedness for or their capacity to respond to and recover from these disturbances. We conducted qualitative research involving focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with 152 farmers, forest owners, and agriculture and forest experts in Puerto Rico and the U.S Virgin Islands to understand the effects and associated impacts of hurricanes Irma and María at farm,...

Growth releases of individuals that survive disturbances are important compensatory response mechanisms that contribute to ecological resilience. However, the role of fine-scale spatial heterogeneity in shaping compensatory growth responses is poorly understood for many broad-scale disturbances.

The species endangerment listing process is governed not solely by causal factors but also by human perception, particularly as it relates to observability. Because human perception is important in species detection, we hypothesized that ecological indicators associated with human perception would change noticeably over time. Testing our hypothesis on species listed under the US Endangered Species Act, we found that - in general and across (not within) different taxa - body mass and geographic range of listed species decreased over time and that animals that produced vocalizations and...

When the fall rains begin, the water volume in coastal streams in the Pacific Northwest increases, allowing coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) to move upstream and spawn. The common wisdom for many years has been that this increase in stream discharge is the main trigger that signals it’s time for coho to begin their migration, build their redds (nests), and lay eggs, setting the stage for the next generation.But recent research by Rebecca Flitcroft with the USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station shows that water volume is only half the equation. Coho salmon also need the...

While most definitions of forest therapy emphasize the role of multisensory, immersive experiences in nature to achieve human health and wellbeing outcomes, reviews of research on forest therapy to date have predominantly focused on outcomes and provide limited insight on the factors and conditions that give rise to nature experiences. In this scoping review we employ a conceptual framework developed in the context of landscape perception research to examine empirical studies of forest therapy in terms of how the fuller process of human, forest, interaction, and outcome components are...