Treesearch

Disruption of plant–pollinator interactions by invasive predators is poorly understood but may pose a critical threat for native ecosystems. In a multiyear field experiment in Hawai'i, we suppressed abundances of globally invasive predators and then observed insect visitation to flowers of six native plant species. Three plant species are federally endangered (Haplostachys haplostachya, Silene lanceolata, Tetramolopium arenarium) and three are common throughout their range (Bidens menziesii, Dubautia linearis, Sida fallax). Insect visitors were primarily generalist pollinators, including...

Over time, community forests (CFs) have been established across the globe to meet various social, economic, and ecological needs. Benefits of CFs include conserving resilient forests and natural resources and ecosystem services, enhancing social and economic capital, and leveraging local and indigenous knowledge in forest and natural resource management and decision making. Research on CFs in the U.S. is quite limited, and cases that have been assessed show a wide spectrum in terms of CFownership, organizational structure, governance, property rights, and uses. Through an exploratory...

Recent wildfires across western North America have burned with uncharacteristically high severity, representing a substantial departure from natural fire regimes. In mixed-conifer and pine–oak ecosystems of the southern Cascade Range, widespread shifts in stand structure and composition have led to a diversity of post-wildfire vegetation responses. When recent wildfire “footprints” reburn in subsequent fires, their recovery pathways are complex. In order to understand the effects of overlapping mixed-severity fires, we quantified changes in overstory and midstory structure and species...

Wildland–urban interfaces (WUIs), the juxtaposition of highly and minimally developed lands, are an increasingly prominent feature on Earth. WUIs are hotspots of environmental and ecological change that are often priority areas for planning and management. A better understanding of WUI dynamics and their role in the coupling between cities and surrounding wildlands is needed to reduce the risk of environmental hazards, ensure the continued provisioning of ecosystem services, and conserve threatened biodiversity. To fill this need, we propose an expanded framework for WUIs that not only...

This paper presents the LPMLEn, a new method to estimate vertical flux and thermal diffusivity from streambed temperature time series using the frequency domain. The main advantages of this new method are: (a) the use of multiple frequencies and multiple sensors for the parameter estimation; (b) noise/uncertainty handling in an optimal way; (c) the possibility to estimate the parameters with both semi-infinite and bounded domain models; and (d) the compensation for temperature drifts in the data known as transients. The capabilities of the LPMLEn are demonstrated using both synthetic and...

Widespread concern about ecological degradation has prompted development of concepts and exploration of methods to quantify ecological quality with the aim of measuring ecosystem changes to contribute to future policy-making. This paper proposes a conceptual framework for ecological quality measurement based on current ecosystem functions and biodiverse habitat, compared with pixel-scale historical baselines. The framework was applied to evaluate the changes and driving factors of ecological quality for Chinese terrestrial ecosystems through remote sensing-based and ecosystem process...

Vegetation changes can strongly influence the hydrological cycle, including streamflow, but the effects of plant diseases have seldom been described. In the mid-20th century, the invasion of an exotic disease, white pine blister rust, precipitated widespread mortality of western white pine (WWP; Pinus monticola Dougl.) in the northern Rocky Mountains, USA. These events converted a forest dominated by white pine into one dominated by more shade-tolerant tree species. The long-term hydrological implications of this historical shift in forest composition have not been adequately explored, in...

Aim Spatial patterns in resource supply drive variability in vegetation structure and function, yet quantification of this variability for tropical dry forests (TDFs) remains rudimentary. Several climate-driven indices have been developed to classify and delineate TDFs globally, but there has not been a climo-edaphic synthesis of these indices to assess and delineate the extent of TDFs. A statistical climo-edaphic synthesis of these indices is therefore required. Location Pantropical. Time period Modern. Major taxa studied Vascular plants. Methods We assembled most known prior descriptions...

Wildfires, which are increasing in frequency and severity in the western U.S., impact water quality through increases in erosion, and transport of nutrients and metals. Meanwhile, beaver populations have been increasing since the early 1900s, and the ponds they create slow or impound hydrologic and elemental fluxes, increase soil saturation, and have a high potential to transform redox active elements (e.g., oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, and metals). However, it remains unknown how the presence of beaver ponds in burned watersheds may impact retention and transformation of chemical constituents...

As ecological data and associated analyses become more widely available, synthesizing results for effective communication with stakeholders is essential. In the case of wildlife corridors, managers in human-dominated landscapes need to identify both the locations of corridors and multiple stakeholders for effective oversight. We synthesized five independent studies of tiger (Panthera tigris) connectivity in central India, a global priority landscape for tiger conservation, to quantify agreement on landscape permeability for tiger movement and potential movement pathways.We used the latter...