Treesearch

In this synthesis, I review biological and ecological characteristics of amphibians that are relevant to fuel-reduction treatments in upland forests, summarize the state of empirical knowledge regarding amphibian population responses to forest thinning and fire in the Pacific Northwest, and provide management considerations that balance fuel-reduction objectives with amphibian habitat needs. The scope of this review includes forested ecosystems in Oregon and Washington, with an emphasis on the west side of the Cascade Range crest where many at-risk terrestrial amphibians occur.This chapter...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program provides this resource update yearly as an overview of forest resources in Virginia. These estimates are derived from field data collected across a systematic network of fixed-radius forest monitoring plots located on both public and private land. New updates are provided annually as a subset of plots within the State are remeasured. Each year, field crews visit and measure a subset of all FIA plots across the entire State (the size of the subset varies by State and year). Combining all...

Evaluating the cost of fuel treatment operations is an essential aspect for mitigating elevated wildfire risks across western US landscapes. The USDA Forest Service (Forest Service) currently uses a Transaction Evidence Appraisal (TEA) method to appraise stumpage, incorporating key factors such as stump-to-truck processing, slash disposal, transportation, timber markets, and bidder competition. This study aims to improve our understanding of the total costs involved and final advertised rates in fuel treatment operations in Forest Service Regions 2 and 3. Stump-to truck processing and...

Logging businesses in Idaho perform timber harvesting and fuel reduction treatments on the state’s 21.5 million acres of forestland and supply raw material to its $2.5 billion forest products industry which employs more than 30,000 people. We conducted a survey of Idaho logging and forestry contracting businesses during spring and summer of 2025 in cooperation with the Associated Logging Contractors of Idaho (ALC), Inc. to better understand owner and employee demographics, business structure, capital investment, equipment used, and challenges faced.

Pristine crawfish shell waste and shell-derived biochars produced at 500, 650, and 800 ◦C were evaluated as calcium-rich sustainable biosorbents for Nd(III) immobilization from aqueous solution. Batch experiments were conducted at 23 ◦C using 50 mL of 1000 mg L-1 Nd(III) solution and sorbent mass of 25–100 mg to investigate removal behavior, kinetics, and mechanisms. The 800 ◦C biochar exhibited the highest apparent Nd(III) removal capacity (1200 mg g-1), which was attributed to instantaneous alkaline precipitation and the formation of Nd (OH)3. In contrast, pristine crawfish shell and the...

The USDA Forest Service’s Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program, the United States’ national forest inventory operating since 1928, has undergone two independent Blue Ribbon Panel (BRP) reviews (1991–92, 1997–98) that drove major improvements, including the transition toward a nationally consistent annualized inventory system and integration of forest health monitoring. Today, FIA faces unprecedented demands from data-driven markets, intensifying disturbances, supply chain volatility, and sustainability frameworks requiring verified, frequently updated data at sub-county scales...

The extension of NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) mission beyond the cryosphere to include the study of vegetation and the land surface has significantly advanced global Earth observation. This review synthesizes findings from 293 peer-reviewed articles and provides a comprehensive assessment of the mission’s contributions to terrestrial ecosystem science. We begin by outlining the mission’s objectives, instrumentation, and core data products—particularly ATL03 (geolocated photons) and ATL08 (terrain and canopy heights)—which have supported a wide array of...

Background. Mapping surface and ground fuels is key to predicting fire behavior and effects. Remote sensing effectively describes tree canopy attributes, but it is less effective for surface and ground fuels because they are partially obscured by vegetation. Aims. We mapped duff loads by leveraging the coupled relationship between canopy, surface and ground fuels: canopy fuels provide the source material for surface fuels, which serve as the material for duff formation. Methods. We mapped annual surface fuel production from tree components that contribute to duff formation using airborne...

Forest insects and pathogens, in addition to fire, contribute to structural diversity by creating snags (dead trees) and dead tops on live trees or “topkill” in conifers throughout western North America. Snags and top-killed trees are important sources of wildlife habitat but quantifying their presence can be challenging at broad scales. Multiple approaches for detecting snags have been developed, but limited methods exist for detecting topkill via remote sensing. There is a need to monitor overlapping disturbances across time and space in addition to the structural diversity in mature and...

Climate change is expected to alter fire return intervals in cold and wet forests in the northwestern United States. This coupled with an expected rise in prescribed fires to restore healthy forests, disproportionately increases risk to saplings of tree species adapted to colder and wetter environments that have low fire resistance. To assess this potential impact, we evaluated the impacts of increasing fire intensity on Picea engelmannii and Thuja plicata sapling physiology, morphology, and mortality. This was achieved using established pyro-ecophysiology experiments where saplings were...