Treesearch

Restoring or enhancing soil properties on forest, range, mine, or agricultural soils is becoming increasingly important. In particular, threats to soil from drought, intense rain, flooding, heat, and wildfire can reduce the productive capacity of the soil and also reduce our ability to grow food and fiber or regulate carbon (C), water, or nutrients (Blanco-Canqui 2021). Creating wood-based biochars from material normally burned in slash piles is an opportunity to increase forest health by decreasing wildfire risk or insect and disease outbreaks (Rodriguez-Franco and Page-Dumroese 2021)....

Wildfires increasingly create large high-severity patches with interior areas far from less disturbed habitats. We evaluated how these trends impact bird communities by investigating the effect of internal distance from lower-severity areas, high-severity patch size, and years since fire on avian alpha and beta diversity. Location: Sierra Nevada, California, USA.

Wildfire mitigation is becoming increasingly urgent, but despite the availability of mitigation tools, such as prescribed fire, managed wildfire, and mechanical thinning, the USA has been unable to scale up mitigation. Limited agency capacity, inability to work across jurisdictions, lack of public support, and procedural delays have all been cited as barriers to mitigation. But in the context of limited resources and increasing urgency, how should agencies prioritize investments to address these barriers?

This resource update is a brief look at some of the basic metrics that describe the status of and changes to forest resources in Illinois. This information is based on field data collected using the USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) annualized sample design, and it is updated yearly.Tables for Forests of Illinois, 2021 can be found at https://doi.org/10.2737/FS-RU-358-TablesThe FIA one-click application that generated this report can be found at https://doi.org/10.2737/FIA-One-Click-State-Report-v1.2.

This resource update is a brief look at some of the basic metrics that describe the status of and changes to forest resources in Delaware. This information is based on field data collected using the USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) annualized sample design, and it is updated yearly.Tables for Forests of Delaware, 2021 can be found at https://doi.org/10.2737/FS-RU-374-TablesThe FIA one-click application that generated this report can be found at https://doi.org/10.2737/FIA-One-Click-State-Report-v1.2.

In many regions of the world, forest management has reduced old forest and simplified forest structure and composition. We hypothesized that such forest degradation has resulted in long-term habitat loss for forest-associated bird species of eastern Canada (130,017 km2) which, in turn, has caused bird-population declines. Despite little change in overall forest cover, we found substantial reductions in old forest as a result of frequent clear-cutting and a broad-scale transformation to intensified forestry. Back-cast species distribution models revealed that breeding habitat loss occurred...

A working group of experts with diverse backgrounds and disciplinary expertise was assembled to conceptualize a spatially explicit conservation design to support and inform the Sagebrush Conservation Strategy Part 2. The goal was to leverage recent advancements in remotely sensed landcover products to develop spatially and temporally explicit maps of sagebrush rangeland condition and landscape threats. In addition, the group sought to provide a common basis for understanding the state of sagebrush rangelands through time. First, the study team developed a spatially explicit model to assess...

During the last century, numerous models have been developed to predict soil erosion and concomitant sediment deposition. Most have been shown to be inadequate and/or inaccurate in one respect or another. Historically, erosion model results have been compared with sediment outflow from watersheds, providing no information regarding sources and sinks of erosion and deposition within them. This paper documents the application of the new-generation Unit Stream Power Erosion and Deposition (USPED) model at the U.S. Army’s Fort Campbell, Kentucky / Tennessee. The USPED model is relatively...

A new long-legged fly species, Chrysotus soya sp. nov. (Diptera: Dolichopodidae), is described and illustrated from specimens collected in soybean fields near Brookings, South Dakota, USA. The abundance of this species in soybeans suggests it plays an important role as a beneficial predator.

Northern pike are among the most exciting freshwater fishes to land because they tend to put up quite a fight. This species is broadly distributed outside its native range due to human transport and subsequent expansion. Where pike have been introduced, native fish like bull trout, which are listed as Threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), are suffering dire consequences as this long-lived, generalist top predator is using native fish as a food source. A recent publication, “Mechanism of northern pike invasion in the Columbia River basin,” describes how a team of Tribal, State,...