Treesearch

In the upper Midwest, climate change is expected to result in longer periods of drought during the growing season and increased summer temperatures. These pose a particular threat to seedlings, both natural and artificial regeneration, which are more susceptible to drought than mature trees. Biochar, a product created through pyrolysis of organic material (including wood and wood waste), has been proposed as a soil amendment that can both increase the water-holding capacity of soil (and therefore increase the drought tolerance of seedlings in that soil) and increase carbon storage. In this...

Scientist-manager partnerships are investigating novel silvicultural approaches for improving postfire reforestation success and fostering long-term climate-change adaptation in California’s low-elevation, westside Sierra Nevada forests.

The successful reestablishment of native conifer tree stands is a key step in forest restoration. In recent years, high severity wildfires have burned tens of millions of acres of forests in the western United States. Many of these lands require artificial reforestation and subsequent management in order to be fully restored and resilient to future drought, wildfire, and widespread insect attacks. Even though some seed trees may remain in the burned landscapes, natural regeneration has not guaranteed a resilient forest that can withstand the next wildfire. Furthermore, following regeneratio...

The Crosby Farms ASCC site sits in a Saint Paul Park and Recreation Area, owned and managed by the City of Saint Paul, that is embedded within the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area (MNRRA), a national park. Within the 736-acre park, there has been significant mortality of overstory green ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica) due to the invasive emerald ash borer. Utilizing these already established mortality centers, three areas (or blocks) were identified. Prior to the removal of the mostly dead overstory, pretreatment conditions were measured. Overstory trees were removed during the...

Forest managers in the eastern United States need to decide which species and seed sources will be best adapted to current and future climates. This guidebook will synthesize information on genetics, silviculture, and forest health to assist land managers on decisions to seed transfer for major tree species in the eastern U.S.

Sea-level rise and climate change stresses pose increasing threats to coastal wetlands that are vital to wildlife habitats, carbon sequestration, water supply, and other ecosystem services with global significance. However, existing studies are limited in individual sites, and large-scale mapping of coastal wetland degradation patterns over a long period is rare. Our study developed a new framework to detect spatial and temporal patterns of coastal wetland degradation by analyzing fine-scale, long-term remotely sensed Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data. Then, this framework...

Coastal wetlands provide the unique biogeochemical functions of storing a large fraction of the terrestrial carbon (C) pool and being among the most productive ecosystems in the world. However, coastal wetlands face numerous natural and anthropogenic disturbances that threaten their ecological integrity and C storage potential. To monitor the C balance of a coastal forested wetland, we established an eddy covariance flux tower in a natural undrained bottomland hardwood forest in eastern North Carolina, USA. We examined the long-term trends (2009–2019) in gross primary productivity (GPP),...

Habitat restoration to recover fish populations takes place worldwide, yet studies of its efficacy are fraught with challenges. One difficulty comes from studies of fish responses that are too focused on whether abundance has increased in the restored habitat, limiting the methodology to observational data of fish density. However, many other tools are available for evaluation of restoration. I review a set of conceptually based methods that colleagues and I used to assess restoration efficacy in a model river system to show the strength of considering alternative approaches. Although it...

Reforestation following harvest, and/or natural disasters, is critical to sustaining healthy forests. Recent increases in frequency, scale, and severity in wildfires in the West combined with ongoing turnover in personnel make the National Silviculture Workshop an ideal venue to review the laws and policies that direct reforestation on National Forest System Lands.

The National Forest Management Act of 1976 (NFMA) mandates prompt reforestation. Passage of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) included the Repairing Existing Public Land by Adding Necessary Trees Act (REPLANT Act), which removes the cap on the Reforestation Trust Fund, indefinitely increasing annual funding for reforestation from $30 million to $140 million or more.