Treesearch

Timber Product Output (TPO) is a component of FIA’s National Resource Use Monitoring (NRUM) program aimed at gathering and reporting information on industrial and non-industrial uses of roundwood. Data are gathered through annual surveys of primary wood processing facilities and aggregated and reported at the county and/or state level. Data and more information about NRUM and TPO can be found at the National Resource Use Monitoring page: https://research.fs.usda.gov/programs/nrum .

It may sound simple, but water doesn’t burn. Techniques for river and stream restoration, known as process-based restoration (PBR), store more water on the land, which can increase fire resilience and bolster fuel treatments. PBR applied in stream corridors, meadows, and valley bottoms can quickly and cost-effectively increase surface water and groundwater by utilizing non-merchantable timber and slash to raise water tables and increase soil moisture. Integration of watershed restoration during fire and fuels planning can strengthen suppression-control features such as Potential Operational...

The critical zone (CZ), extending from the vegetation canopy to the base of weathered material or depth of groundwater, hosts coupled hydrologic, geochemical, and biological interactions that regulate soil health, water resources, and ecosystem sustainability. The subsurface CZ can extend tens to hundreds of metres below the surface and is largely inaccessible, except in happenstance exposures from quarries or road cuts through mountain hillsides. Drilling and subsequent borehole sampling, monitoring, and imaging reveal the importance of the deep subsurface for CZ evolution and function....

Seasonal snowmelt from forested mountain catchments is the primary water source for both people and ecosystems in the western United States. As changes in climate and vegetation alter relationships between snow accumulation and water availability, quantifying the influence of ecosystem structure on snow water resources is a critical challenge. To address this knowledge gap, we performed 2 years of distributed snow surveys to quantify how vegetation structure, topography and winter conditions interact to control net snow accumulation. The ratio of net snow water equivalence (SWE) at peak...

This report summarizes the results of the National Woodland Owner Survey (NWOS) for the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI). The charge of the NWOS includes gathering and reporting information on private forest ownerships from across all U.S. States, protectorates, and territories. The survey was conducted in the USVI for the first time in 2021. This report focuses on families, individuals, trusts, estates, and family partnerships, collectively referred to as family forest ownerships, that own at least 1 acre of forest land in the USVI. The summary results include information about their forest...

We combine Indigenous and Western scientific ontologies to explore the deep history of pinyon pine in the Holocene Great Basin. We address 61 Theft of Pine Nuts (TPN) oral histories transcribed over the last 152 years. Contemporary Paiute, Shoshone, and Wá∙šiw storytellers still tell these narratives, which five Indigenous coauthors heard growing up. Considered judiciously and in concert with independent corroboration, these traditional oral histories (often dismissed as “myths”) potentially convey significant historical landmarks. Four themes emerge: (1) pine nuts have been a driving...

Ecological connectivity models commonly derive resistance surfaces from habitat suitability; however, it remains unclear how two-dimensional (2D) versus three-dimensional (3D) representations of landscape propagate through this modeling pipeline, particularly in urban environments. This study evaluated the sensitivity of habitat suitability and connectivity outputs derived from these models to the inclusion of 3D landscape structure for two bird species with contrasting habitat associations, the Western Bluebird (Sialia mexicana) and Acorn Woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus), in Los...

Climate change is expected to alter the extent and severity of forest pest damage, with substantial economic and ecological consequences, but predicting future pest impacts is challenging because of complex feedbacks among climate, pests and host trees. Here we use 20 years of data from the conterminous USA to assess how bioclimatic and biotic factors have influenced forest damage by 30 high-impact pest species and to identify ecological signals in those relationships. We found consistency in pest damage responses to maximum temperature in the warmest month, including recent average...

Climate change is affecting nearly all social and environmental determinants of health. However, the extent of resulting cumulative impacts on cardiovascular and other noncommunicable diseases is not known. To address this gap and inform future research, we conducted an ecological evaluation of associations between 14 long‐term climate anomaly metrics and prevalence of coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke in the United States. We calculated long‐term anomaly metrics as the difference between their respective 1970–1979 baseline mean and 2013–2022 modern mean values. With fitted random...

Shortleaf pine has the broadest range of the southern pine species, occurring in 22 states and extending north into New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York (Staten Island). Shortleaf pine has been understudied compared to loblolly pine and longleaf pine, typically favored for timber production and conservation value, respectively. The extensive range of shortleaf pine contributes to a high degree of variability within and among its ecosystems and contributes to the need to understand regional context in considering its ecology and management. The goal of this paper is to review and synthesiz...