Treesearch

Species coexistence is governed by availability of resources and intraguild interactions including strategies to reduce ecological overlap. Gray foxes are dietary generalist mesopredators expected to benefit from anthropogenic disturbance, but populations have declined across the midwestern USA, including severe local extirpation rates coinciding with high coyote and domestic dog occurrence and low red fox occurrence. We used data from a large-scale camera trap survey in southern Illinois, USA to quantify intraguild spatial and temporal interactions among the canid guild including domestic...

Wood modifications are becoming popular as a way to enhance the performance of wood, either to make it more durable, improve the performance of wood, or give it new functionality as a multifunctional or smart material. While wood modifications have been examined since the early 1900s, the topic has become a dominant area of study in wood science over the past decade. This review summarizes recent advances and provides future perspective on a selection of wood modifications, i.e., the methods that are currently commercialized (acetylation, furfurylation, and thermal modification), a...

The South’s production of pulpwood decreased from 60.4 million cords in 2019 to 57.0 million cords in 2020. Roundwood production decreased by 4.1 million cords to 42.4 million cords and accounted for 74 percent of the South’s total pulpwood production. The use of wood residue increased 5 percent to 14.6 million cords in 2020. Georgia and Alabama led the South in total production, with 9.6 and 9.0 million cords, respectively. In 2020, 74 mills were operating and drawing wood from the 13 Southern States.

We used historical and contemporary survey data to assess the dynamics in two old-growth forests at Savage Mountain, Maryland, versus secondary forests from the surrounding landscape of the northern Allegheny Mountain Plateau (AMP). This is the first published compilation of witness trees from western Maryland. The oldgrowth forests on Savage Mountain, Maryland, are presently dominated by mixed oak (Quercus spp. L.; 42%), red maple (Acer rubrum L.), and black birch (Betula lenta L.). Witness trees (1620-1825) from Savage Mountain were dominated by mixed oak (55%), hickory (Carya spp.;...

The regulation of seasonality has been an area of interest for decades, yet global climate change has created extra urgency in the quest to understand how sensory circuits and neuroendocrine control systems interact to generate flexibility in biological timekeeping. The capacity of temperature to alter endogenous or photoperiod-regulated neuroendocrine mechanisms driving seasonality, either as a direct cue or through temperature-dependent effects on energy and metabolism, is at the heart of this phenological flexibility. However, until relatively recently, little research had been done on...

Biological organisms are increasingly being introduced and eradicated in an effort to maintain biodiversity and ecosystem function in the face of anthropogenic threats. However, these conservation actions can have unintended consequences to non-target species. Careful vetting of these actions using ecological modelling tools could help predict and avoid unintended consequences.

Animal conservation requires understanding animal-habitat relationships. The integration of novel remote sensing platforms such as Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology has dramatically improved the resolution of insight when evaluating animal-habitat relationships by characterizing forest structure. However, conventional LiDAR collection (e.g., airborne or terrestrial laser scanning) may be limited by small spatial extents and logistical constraints (e.g., budget) associated with sampling. NASA’s Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) mission provides an alternative and...

Populations of some cave-hibernating bats have undergone declines in recent years due to an introduced fungus (Pseudogymnoascus destructans) that causes the disease white-nose syndrome (WNS), which is often fatal to bats during hibernation. Unprecedented declines in cave-hibernating species have the potential to change community composition via numerous mechanisms, including competitive release. We trapped bats for 6 years in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas prior to the arrival of WNS in the region and compared capture rates of 7 species to capture rates collected in 2020–2021 after WNS...

The southeastern United States is widely regarded as a leading region for intensively managed, short rotation pine forests. One drawback of this intensive approach is the production of more juvenile wood with lower quality properties that are less desirable for solid end uses. Improved construction sectors (e.g., housing) demand larger diameter sawtimbers. Delaying the final harvest allows for the production of larger diameter higher quality solid wood; however, this approach may incur additional costs to the landowner, which may disincentivize extending the rotation without additional...

Longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) forests have been identified as a societal, economical, and ecological resource in the southeastern United States. One major factor inhibiting contemporary efforts to restore native forests is the sporadic cone production of longleaf pine. It is difficult to evaluate the climate contribution to seed production since the reproduction process is lengthy and complicated. Here, we utilize a quantitative method previously applied to understanding complex systems to assess the influence of climate on longleaf pine cone production at five long-term monitoring...