Treesearch

Hickories (Carya spp.) are common species in eastern US forests. Despite being a noted component of the most prevalent forest type in the eastern US, remarkably little is known about the ecology and silvics of the genera, especially compared to oaks (Quercus spp.). To improve our understanding about the dynamics of hickories in stand development and forest succession, we used a variety of datasets from oak-hickory forests of the Central Hardwood Region to assess growth, physiology, and demography. Our findings suggest that hickories may have a conservative root-centered growth strategy...

A long-standing goal of ecology has been to understand the cycling of carbon in forests. This has taken on new urgency with the need to address a rapidly changing climate. Forests serve as longterm stores for atmospheric CO2, but their continued ability to take up new carbon is dependent on future changes in climate and other factors such as age. We have been measuring many aspects of carbon cycling at an unmanaged evergreen forest in central Maine, USA, for over 25 years. Here we use these data to address questions about the magnitude and control of carbon fluxes and quantify flows and...

Elevated acid deposition has been a concern in the central Appalachian region for decades. A long-term acidification experiment on the Fernow Experimental Forest in centralWest Virginia was initiated in 1996 and continues to this day. Ammonium sulfate was used to simulate elevated acid deposition. A concurrent lime treatment with an ammonium sulfate treatment was also implemented to assess the ameliorative effects of base cations to offset acidification. We show that the forest vegetation simulator growth model can be locally calibrated and used to project stand growth and development over...

Hybrid poplars (Populus sp.) are increasingly implemented in agroforestry systems across the U.S., mainly for their biomass production, carbon allocation, and ecosystem services. While agroforestry systems are usually established on marginal land, soil amendments, such as paper mill fibercake residuals, can provide necessary nutrients such as nitrogen (N) to increase poplar yield. To assess the effects of such amendments on poplar early growth and establishment, three clones (Populus deltoides Bartr. ex Marsh × P. maximowiczii A. Henry 'DM114'; P. deltoides× P. nigra L. 'DN170'; P. nigra×...

Frequent hurricanes affect agricultural productivity, food security, economic security, and human wellbeing in the Caribbean islands. We assessed recent hurricane effects on the agricultural sector, and the challenges faced by farmers, foresters, and advisors related to hurricane preparedness and recovery in Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands (USVI). We used qualitative and quantitative survey methods to compile perspectives from agricultural advisors related to hurricane effects on farmlands, preparedness and recovery measures taken by land managers, and the needs regarding preparing for...

In northeastern North America, group selection is frequently used in northern hardwood forests to maintain uneven-aged stand structure and promote regeneration of tree species spanning a range of shade tolerances. For this study, long-term application of group selection at the Bartlett Experimental Forest, New Hampshire, USA, provided a unique opportunity to address cohort- and stand-level progression after 80 years of treatment. Cohort-level evolution reflected successional and developmental dynamics associated with even-aged forest systems, whereas aggregate stand-level conditions were...

Masting is the synchronous and highly variable production of fruit within a population. Although several hypotheses have been proposed to explain why and how masting evolved in plants as a reproductive strategy, the factors that trigger a large reproductive effort in a particular year are still not well understood. While both weather and resources have been proposed to play an important role, testing these hypotheses has been challenging due to a lack of longterm data and appropriate experimental designs. In this manuscript, we used 18 years of acorn production data to analyze the relations...

Adaptive traits can be dramatically altered by genome duplication. The study of interactions among traits, ploidy, and the environment are necessary to develop an understanding of how polyploidy affects niche differentiation and to develop restoration strategies for resilient native ecosystems. Methods: Growth and fecundity were measured in common gardens for 39 populations of big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) containing two subspecies and two ploidy levels. General linear mixed‐effect models assessed how much of the trait variation could be attributed to genetics (i.e., ploidy and...

Interactions between neighboring plants are critical for biodiversity maintenance in plant populations and communities. Intraspecific trait variation and genome duplication are common in plant species and can drive eco-evolutionary dynamics through genotypemediated plant-plant interactions. However, few studies have examined how species-wide intraspecific variation may alter interactions between neighboring plants. We investigate how subspecies and ploidy variation in a genetically diverse species, big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata), can alter the demographic outcomes of plant interaction...

Before the arrival of white-nose syndrome in North America, the northern long-eared bat (Myotis septentrionalis) was a common cavity-roosting bat species in central Appalachian hardwood forests. Two successive prescribed burns on the Fernow Experimental Forest, West Virginia, in 2008 and 2009, were shown to positively affect maternity colony day-roost availability and condition in the near-term. However, whether immediate benefits were temporary and if burned forests actually experienced an accelerated loss of trees and snags possibly suitable for bats more than background loss in unburned...