Treesearch

Surface fuel loads are highly variable in many wildland settings, which can have many important ecological effects, especially during a wildland fire. This variability is not well described by a single metric (e.g. mean load), so quantifying traits such as variability, continuity and spatial arrangement will help more precisely describe surface fuels. This study measured surface fuel variability in the northern Sierra Nevada of California following a high-severity fire that converted a mixed-conifer forest to shrub-dominant vegetation, both before and after a subsequent shrub removal...

Increased nitrogen (N) deposition may have profound effects on forest ecosystems. However, information on the impacts of elevated N deposition on belowground soil seed bank in forests is lacking. In a field experiment, we added N at 50 and 25 kg N ha−1 year−1 to the canopy (CAN50 and CAN25) and to the understory (UAN50 and UAN25), to determine the effects of N deposition on soil seed bank structure and composition in a subtropical evergreen broadleaved forest. A total of 1545 seedlings belonging to 37 species emerged from the 10 cm-depth soil samples. After 6 years of N addition, soil seed...

Although wildfires are an important ecological process in forested regions worldwide, they can cause significant economic damage and frequently create widespread health impacts. We propose a network optimization approach to plan wildfire fuel treatments that minimize the risk of fire spread in forested landscapes under an upper bound for total treated area. We used simulation modeling to estimate the probability of fire spread between pairs of forest sites and formulated a modified Critical Node Detection (CND) model that uses these estimated probabilities to find a pattern of fuel...

As the world contends with the far-ranging impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, ongoing environmental crises have, to some extent, been neglected during the pandemic. One reason behind this shift in priorities is the scarcity mindset triggered by the pandemic. Scarcity is the feeling of having less than what is necessary, and it causes people to prioritize immediate short-term needs over long-term ones. Scarcity experienced in the pandemic can reduce the willingness to engage in pro-environmental behavior, leading to environmental degradation that increases the chance of future pandemics. To...

The frequency and intensity of natural disasters such as hurricanes, wildfires, and floods are predicted to change as greenhouse gas concentrations increase. These disasters may represent sources of information for individuals as they update their beliefs related to climate change. Using a dataset that includes climate beliefs of respondents, we examine the effect of natural disasters on climate change beliefs and find that hurricanes significantly increase the probability that survey respondents from a given county believe that climate change is occurring and that it is human caused. We...

Fuels treatments and fire suppression operations during a fire are the two management influences on wildfire severity, yet their influence is rarely quantified in landscape-scale analyses. We leveraged a combination of datasets including custom canopy fuel layers and post-fire field data to analyse drivers of fire severity in a large wildfire in the southern Cascade Range, California, USA. We used a statistical model of tree basal area loss from the fire, factoring in weather, fuels and terrain to quantify the extent to which prescribed burning mitigated wildfire severity by simulating...

The current materials predominately come from fossil feedstocks and minerals. The pressures from climate change and plastic pollution challenge us to develop a bioeconomy, replacing petroleum-based products with bio-based and biodegradable products.Cellulose emerges as a versatile biopolymer to make hydrogels for absorbents, aerogels for insulation, membranes for filters, films for packaging, and fibers for textiles and reinforcements. Wood-based cellulose is increasingly perceived by relevant stakeholders to be renewable, biodegradable, and sustainable. Can the properties of cellulose-base...

Understanding the within- and among-population distribution of trait variation within seed collections may provide a means to approximate standing genetic variation and inform plant conservation. This study aimed to estimate population- and family-level seed trait variability for existing seed collections of Torrey pine (Pinus torreyana), and to use these data to guide sampling of future collections. We quantified variation in 14 seed morphological traits and seedling emergence within and among Torrey pine populations. Using a simulation-based approach, we used estimates of within-populatio...

Phenotypic plasticity of traits is commonly measured in plants to improve understanding of organismal and ecosystem responses to climate change but is far less studied for microbes. Specifically, decomposer fungi are thought to display high levels of phenotypic plasticity and their functions have important implications for ecosystem dynamics. Assessing the phenotypic plasticity of fungal traits may therefore be important for predicting fungal community response to climate change. Here, we assess the phenotypic plasticity of 15 fungal isolates (12 species) from a Southern California...

In recent years, plants in sandy soils have been impacted by increased climate variability due to weak water holding and temperature buffering capacities of the parent material. The projected impact spreads all over the world, including New England, USA. Many regions of the world may experience an increase in frequency and severity of drought, which can be attributed to an increased variability in precipitation and enhanced water loss due to warming. The overall benefts of biochar in environmental management have been extensively investigated. This review aims to discuss the water holding...