Treesearch

Climate-smart forestry (CSF) is an emerging branch of sustainable adaptive forest management aimed at enhancing the potential of forests to adapt to and mitigate climate change. It relies on much higher data requirements than traditional forestry. These data requirements can be met by new devices that support continuous, in situ monitoring of forest conditions in real time. We propose a comprehensive network of sensors, i.e., a wireless sensor network (WSN), that can be part of a worldwide network of interconnected uniquely addressable objects, an Internet of Things (IoT), which can make...

Accurate information on reproductive ecology is necessary to develop conservation actions for at-risk wildlife species. Our objective was to describe female reproductive parameters and den use of two subspecies of wild, untrapped Pacific martens (Humboldt marten, Martes caurina humboldtensis; Sierran marten, M. c. sierrae) of conservation interest in California. We used radio telemetry and remotely triggered cameras to monitor 10 Humboldt martens (2014 to 2016) and six Sierran martens (2016 to 2017) over 23 total denning periods. For Humboldt martens, mean parturition date was 13 April,...

Wildland fire is a disturbance that shapes frequent-fire forest ecosystems and the life-histories of wildlife species that inhabit them. The California spotted owl (Strix occidentalis occidentalis) is an iconic old-forest species that evolved under a frequent-fire regime in western North America. While recent studies have focused on owl response to large, severe fire events, relatively little is known about how owls might respond to prescribed fires and wildfires managed for resource benefit. Therefore, understanding how owls use landscapes that are managed using fire may offer insight...

Pesticide use is pervasive and the exposure of non-target wildlife has been well documented over the past half-century. Among pesticides, anticoagulant rodenticides (AR) have emerged as a particularly important threat in forests of the western United States, with exposure and mortality reported for several species of conservation concern. To further quantify this threat, we collected specimens of Barred Owls (Strix varia) and Barred Owl x Spotted Owl hybrids from the Klamath and Cascade Mountains and Sierra Nevada in California, USA to use as indicator species for environmental contaminatio...

The relationship between fishers (Pekania pennanti), fire, and fuel management in the Sierra Nevada region is complex and highly controversial, and the recent listing of southern Sierra Nevada fishers as endangered has brought this issue to the forefront for many land managers. While wildfire is a natural component of the historic disturbance regime in the dry, mixed conifer forests of California, it also has the capacity to destroy large swaths of suitable habitat and to fragment tenuous populations, particularly given recent shifts in wildfire scope and severity. Therefore, balancing...

The mangroves of Puerto Rico occupy a gradient of urbanization that offers a chance to test hypotheses on urban faunal communities. These hypotheses state that urban avifaunal communities have greater representation by generalists and that certain mangrove specialists can utilize urban landscapes. Much of this is said to be driven by food resources, with frugivores and nectarivores benefiting from abundant residential flowers and fruits, while insectivores are driven away by low food resources. This study used passive acoustic monitoring to identify the audible anuran and avifaunal species...

Climate change is altering the spatial distribution of many species around the world. In response, we need to identify and protect suitable areas for a large proportion of the fauna so that they persist through time. This exercise must also evaluate the ability of existing protected areas to provide safe havens for species in the context of climate change. Here, we combined passive acoustic monitoring, semi-automatic species identification models, and species distribution models of 21 bird and frog species based on past (1980–1989), present (2005–2014), and future (2040–2060) climate...

The Caspar Creek Experimental Watersheds are the site of a long-term paired watershed study in the northern Coast Ranges of California. The watersheds are predominately forested with coast redwood and Douglas-fir. Old-growth forest was logged between 1860 and 1904. Two harvesting experiments have been completed since then and a third experiment is currently underway. Caspar Creek data are split into three phases corresponding to three experiments: Phase 1 (1962–1985) reports on a selection harvest (1971–1973) and initial recovery in the South Fork watershed; Phase 2 (1985–2017) includes...

Understanding microsite preferences of species at the sapling stage is crucial for successful forest restoration, as efforts can be concentrated onto the most promising sites, and invaded sites can be manipulated toward more suitable conditions for target species. The Hawaiian Lowland Wet Forest is a highly endemic and endangered ecosystem that has received limited attention in terms of research on recruitment dynamics. Our study combined density records and sapling-based measurements within a forest reserve, an invaded forest, a traditional restoration project and a novel restoration...

Forest management planning can be challenging when allocating multiple ecosystem services (ESs) to management units (MUs), given the potentially conflicting management priorities of actors. We developed a methodology to spatially allocate ESs to MUs, according to the objectives of four interest groups—civil society, forest owners, market agents, and public administration. We applied a Group Multicriteria Spatial Decision Support System approach, combining (a) Multicriteria Decision Analysis to weight the decision models; (b) a focus group and a multicriteria Pareto frontier method to...