Treesearch

In recent decades, scholars have developed ideas about therapeutic landscapes that explore how social processes, symbolism, and physical features generate diverse meanings. We examine here how therapeutic landscapes are produced and utilized for outdoor programs for military veterans, particularly veterans experiencing posttraumatic stress. Outdoor programs for veterans (OPVs) provide restorative opportunities through nature immersion and outdoor recreation. OPVs involve diverse social settings, activity types, durations, geographic and land management contexts, and degrees of therapeutic...

Understanding factors influencing survival of neonates for wild species is important for successful management, particularly for determining drivers of population dynamics. Wild pigs (Sus scrofa) are invasive and populations are rapidly increasing in part due to high reproductive capacity. Survival of adults is generally high, however, survival of piglets, and particularly neonates, is largely unknown. We located neonates at the natal nest and quantified survival in relation to individual and maternal biological attributes, and environmental variables. During 2017–2020, we captured 50...

Biocultural approaches promote consideration of diverse values and cultural practices into resource management. However, cultural inclusion in North American forest management is limited. Drawing on a case study of Wolastoqiyik and Mi’kmaq communities in Maine, USA and New Brunswick, Canada, we examine the practice of plant gathering, including associated values and cultural norms. Through interviews and participant observation, we find that gatherers value and care for plants and habitats that are not priorities for forest managers. Gatherers do not describe their actions in terms of...

This resource update is a brief look at some of the basic metrics that describe the status of and changes to forest resources in Georgia. This information is based on field data collected using the USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) annualized sample design, and it is updated yearly.Tables for Georgia, 2019 can be found here: https://doi.org/10.2737/FS-RU-310-TablesThe FIA one-click application can be found here:https://doi.org/10.2737/FIA-One-Click-State-Report-v1.2

This resource update is a brief look at some of the basic metrics that describe the status of and changes to forest resources in Louisiana. This information is based on field data collected using the USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) annualized sample design, and it is updated yearly.Tables for Louisiana, 2018 can be found here: https://doi.org/10.2737/FS-RU-313-TablesThe FIA one-click application can be found here:https://doi.org/10.2737/FIA-One-Click-State-Report-v1.2

As interest in managing and maintaining mixedwood forests in the northern United States (US) grows, so does the importance of understanding their abundance and distribution. We analyzed Forest Inventory and Analysis data for insights into mixedwood forests spanning 24 northern US states from Maine south to Maryland and westward to Kansas and North Dakota. Mixedwoods, i.e., forests with both hardwoods and softwoods present but neither exceeding 75%–80% of composition, comprise more than 19 million hectares and more than one-quarter of the northern US forest. They are most common in the...

Being opportunistic omnivores, wild pigs (Sus scrofa) readily feed on edible garbage. Given the presence of substantial volumes of edible food waste, large multi‐county and regional municipal sanitary waste landfills constitute attractive forage resources for pigs, providing a year‐round anthropogenic source of potentially high‐quality forage. Our objective was to assess the effects that a large regional landfill has on the local pigs foraging in that facility's waste disposal cells. The landfill, located on the United States Department of Energy's Savannah River Site (SRS) in South...

The biogeographic investigation of temperate walnut (Juglans) trees is of great interest because of their ecological and economical importance. Our goal was to perform an in-depth investigation of the genetic and phylogeographic history of J. regia and J. mandshurica, two walnut species that are sympatric in parts of their ranges, including tests for gene flow and incomplete lineage sorting. We employed a 234 bp locus of mitochondrial DNA, a 1.8 Kbp locus of chloroplast DNA, 3 nuclear loci totaling 1740 bp in length, and 17 EST-SSRs. We sampled 559 individuals, 332 of J. regia and 227 of...

High-elevation peatlands in the Andes are receiving increasing attention for their biodiversity and their high rates of carbon accumulation. However, the ecology of these peatlands and the environmental factors that control their carbon dynamics remain under-studied. Here we report on the patterns of root biomass productivity and turnover rates for two cushion plant species (Distichia muscoides, Plantago rigida) that commonly dominate high-elevation peatlands (> 4200 m a.s.l.) in the Andean páramo landscape of Northern Ecuador. Root biomass for P. rigida ranged from 680 to 864 g m-2 and...

Following timber harvests in bottomland mixed-oak (Quercus L.) stands, desirable oak advance regeneration can be overgrown by shade-intolerant pioneer species. We investigated the effects of group selection opening size on composition of tree regeneration 19 years postharvest in an oak-dominated bottomland forest and compared results with earlier findings to evaluate development trends. In response to six opening sizes (7–40 m radii), we evaluated regeneration density and dominance of four tree species groups: conifers, hard mast, shade-intolerant hardwoods, and shade-tolerant hardwoods....