Treesearch

Prescribed burning is a common management tool for both shortleaf pine and associated oak species, as they can resprout following top-kill and are adapted to frequent surface fire regimes. In Missouri, shortleaf pine often occurs with oaks in mixedwood ecosystems, though its prevalence is diminished from historic levels. With interest in restoring shortleaf pine, research is needed on specific strategies for using prescribed fire to promote shortleaf pine in mixed pine-oak ecosystems. We studied the survival and resprouting of shortleaf pine and oaks of different sizes following a prescribe...

This report describes the framework of a long-term project on the Santee Experimental Forest comparing hydrological processes and vegetation dynamics between two research watersheds: one formerly dominated by loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) and currently being restored to longleaf pine (P. palustris), and the other an unmanaged mixed pine-hardwood reference watershed. Along with descriptions of the watersheds and the silvicultural methods used in the longleaf pine restoration, this report provides baseline data on overstory conditions, soils, leaf area index, and coarse woody debris across the...

Armillaria solidipes, a naturally occurring fungus, is responsible for one of the most widespread root diseases in western North American forests. Armillaria root disease affects a broad range of tree species, and by the time visible symptoms appear, significant damage has often already occurred.

Rapid shifts in climate conditions can disrupt disturbance regimes and generate novel spatial conditions that have consequences for wildlife. In the montane Sierra Nevada range of California, USA, many species occur in sympatry, with local variation in elevation, climate conditions, and forest structure allowing species that may compete with each other to persist. However, shifting climate conditions in this region have potential impacts for species persistence and coexistence. From 2012 to 2015, a historic drought in California resulted in < 5% of expected snowpack and atypically warm...

Camera traps (i.e., game cameras or trail cameras) have become a widespread tool in wildlife ecology. However, camera traps can take large volumes of photos or videos often generating a considerable data management workload. Internal camera settings, such as how many photos are taken when the camera is triggered and how long the camera waits before it can be triggered again, significantly influence the volume of photos collected. These settings have the potential to affect analytical results (e.g., estimated occupancy), photo management workload (i.e., reviewing and identifying images) and...

Increased fire frequency and severity in subalpine forests causes uncertainty regarding how forest-dependent species may respond to fire-disturbed landscapes relative to burn heterogeneity and severity.We tested individual-level habitat-use response of Canada lynx to fire severity, heterogeneity, patch characteristics, and unburned island refugia.We instrumented 22 Canada lynx (27 lynx years, 2018–2020) in the Northern Rocky Mountains, U.S.A. to investigate selection behavior in recent (≤ 3 yrs) fire-impacted landscapes using resource selection (RSF) and integrated step selection models...

Maternally inherited Wolbachia alphaproteobacteria are the most common arthropod endosymbionts. Often, Wolbachia spread to high frequencies through cytoplasmic incompatibility, in which cif loci act through sperm to kill embryos lacking Wolbachia. Closely related Wolbachia with diverse cif loci often associate with anciently diverged hosts, but the timescale of associations remains uncertain. We produce new calibrations based on filarial nematodes with vertically inherited Wolbachia that codiverge with their hosts. Applying these calibrations to Wolbachia variants closely related to...

Shrub and grassland ecosystems are globally threatened, and loss and degradation continue to increase due to a variety of human activities. Many species of conservation concern live in these ecosystems and rely on small mammals, such as rabbits (Leporidae) and squirrels (Sciuridae) for prey. In North America, Wyoming contains one of the largest remaining intact shrubland ecosystems but is also the location of extensive energy development. We determined the response of small mammal abundance to surface disturbance (oil or gas well pads and roads), and to vegetation and topographic indices....

Fire is a pervasive biogeographic process that shapes biodiversity globally and is now experiencing unprecedented changes. Despite well documented impacts of fires on biodiversity, we do not know where biodiversity might be most vulnerable to changing fire regimes. We leverage recent advancements in fire forecasting and species distribution modeling to assess the exposure of bird species richness, community uniqueness, and functional richness to altered fire regimes in the western United States. We find that 55-58% of biodiversity hotspots are classified as “refugia”, where high biodiversit...

Host diversity can strongly influence disease prevalence, but whether it dilutes or amplifies disease remains debated. We applied community assembly theory to examine whether conditionality from abiotic and biotic filtering could explain variation in rodent diversity and Sin Nombre hantavirus (SNV) prevalence across 24 locations in the southwestern United States. Overall, community composition, not diversity per se, drove diversity‐disease relationships. Environmental factors determined community composition, which regulated primary host abundance and SNV infection via resource competition....