Treesearch

Background: On-site enzyme production using Trichoderma reesei can improve yields and lower the overall cost of lignocellulose saccharifcation by exploiting the fungal gene regulatory mechanism that enables it to continuously adapt enzyme secretion to the substrate used for cultivation. To harness this, the interrelation between substrate characteristics and fungal response must be understood. However, fungal morphology or gene expression studies often lack structural and chemical substrate characterization. Here, T. reesei QM6a was cultivated on three softwood substrates: northern...

A common parameter in hydrological modeling frameworks is root zone water storage capacity (SR[L]), which mediates plant water availability during dry periods as well as the partitioning of rainfall between runoff and evapotranspiration. Recently, a simple flux-tracking-based approach was introduced to estimate the value of SR(Wang-Erlandsson et al., 2016). Here, we build upon this original method, which we argue may overestimate SRin snow-dominated catchments due to snow melt and evaporation processes. We propose a simple extension to the method presented by Wang-Erlandsson et al. (2016)...

Adult salmon sense when the time is right to leave the ocean and head for fresh water to spawn. But how do they know this? And how will climate change affect this cycle? Rebecca Flitcroft, a research fish biologist with the USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, and colleagues took a closer look at the connection between migration patterns and stream conditions.They found that water temperature and the rate of streamflow appear to be two of the environmental conditions that precipitate the migration of salmon to their freshwater spawning grounds. This doesn’t bode well...

In this study, a suite of complementary environmental geochemical analyses, including NMR and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analyses of central metabolites, Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FTICR-MS) of secondary metabolites, and lipidomics, was used to investigate the influence of organic matter (OM) quality on the heterotrophic microbial mechanisms controlling peatland CO2, CH4, and CO2:CH4 porewater production ratios in response to climate warming. Our investigations leverage the Spruce and Peatland Responses under Changing Environments...

Altered flow regimes can contribute to dissociation between life history strategies and environmental conditions, leading to reduced persistence reported for many wildlife populations inhabiting regulated rivers. The Oregon spotted frog (Rana pretiosa) is a threatened species occurring in floodplains, ponds, and wetlands in the Pacific Northwest with a core range in Oregon, USA. All life stages of R. pretiosa are reliant on aquatic habitats, and inundation patterns across the phenological timeline can have implications for population success. We conducted capture–mark–recapture (CMR)...

A global surge in 'artisanal', smallscale mining (ASM) threatens biodiverse tropical forests and exposes residents to dangerous levels of mercury. In response, governments and development agencies are investing millions (USD) on ASM formalization; registering concessions and demarcating extraction zones to promote regulatory adherence and direct mining away from ecologically sensitive areas. The environmental outcomes of these initiatives are seldom systematically assessed. We examine patterns of mining-related deforestation associated with formalization efforts in a gold-rich region of...

The New Mexico Shared Stewardship Agreement created a framework to allow for the State of New Mexico and the USDA Forest Service to collaboratively identify mutual restoration goals to respond to the increasing suite of challenges facing the communities, landscapes, and natural and cultural resources of New Mexico. We used scenario planning to evaluate where forest management could achieve multiple shared restoration objectives, in particular, to reduce wildfire risk to water supply and quality; communities and infrastructure; and biodiversity. The results showed clusters of planning areas...

Integrating remote sensing into assessments of carbon stocks and fluxes has advanced our understanding of how global change affects landscapes and our capacity to support decision making about forest management. However, there remains a lack of detailed and actionable analyses conducted across widely ranging environmental conditions that are appropriate for tactical planning. We used airborne laser scanning data and multi-source satellite imagery to estimate forest aboveground carbon density and gross primary production, and to map forest cover across the main Hawaiian Islands. We used...

The Appalachian coalfield occurs within the eastern United States (US). This mountainous landscape is formed from natural dissection of sedimentary geologic strata with interbedded seams of coal and serves as headwaters for multiple rivers. The region's natural ecosystems, with a primary vegetation of mostly deciduous forest, are among the non-tropical world's most biodiverse. After first humans arrived more than 10,000 years ago, the first Europeans came to Appalachia as fur trappers and traders; agriculturalists and merchants came soon after. The region's diverse forests and rich mineral...

Climate change is amplifying the frequency and severity of droughts and wildfires in many forests. In the western United States, fuel reduction treatments, both mechanical and prescribed fire, are widely used to increase resilience to wildfire but their effect on resistance to drought and beetle mortality is not as well understood. We followed more than 10,000 mapped and tagged trees in a mixed-conifer forest following mechanical thinning and/or prescribed burning treatments in 2001 through the extreme 2012–2016 drought in California. Mortality varied by tree species from 3% of incense-ceda...