Treesearch

Wildland-urban interface residents, who occupy the areas where wildlands meet and mix with human development, are both contributors to and recipients of the disastrous effects of wildland fires. They contribute through fire starts, flammable homes, unmitigated properties, opposition to mitigation on nearby public lands, and land use planning efforts. We argue that successful, sustainable wildland fire solutions are only possible if the WUI residents are engaged. In this article, we describe an evidence-based quantitative social science model to illustrate how to put people at the center of...

The Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Partnership (CFLRP), focused on land managed at the national level (the National Forest System) by the US Forest Service, is a prominent public approach to FLR; whereas notable private sector programmes have been organized around specific forest types, for example the Longleaf Pine Initiative (ALRI, 2020), or bottomland hardwoods in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley (NWFW, 2019). Major conservation organizations, including The Nature Conservancy, National Wildlife Federation, and American Forest Foundation, are financing restoration...

Background: A new variance estimator is derived and tested for big BAF (Basal Area Factor) sampling which is a forest inventory system that utilizes Bitterlich sampling (point sampling) with two BAF sizes, a small BAF for tree counts and a larger BAF on which tree measurements are made usually including DBHs and heights needed for volume estimation. Methods: The new estimator is derived using the Delta method from an existing formulation of the big BAF estimator as consisting of three sample means. The new formula is compared to existing big BAF estimators including a popular estimator...

Peatlands play a critical role in terrestrial carbon (C) storage, containing an estimated 30% of global soil C, despite occupying only 3% of global land area. Historic management of peatlands has led to widespread degradation and loss of important ecosystem services, including C sequestration. Legacy drainage features in the peatlands of northern Minnesota, USA were studied to assess the volume of peat and the amount of C lost in the ~100 years since drainage. Using high-resolution Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data, we measured elevation changes adjacent to legacy ditches to model...

Temperate mixedwoods (hardwood–softwood mixtures) in central and eastern United States and Canada can be classified into two overarching categories: those with shade-tolerant softwoods maintained by light to moderate disturbances and those with shade-intolerant to mid-tolerant softwoods maintained by moderate to severe disturbances. The former includes red spruce (Picea rubens Sarg.), balsam fir (Abies balsamea (L.) Mill.), or eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis (L.) Carr.) in mixture with northern hardwood species; the latter includes pine (Pinus) – oak (Quercus) mixtures. Such forests have...

Post-fire catchment and water utility managers throughout the world use predictive models to estimate potential erosion risks to aid in evaluating downstream impacts of increased runoff and erosion, and to target critical areas within a fire for applying mitigation practices. Erosion prediction can be complicated by forest road networks. Using novel GIS technology and soil erosion modelling, this study evaluated the effect of roads on surface runoff, erosion and sediment yields following a wildfire and determined that the predictive models were providing reasonable results. The GeoWEPP...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service's National Woodland Owner Survey (NWOS) collects information on the attitudes, behaviors, and general characteristics of private forest ownerships across the United States. An area-based sample design that results in inclusion probabilities proportional to size of forest holdings is used to select ownerships to participate in the survey. In order to make accurate population-level estimates, this sample design must be incorporated into the estimators. In this report, a weighting approach for generating estimates of totals, means, proportions...

Coarse woody debris (CWD) is a structural feature in forests throughout the United States that provides unique cover, runways, and microclimate for various wildlife species. While use and selection of CWD for rodent foraging, travel, and nesting, which can impact an individual’s fitness, has been demonstrated across numerous studies, the role of CWD presence and abundance in rodent population and community dynamics varies across studies. To better understand rodent and CWD relationships, we studied rodent populations across two periods of CWD manipulation in randomly assigned experimental...

This resource update is a brief look at some of the basic metrics that describe the status of and changes to forest resources in Arkansas. 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 Arkansas, 2020 can be found here: https://doi.org/10.2737/FS-RU-309-TablesThe FIA one-click application can be found here:https://doi.org/10.2737/FIA-One-Click-State-Report-v1.2

When multiple species of host-specific natural enemies from the same feeding guild are introduced to areas against a target pest, strong interspecific competition is likely and may compromise biocontrol unless the agents effectively partition available resources. Here, we evaluate if two parasitoids (Spathius galinae and Tetrastichus planipennisi), introduced for biocontrol of the invasive emerald ash borer (EAB), Agrilus planipennis, into North America have established niche-partitioning, co-existing populations following their sequential or simultaneous field releases to 12 hard-wood...