Treesearch

The prebasic molt is a perilous period for songbirds, characterized by heightened energetic demands and vulnerability to predators. Given these vulnerabilities, songbirds are under selective pressure to locate and use quality habitat during the prebasic molt, potentially resulting in site fidelity between years. In this study, we aimed to determine how differences in breeding and molting activity affected site fidelity for a diversity of species at the landscape scale. To accomplish our objective, we used 31 yr of banding data from northern California and southern Oregon for 16 species of...

This paper examines emergent and disruptive technologies as potential drivers of change in forest sector futures. Two questions are addressed: (1) Which emergent and disruptive technologies can be projected to substantively impact forestry futures? (2) What are the possible implications of emergent and disruptive technologies for decision makers, policymakers, and other stakeholders involved in forest sector futures? A 20-year timeframe is used for this explorative paper. A cross-disciplinary review of futures literature was implemented to identify and investigate leading emergent and...

Demographic trends such as rapid population growth, urban expansion, regional population shifts, amenity migration, an "elder boom," and increasing ethnic and cultural diversity will require adaptive responses by planners and forest managers. Urban forestry will become more important and doing it well will require better integration of forest management with urban planning and better coordination across organizations and fields of knowledge. Fostering fire resilience will need to become a major focus of effort as more people and structures are located in fire-prone wildland areas. More...

Forest values are significant drivers of change in the relationship between people and forests. Our forest values shape our attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors toward forests and guide forestry policy and management. Forest values have shifted and evolved significantly in the past and will continue to change in important and unexpected ways in the future. This paper presents a simple framework for understanding the forest values that people hold, briefly reviews historical and current trends in forest values, and sketches out three plausible alternative scenarios for how values could unfold...

Indigenous peoples have been fighting for recognition of their rights to land and resources for generations. They have also voiced clear opposition to activities that degrade natural resources, the environment, and tribal sovereignty. Over the past several decades, Indigenous empowerment and influence over natural resource management has increased to the point where they have the potential to influence major environmental issues like climate change, fossil fuel extraction and transport, timber harvesting, and water management. This paper explores these and several other key areas where...

The purpose of this paper is to examine education as a driver of change in U.S. forests and the forest sector over the next two decades. Likely outcomes in general education include: (1) greater emphasis on the production of information products and services associated with a knowledge-creation society; (2) more emphasis on nondiscipline-specific or generic and transferable competencies; (3) increase in the importance of information and communication technologies in the development of knowledge-creation skills and competencies; (4) greater attention paid to the environment in which...

Increased wildfire activity combined with warm and dry post-fire conditions may undermine the mechanisms maintaining forest resilience to wildfires, potentially causing ecosystem transitions, or fire-catalyzed vegetation shifts. Stand-replacing fire is especially likely to catalyze vegetation shifts expected from climate change, by killing mature trees that are less sensitive to climate than juveniles. To understand the vulnerability of forests to fire-catalyzed vegetation shifts it is critical to identify both where fires will burn with stand-replacing severity and where climate conditions...

Increases in burned area across the western United States (US) since the mid‐1980s have been widely documented and linked partially to climate factors, yet evaluations of trends in fire severity are lacking. Here we evaluate fire severity trends and their interannual relationships to climate for western US forests from 1985 to 2017. Significant increases in annual area burned at high severity (AABhs) were observed across most ecoregions, with an overall eightfold increase in AABhs across western US forests. The relationships we identified between the annual fire severity metrics and...

Climate exerts a major influence on the productivity, distribution, composition, and structure of forests. Temperatures are increasing globally, and these widespread temperature increases are resulting in local changes in temperature, precipitation, and extreme weather events across the continental United States. Changes have varied by region, and many of these regional differences will continue in the coming decades. The western United States has been experiencing an increase in drought, wildfire, and mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) damage that is leading to losses in...

There is extraordinary uncertainty about how the U.S. economy will perform over the next two decades because so many of the variables that affect the economy are in flux. As a result, 20-year forecasts are highly problematic and a more responsible approach is to consider alternative forecasts of how economic conditions could evolve. This essay sets out scenarios that represent some of the main views held by economists and other informed professionals and leaders. Each view is plausible and there is no "right" view on which to base decisions. The better approach is to be prepared to make...