Treesearch

This resource update is a brief look at some of the basic metrics that describe the status of and changes to forest resources in Oklahoma. 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. The application that produced this resource update was developed using data from the USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis database Tables for Oklahoma, 2018 can be found here: https://doi.org/10.2737/FS-RU-260-Tables The FIA one-click application can be found here: https://doi...

We discovered unique Douglas-fir open woodlands in the Umatilla National Forest using historical surveys. Historical ponderosa pine forests of the western United States are transitioning to denser forests comprised of a greater proportion of fire-sensitive species, including true firs. We used historical (1879 to 1887) surveys to quantify the composition and structure of the Umatilla National Forest in eastern Oregon andWashington and provided contemporary forest information for comparison. We also modeled fir and pine distributions using environmental predictors and the random forests and...

Wildfires were a frequent source of disturbance in forests of the Western United States prior to Euro-American settlement. Following a series of catastrophic wildfires in the Northern Rockies in 1910, the U.S. Forest Service adopted a broad wildfire suppression policy that has resulted in forests thick with small trees. These crowded trees compete for nutrients and water and experience increased drought stress in summer.In recent decades, many trees have died following drought, bark beetle outbreaks, and severe wildfire. A link between this mortality and increasing susceptibility to...

Anthropogenic climate change has been gradual to date, but if climate tipping points are crossed the pace of change could accelerate significantly. This study explores possible implications of abrupt climate change, with a partial focus on implications for forestry. We used the Implications Wheel® participatory futures method to identify and evaluate direct and indirect, positive and negative implications of rapid change in the climate system. A large number of possible implications were generated, including a wide range of social, economic, and ecological costs and benefits. Participants...

This report constitutes the third full report of annualized inventory on New York forest land and summarizes field data collected from 2011 through 2017. New York has 18.7 million acres of forest land on which 94 tree species and 55 forest types were identified. Net cubic-foot, growing-stock, and sawtimber volumes continued to increase, as did the area occupied by large diameter stands. The net growth-to-harvest removals ratio increased from 2.3:1 in 2012 to 2.8:1 in 2017. Substantial forest health challenges, including invasive insect pests and invasive plant species, continue to impact...

The long-term effectiveness of dry-forest fuels treatments (restoration thinning and prescribed burning) depends, in part, on the pace at which trees regenerate and recruit into the overstory. Knowledge of the factors that shape post-treatment regeneration and growth is limited by the short timeframes and simple disturbance histories of past research. Here, we present results of a 15-year fuels-reduction experiment in central Washington, including responses to planned and unplanned disturbances. We explore the changing patterns of Douglas-fir regeneration in 72 permanent plots (0.1 ha)...

Urban vegetation can generate social and ecological benefits, so vegetation abundance is commonly treated as a proxy for greater benefits. A repeated finding in environmental justice research related to urban vegetation is that commonly marginalized populations live in neighborhoods with less vegetation. However, urban vegetation can function as amenity or disamenity depending on the context and the characteristics of the vegetation. In areas of disinvestment, overgrown vegetation may indicate neglect and lead to negative social outcomes. For example, previous research in the shrinking...

The goal of this study was to evaluate whether harmonic regression coefficients derived using all available cloudfreeobservations in a given Landsat pixel for a three-year period can be used to estimate tree canopy cover(TCC), and whether models developed using harmonic regression coefficients as predictor variables are betterthan models developed using median composite predictor variables, the previous operational standard for theNational Land Cover Database (NLCD). The two study areas in the conterminous USA were as follows: West(Oregon), bounded by Landsat Worldwide Reference System 2...

Wildlife crossing structures have been shown to be one of the most effective means of reducing animal-vehicle collisions on highways, while facilitating essential animal movement across the landscape. Yet the widespread implementation of such structures, especially wildlife overpasses, has been hindered by their perceived and actual expense. For that reason, a facilitated workshop was convened on October 8–9, 2014, in Bozeman, Montana, at Montana State University, with prominent wildlife crossing experts from Canada and the United States to determine whether there are design parameters and...

In forest inventory, traditional ground-based resource assessments are often expensive and time-consuming forcing managers to reduce sample sizes to meet budgetary and logistical constraints. Small area estimation (SAE) is a class of statistical estimators that uses a combination of traditional survey data and linearly related auxiliary information to improve estimate precision. These techniques have been shown to improve the precision of stand-level inventory estimates in loblolly pine plantations using lidar height percentiles and thinning status as covariates. In this study, the effects...