Treesearch

Connectivity and wildlife corridors are often key components to successful conservation and management plans. Connectivity for wildlife is typically modeled in a static environment that reflects a single snapshot in time. However, it has been shown that, when compared with dynamic connectivity models, static models can underestimate connectivity and mask important population processes. Therefore, including dynamism in connectivity models is important if the goal is to predict functional connectivity. We incorporated four levels of dynamism (individual, daily, seasonal, and interannual)...

To evaluate boreal peatland C losses from warming, novel technologies were used to expose intact bog plots in northern Minnesota to a range of future temperatures (+0°C to +9°C) with and without elevated CO2 (eCO2). After 3 years, warming linearly increased net C loss at a rate of 31.3 g C·m−2·year−1·°C−1. Increasing losses were associated with increased decomposition and corroborated by measures of declining peat elevation. Effects of eCO2 were minor. Results indicate a range of C losses from boreal peatlands 4.5 to 18 times faster than historical rates of accumulation, with substantial...

Some soil bacteria and fungi are known to solubilize phosphates and play an important role in supplyingphosphorus (P) to plants. In this study, we characterized the phosphate-solubilizing bacteria and fungi as well asP availability in latosols from southern China under different land use practices. Three different latosols (i.e., redsoil, lateritic red soil and laterite red soil), each with four different land uses (i.e., agricultural land, grass land,forest land and orchard land), from Guangdong Province, China, were chosen to determine the amounts ofphosphate-solubilizing bacteria (PSB)...

Land use and land cover (LULC) change is critical to hydrologic study as it affects surface runoff, sediment yield,and nutrient load from watersheds. Change in LULC is a continuous process in agricultural watersheds as per thegrowing and harvesting seasons. In this study, monthly LULC data layers were generated for the Big SunflowerRiver Watershed (BSRW), Mississippi by classifying cloud free Landsat images from 2014 to 2018 and combiningthem according to the season in order to obtain dominant LULC data layers for spring, summer, and fall. About60 % of the total land area in summer was...

Over the last several decades, increased groundwater usage by agriculture with a consequenceof groundwater resource depletion has motivated the discussion of sustainabilityof groundwater resource. In this study, to investigate the impacts of agricultural bestmanagement practices (BMPs) on groundwater level, two kinds of conservation practicesand five scenarios of tail water recovery pond and crop rotation were simulated by variousgroundwater recharge and pumping plans in Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT)and MODFLOW models in an agriculture watershed in Mississippi, U.S.. The calibrateda...

The mountain pine beetle (MPB), Dendroctonus ponderosae, is an eruptive endemic forest pest that is undergoing substantial range expansion in response to recent climatic changes, breaching geographic barriers, exploiting novel hosts, and affecting millions of hectares of conifer forests in western North America. Current management approaches have been unable to keep pace with MPB population outbreaks, and novel and aggressive management responses are required as MPB’s range expansion progresses. Gene silencing through RNA interference (RNAi) is an emerging pest management approach that is...

Salvage logging in burned forests can negatively affect habitat for white-headed woodpeckers (Dryobates albolarvatus), a species of conservation concern, but also meets socioeconomic demands for timber and human safety. Habitat suitability index (HSI) models can inform forest management activities to help meet habitat conservation objectives. Informing post-fire forest management, however, involves model application at new locations as wildfires occur, requiring evaluation of predictive performance across locations. We developed HSI models for white-headed woodpeckers using nest sites from...

Regional-scale mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) outbreaks in the first decade of the 2000s affected millions of hectares of lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) in western North American forests. In Colorado, 1.4 million ha exhibited high mortality. These events prompted questions about whether historical outbreaks reached the scale of this most recent event. We aimed to reconstruct past mortality events in lodgepole pine forests in the northern Colorado Front Range and to determine whether these were of similar extent to the 2000s outbreak. We identified logs of mountain pine...

Many forests in dry mountain regions are characterized by a lower elevational treeline. Understanding the controls on the position of lower treeline is important for predicting future forest distributional shifts in response to global environmental change. Lower treelines currently at their climate limit are expected to be more sensitive to changing climate, whereas lower treelines constrained by non-climatic factors are less likely to respond directly to climate change but may be sensitive to other global change agents. In this study, we used existing vegetation classifications to map...

The effect of cover crop (CC) on soil water balance and agricultural production isclosely related to rainfall amount and distribution in rainfed cropping systems. Thisstudy used the root zone water quality model, RZWQM2, calibrated and validatedwith 4-yr field measurements to predict the effect of planting a winter wheat (Triticumaestivum L.) CC in a no-till rainfed corn (Zea mays L.)–soybean (Glycine max L.)rotation on soil water balance, crop yield, and grain water-use efficiency (WUE) innortheast Mississippi. Seasonal rainfall for 80 consecutive years (1938–2017) wasclassified as ‘wet,’...