Treesearch

The USDA Forest Service has a legislative mandate to maintain species and community diversity on National Forest System lands and uses monitoring to determine whether national forests are meeting this goal. The Southern Region of the Forest Service adopted the Southern National Forest’s Migrant and Resident Landbird Conservation Strategy in 1996 to address conservation concerns arising from long-term population declines in many birds. The strategy implemented a regionwide program to improve monitoring, research, and management of avian populations and their habitats. Monitoring is conducted...

Interest in conducting urban tree inventories and quantifying the associated wood resource has accelerated at a pace faster than supporting research needs can be identified and accomplished. For example, it is common to apply allometric models and wood properties values developed from studies of rural forest-grown trees to urban trees, despite unknown degrees of inaccuracy that may exist. To examine potential differences in wood properties between trees grown in forest and urban settings, wood samples were collected from stumps of recently felled trees for nine native hardwood species in...

The role of genetics in ecosystem restoration has largely revolved around the policy of using local genotypes (i.e., those sourced from areas near the restoration site), based on the logic that local plants are best adapted to local conditions (Johnson et al. 2004; Meffe and Carroll 1977). In a relatively stable environment, this is a sound practice; however, global environmental change impacts on the landscape are increasingly rendering this policy as inadequate at best and damaging at worst (Whitham et al. 2010). Here we define “global change” as ongoing changes in temperature, moisture,...

Terrestrial fluvial-riparian ecosystems (FREs) are riverine landscapes that integrate aquatic, riparian, and upland domains within watersheds, linking physical, biological, and cultural-economic processes (Tockner et al. 2002). FRE characteristics and processes intergrade through the entire watershed, from the river’s headwaters to its terminus into an endorheic basin or the sea, and can extend far out into the submarine environment (e.g., Canals et al. 2009; Vannote et al. 1980; Ward et al. 2018; fig. 10). FREs include all sources of water that contribute to the basin’s riverine ecosystem,...

An abundance of information, some of which is included in other chapters in these volumes, documents and laments the historic loss of or changes to riparian ecosystems. Historic impacts to most riparian organisms, ranging in size from cottonwood trees to microbes, are fairly well documented. Causes of these changes are also well documented or speculated upon based on the best available information. It is clear that the world, and specifically the riparian world, has changed because of human activities. It appears likely that changes will continue to occur as human activities continue, and...

The evolution of our modern-day understanding of riparian ecology and the development of the field of riparian ecosystem/habitat restoration underwent significant advances from 1970 to 2000. The four parts of this chapter include: (1) a chronological overview of the major activities, events and publications that documented, and punctuated, the progress of our understanding of riparian ecology and riparian ecosystem restoration in California; (2) a discussion of the various types of riparian restoration projects with the projects categorized by the primary reason they were undertaken; (3)...

The Great Central Valley of California occupies 22,500 square miles (58,000 square kilometers) in the interior of northern and central California. At the time of the Gold Rush in 1849, nearly 1 million acres (1,600 square miles, 4,000 square kilometers) of riparian vegetation covered the Central Valley floor along with approximately an equal area of wetlands. The riparian area flourished in the large river basins and along river channels (Katibah 1984; Thompson 1961). The Central Valley is partly defined by the Sacramento River in the north, the San Joaquin River in the south, and the...

Yosemite Valley is a narrow, steep-walled canyon with fantastic natural areas, and its scenic and ecological wonders inspired the National Park concept and preservation ethic. But the Merced River through Yosemite Valley is one of the most heavily used non-urban riparian areas in the world. Over 4 million people visit each year, and 90 percent go to the box canyon where towering granite summits rise over 4,000 feet above the meandering river. About 8 miles long and less than one mile wide, the valley has a mix of riparian vegetation, open meadows, and forests. There are also roads,...

Many of the same features that are good for riparian ecology are good for people. Varying flow regimes, diversity of plants and animals, dynamic geomorphology that produces open beaches and shaded/sheltered areas, and most importantly, the presence of water - all are attractive for recreation, so human use can be an explicit part of the restoration equation.

Conservation organizations undertaking ecological restoration and the lands they manage constitute a social-ecological system (SES). We implemented SES analysis to examine the relationship between diversity in organizational structure and restoration planning processes, and vegetation outcomes on the ground. Understanding the restoration consequences of multiple approaches to planning and implementation is relevant to assessing the resilience of this SES, especially if disagreements about the effectiveness of some approaches lead to conflict in the socio-political arena. We studied 10...