Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Institution
Articles 1 - 9 of 9
Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Forest Ecosystems Of Temperate Climatic Regions: From Ancient Use To Climate Change, Frank S. Gilliam
Forest Ecosystems Of Temperate Climatic Regions: From Ancient Use To Climate Change, Frank S. Gilliam
Biological Sciences Faculty Research
Humans have long utilized resources from all forest biomes, but the most indelible anthropogenic signature has been the expanse of human populations in temperate forests. The purpose of this review is to bring into focus the diverse forests of the temperate region of the biosphere, including those of hardwood, conifer and mixed dominance, with a particular emphasis on crucial challenges for the future of these forested areas. Implicit in the term ‘temperate’ is that the predominant climate of these forest regions has distinct cyclic, seasonal changes involving periods of growth and dormancy. The specific temporal patterns of seasonal change, however, …
Agricultural Trade Publications And The 2012 Midwestern U.S. Drought: A Missed Opportunity For Climate Risk Communication, Sarah P. Church, Tonya Haigh, Melissa Widhalm, Silvestre Garcia De Jalon, Nicholas Babin, Stuart Carlton, Michael Dunn, Katie Fagan, Cody L. Knutson, Linda Stalker Prokopy
Agricultural Trade Publications And The 2012 Midwestern U.S. Drought: A Missed Opportunity For Climate Risk Communication, Sarah P. Church, Tonya Haigh, Melissa Widhalm, Silvestre Garcia De Jalon, Nicholas Babin, Stuart Carlton, Michael Dunn, Katie Fagan, Cody L. Knutson, Linda Stalker Prokopy
Department of Forestry & Natural Resources Faculty Publications
The Midwestern United States experienced a devastating drought in 2012, leading to reduced corn and soybean yields and increased instances of pests and disease. Climate change induced weather variability and extremes are expected to increase in the future, and have and will continue to impact the agricultural sector. This study investigated how agricultural trade publications portrayed the 2012 U.S. Midwestern drought, whether climate change was associated with drought, and whether these publications laid out transformative adaptation measures farmers could undertake in order to increase their adaptive capacity for future climate uncertainty. We performed a content analysis of 1000 media reports …
Useful To Usable: Developing Usable Climate Science For Agriculture, Linda S. Prokopy, J Stuart Carlton, Tonya Haigh, Maria Carmen Lemos, Amber Saylor Mase, Melissa Widhalm
Useful To Usable: Developing Usable Climate Science For Agriculture, Linda S. Prokopy, J Stuart Carlton, Tonya Haigh, Maria Carmen Lemos, Amber Saylor Mase, Melissa Widhalm
Department of Forestry & Natural Resources Faculty Publications
The Useful to Usable (U2U) project was a six-year research and extension project funded by the United States Department of Agriculture to provide both useful and usable climate information for the agricultural (corn) sector in the Midwestern United States. The project adopted an extensive co-production of knowledge and decision-making approach that involved intense iteration with potential end-users, including farmers and a variety of pro- fessional agricultural advisors, through focus groups and surveys, feedback at outreach events, and frequent informal interactions to develop both decision support tools and delivery mechanisms that met stakeholder needs. This overview paper for this special issue …
A Multiple‐Scale Assessment Of Long‐Term Aspen Persistence And Elevational Range Shifts In The Colorado Front Range, Mario Bretfeld, Scott B. Franklin, Robert K. Peet
A Multiple‐Scale Assessment Of Long‐Term Aspen Persistence And Elevational Range Shifts In The Colorado Front Range, Mario Bretfeld, Scott B. Franklin, Robert K. Peet
Aspen Bibliography
Aspen forests and woodlands are some of the most species‐rich forest communities in the northern hemisphere. Changing climate, altered disturbance regimes, land use, and increased herbivore pressure threaten these forests both in Eurasia and North America. In addition, rapid mortality dubbed “Sudden Aspen Decline” is a concern for aspen's long‐term presence in the western United States, especially Colorado and Utah. Yet it is still unclear whether aspen is persistent or declining at the landscape scale. We assessed aspen persistence at different spatial scales in the Colorado Front Range by resampling 89 plots containing aspen from among 305 vegetation plots sampled …
Riparian Trees And Aridland Streams Of The Southwestern United States: An Assessment Of The Past, Present, And Future, D. Max Smith, Deborah M. Finch
Riparian Trees And Aridland Streams Of The Southwestern United States: An Assessment Of The Past, Present, And Future, D. Max Smith, Deborah M. Finch
USDA Forest Service / UNL Faculty Publications
Riparian ecosystems are vital components of aridlands within the southwestern United States. Historically, surface flows influenced population dynamics of native riparian trees. Many southwestern streams has been altered by regulation, however, and will be further affected by greenhouse warming. Our analysis of stream gage data revealed that decreases in volume of annual discharge and mean peak discharge and a shift to earlier peak discharge will occur in the Southern Rockies region of Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. These changes will likely decrease rates of reproduction and survival of cottonwood (Populus fremontii and Populus deltoides ssp. wislizenii), Goodding's willow …
A Forest Vulnerability Index Based On Drought And High Temperatures, David Mildrexler, Zhiqiang Yang, Warren B. Cohen, David M. Bell
A Forest Vulnerability Index Based On Drought And High Temperatures, David Mildrexler, Zhiqiang Yang, Warren B. Cohen, David M. Bell
USDA Forest Service / UNL Faculty Publications
Increasing forest stress and tree mortality has been directly linked to combinations of drought and high temperatures. The climatic changes expected during the next decades – large increases in mean temperature, increased heat waves, and significant long-term regional drying in the western USA – will likely increase chronic forest stress and mortality. The aim of this research is to develop and apply a new forest vulnerability index (FVI) associated with drought and high temperatures across the Pacific Northwest region (PNW; Oregon and Washington) of the USA during the MODIS Aqua era (since 2003). Our technique incorporates the alterations to canopy …
Contributing Factors For Drought In United States Forest Ecosystems Under Projected Future Climates And Their Uncertainty, Charles H. Luce, James M. Vose, Neil Pederson, John Campbell, Connie Millar, Patrick Kormos, Ross Woods
Contributing Factors For Drought In United States Forest Ecosystems Under Projected Future Climates And Their Uncertainty, Charles H. Luce, James M. Vose, Neil Pederson, John Campbell, Connie Millar, Patrick Kormos, Ross Woods
USDA Forest Service / UNL Faculty Publications
Observations of increasing global forest die-off related to drought are leading to more questions about potential increases in drought occurrence, severity, and ecological consequence in the future. Dry soils and warm temperatures interact to affect trees during drought; so understanding shifting risks requires some understanding of changes in both temperature and precipitation. Unfortunately, strong precipitation uncertainties in climate models yield substantial uncertainty in projections of drought occurrence. We argue that disambiguation of drought effects into temperature and precipitation-mediated processes can alleviate some of the implied uncertainty. In particular, the disambiguation can clarify geographic diversity in forest sensitivity to multifarious drivers …
Fire Severity Controlled Susceptibility To A 1940s Spruce Beetle Outbreak In Colorado, Usa, Dominik Kulakowski, Thomas T. Veblen, Peter Beb
Fire Severity Controlled Susceptibility To A 1940s Spruce Beetle Outbreak In Colorado, Usa, Dominik Kulakowski, Thomas T. Veblen, Peter Beb
Geography
The frequency, magnitude, and size of forest disturbances are increasing globally. Much recent research has focused on how the occurrence of one disturbance may affect susceptibility to subsequent disturbances. While much has been learned about such linked disturbances, the strength of the interactions is likely to be contingent on the severity of disturbances as well as climatic conditions, both of which can affect disturbance intensity and tree resistance to disturbances. Subalpine forests in western Colorado were affected by extensive and severe wildfires in the late 19th century and an extensive and severe outbreak of spruce beetle (Dendroctonus rufipennis) in the …
Not Only Climate: Interacting Drivers Of Treeline Change In Europe, Dominik Kulakowski, Ignacio Barbeito, Alejandro Casteller, Ryszard J. Kaczka, Peter Bebi
Not Only Climate: Interacting Drivers Of Treeline Change In Europe, Dominik Kulakowski, Ignacio Barbeito, Alejandro Casteller, Ryszard J. Kaczka, Peter Bebi
Geography
Treelines have long been recognized as important ecotones and likely harbingers of climate change. However, over the last century many treelines have been affected not only by global warming, but also by the interactions of climate, forest disturbance and the consequences of abrupt demographic and economic changes. Recent research has increasingly stressed how multiple ecological, biophysical, and human factors interact to shape ecological dynamics. Here we highlight the need to consider interactions among multiple drivers to more completely understand and predict treeline dynamics in Europe.