Forest Biology Commons^™

Changing The Way We Address Change, Richard Straight

United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Covers factors impacting private forest management in the United States, and other related issues.

Assessment Of Windbreak Condition And Indicators To Renovate, Steve Rasmussen

United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

A presentation covering assessment of windbreak condition and indicators to renovate.

Profitable Farms And Woodlands: A Practical Guide In Agroforestry For Landowners, Farmers And Ranchers, J. O. Idassi

United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

This handbook is part of an interdisciplinary, interinstitutional and comprehensive effort to develop a practical guide to assist underserved and limited resource small farmers and woodland owners to adopt best management technologies in agroforestry. Funding for this effort was provided through the USDA National Agroforestry Center (NAC) from the US Forest Service and the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) under cooperative agreement number 68-7482-7-361 with Tennessee State University, Cooperative Extension Program and the 1890/1862 Agroforestry Team.

This guide was prepared by an agroforestry team of research and extension specialists from the 1862 and 1890 Land Grant Universities in collaboration with …

Agroforestry: Accounting For Windbreak's Climate Change Contributions, Michele Schoeneberger, Jim Brandle, Xinhua Zhou, John Kort, Tom Sauer

United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Knowledge Exchange: A Two-Way Street, Elise Lequire

Joint Fire Science Program Digests

The best available science is of little use if it gathers dust on the shelves of library stacks or is deeply embedded on an obscure website. A key part of the Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP) mission is to ensure research on wildland fire science is readily available to practitioners in a useful format so it can help support sound management decisions. The JFSP has made great inroads in this arena on a national level, but managers short on time often have to sift through an overload of information that may not be specific to their region. In the next …

Preparing Tomorrow’S Fire Professionals: Integration Of Education, Training, And Experience Through Science-Management Partnerships, Gail Wells

Joint Fire Science Program Digests

In this issue of Fire Science Digest, we explore the career and preparation challenges faced by forest and rangeland fire professionals, both new and seasoned. As the job description grows more complex, a well-rounded background in current and emerging areas of fi re science and fi re management becomes critical. Today’s top professionals are approaching retirement, and tomorrow’s fi re professionals need to be adequately prepared to succeed them.

After The Fire Is Out, Elise Lequire

Joint Fire Science Program Digests

Even before firefighters have left a burn site, a second wave of specialists is deployed. Their task: to assess the burn site; determine the level of risk to life, property, and ecological resources; and determine quickly the most effective postfire treatments for emergency stabilization and initial rehabilitation of the site. For the past 13 years, the Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP) has funded research on this critical phase of work, which often goes unnoticed after the fire is out. With support from the JFSP, scientists have made great strides in improving the tools available to assess postfire risks and evaluate …

Traditional Plant Use Of The Raglay In Cãu Gãy Village, Núi Chúa National Park, Alex Greene

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Members of the Raglay community of Cãu Gãy Village were interviewed to determine the extent and nature of their traditional reliance on plants. This community, located in the buffer zone of Núi Chúa National Park, was found to utilize 64 plant species for a wide variety of uses. Botanical specimens and photographs were used to identify 42 plants to species level, 13 to genus level, and 6 to family level, while 3 remained unidentified. For each plant, the Raglay name, local Vietnamese name, use, specific application, and preparation were documented, as well as any details of ritual or commercial significance. …

The Joint Fire Science Program’S First 10 Years, Gail Wells

Joint Fire Science Program Digests

Fire scientists and managers at the 4th International Fire Ecology and Management Congress offer their thoughts about the Joint Fire Science Program’s accomplishments, challenges, and future direction

Fire: Ecology & Prevention, Justin R. Frey

Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

A Powerful New Planning Environment For Fuels Managers: The Interagency Fuels Treatment Decision Support System, Gail Wells

Joint Fire Science Program Digests

The Joint Fire Science Program, the National Wildfire Coordinating Group Fuels Management Committee, and Sonoma Technology, Inc. are unveiling the prototype of a new planning environment that will help fuels specialists negotiate the confusing array of planning tools. The new framework, dubbed the Interagency Fuels Treatment Decision Support System, or IFT-DSS, organizes fuels-planning software and data into a seamless user environment. IFT-DSS offers users access to powerful modeling software from within a well-designed, intuitive graphical user interface, and it provides a common platform for the further development of fuels-planning software tools. The name may not slide easily off the tongue—you …

Making Biomass Pay: Obstacles And Opportunities, Gail Wells

Joint Fire Science Program Digests

Removing hazardous fuels to reduce the risk of wildfire has become a priority for land managers across the United States. Utilizing biomass taken from forests to cover the cost of fuel reduction is an attractive ideal. Effective utilization could also address important national challenges such as improving forest health, increasing domestic energy supplies, reducing carbon emissions, and revitalizing rural economies. However, getting woody biomass from the forest to the consumer is economically and logistically difficult, and efforts to make biomass utilization profitable have been disappointing so far. JFSP-funded researchers have found that, while there is no recipe for building a …

Community Wildfire Protection Plans: Reducing Wildfire Hazards In The Wildland Urban Interface, Gail Wells

Joint Fire Science Program Digests

The 2003 Healthy Forests Restoration Act calls for local communities in the wildland-urban interface to collaborate on developing Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPPs) to reduce their wildfire hazard. To craft a successful CWPP, a community must collaborate effectively. A Joint Fire Science Program-sponsored research team studied 15 communities as they developed CWPPs. They found that social networks, learning communities, and community capacity were key indicators of success, and that working together on a CWPP can enhance a community’s capacity to collaborate, helping it address future challenges more skillfully.

Wildland Fire Use: Managing For A Fire-Smart Landscape, Gail Wells

Joint Fire Science Program Digests

The promise of wildland fire use (WFU) is that, over time, the fires will play a more natural role, creating a jigsaw-puzzle pattern of burned and regrowing patches over a landscape and gradually moving it closer to the stand structure and species composition that prevailed before fire exclusion became the policy.

Plant Recruitment In A Northern Arizona Ponderosa Pine Forest: Testing Seed- And Leaf Litter- Limitation Hypotheses, Scott R. Abella

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research

Seed availability and leaf litter limit plant establishment in some ecosystems. To evaluate the hypothesis that these factors limit understory plant recruitment in Pinus ponderosa forests, I conducted a seeding and litter removal experiment at six thinned sites in the Fort Valley Experimental Forest, northern Arizona. Experimental seeding of four native species (Penstemon virgatus, Erigeron formosissimus, Elymus elymoides, and Festuca arizonica) and raking of litter occurred in 2005. Seeding resulted in a substantial recruitment of 14 to 103 seedlings/m2 (1 to 10/ft2) one month after seeding for two species (P. virgatus and E. elymoides), but these densities subsequently declined by …

The Rothermel Fire-Spread Model: Still Running Like A Champ, Gail Wells

Joint Fire Science Program Digests

In 1972, aeronautical engineer Richard C. Rothermel, of the USDA Fire Sciences Lab at Missoula, Montana, developed a method for modeling the spread of wildfire. The model became widely used, and although the ensuing years have brought many technological innovations, it is still the engine of the predictive tools used by fire behavior officers today. The Joint Science Fire Program (JFSP) is pleased to offer Dick Rothermel’s story as a tribute to a significant accomplishment, and also to showcase some of the current work at the Fire Sciences Lab.

From Debate To Design: Issues In Clean Energy And Climate Change Law And Policy, Leslie Parker, Jennifer Ronk, Rachel Maxwell, Bradford Gentry, Marijn Wilder, James Cameron

Yale School of the Environment Publications Series

A report on the work of the REIL Network 2007-2008

Changes In Nitrogen Cycling During The Past Century In A Northern Hardwood Forest, Kendra K. Mclauchlan, Joseph M. Craine, W. Wyatt Oswald, Peter R. Leavitt, Gene E. Likens

Dartmouth Scholarship

Nitrogen (N) availability, defined here as the supply of N to terrestrial plants and soil microorganisms relative to their N demands, limits the productivity of many temperate zone forests and in part determines ecosystem carbon (C) content. Despite multidecadal monitoring of N in streams, the long-term record of N availability in forests of the northeastern United States is largely unknown. Therefore, although these forests have been receiving anthropogenic N deposition for the past few decades, it is still uncertain whether terrestrial N availability has changed during this time and, subsequently, whether forest ecosystems have responded to increased N deposition. Here, …

The Science Of Targeting Within Landscapes And Watersheds To Improve Consevation Effectiveness, Todd Walter, Mike Dosskey, Madhu Khanna, Jim Miller, Mark Tomer, John Wiens

United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Our ernphasis in this chapter has been an the science that underlies efforts to target conservation efforts to enhance the effeciiveness (and cost-effectiveness) of management, mitigation and restoration.

Blanding’S Turtle (Emydoidea Blandingii): A Technical Conservation Assessment, Justin D. Congdon, Douglas A. Keinath

United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Blanding’s turtles (Emydoidea blandingii) are secure in Nebraska, and they range from being vulnerable to threatened, or endangered throughout most of the rest of their distribution. In Region 2, they have not been reported from Kansas, they are extremely rare in South Dakota, and they occupy wetlands in the northern half of Nebraska. The largest population known within the range of Blanding’s turtles is at Valentine National Wildlife Refuge, Nebraska.

The core habitat of Blanding’s turtles has an aquatic component that consists of a permanent wetland and a suite of other, usually smaller and more temporary, wetlands such …

Developing And Extending Sustainable Agriculture: A New Social Contract, Michele Schoeneberger, Gary Bentrup, Charles A. Francis, Richard Straight

United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Conclusions

Based on the practical community applications of woody buffe rs and multifuncti onal areas that grew from the ini tial concepts ofecobelts. we are convinced that this type of initiative is a viable option in establishing a positive interface between different types of human activities. The challenge becomes more real every day, as cities expand and both city-edge subdivisions and acreages create ever more interfaces between people with different and often con!1icting activities and basic values. There is a need to provide some logical and acceptable boundary between these people and their different lifestyles. It is also desirable to …

Remotely Sensed Data To Map Forest Age Class By Cover Type In East Texas, Daniel Unger, I-Kuai Hung, Jeffrey M. Williams, James Kroll, Dean W. Coble, Jason Grogan

Faculty Publications

• Remote sensing in conjunction with ground truthing, can accurately quantify forest composition and age distributions in East Texas.
• Method uses standardized and readily available data available to the general public.
• Method was shown to be effective in terms of time and cost.

Visualizing Food And Farm, 2005 Joint Meetings Of The Agriculture, Food, And Human Values Society (Afhvs) And Association For The Study Of Food And Society (Asfs): Program And Abstracts, Jane Adams, Lorna Michael Butler, Richard P. Haynes, Laura B. Delind

United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Visualizing Food and Farm

2005 Joint Meetings of the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society (AFHVS) and Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS)

Program and Abstracts

June 9-12, 2005, Portland, Oregon, United States

Air Quality And Shelterbelts: Odor Mitigation And Livestock Production, A Literature Review, John Tyndall, Joe Colletti

United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

This literature review is focused on the potential for innovative use of trees and other vegetation to reduce the odor associated with livestock production. The goal is to examine available evidence to assess if trees and shelterbelts may: 1) be able to help control odor through physical and biological means, and 2) be an economically feasible technology for livestock producers as well as surrounding communities.

Dutch John Excavations: Seasonal Occupations On The North Slope Of The Uintah Mountains., U.S. Forest Service

All U.S. Government Documents (Utah Regional Depository)

From 1993-1995 Forest Service crews conducted an intensive archaeological inventory of the Dutch John Area, Daggett County, Utah. Seventy seven archaeological sites were identified within the exchange boundary. Thirty three sites were determined to be eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. Between April 1995 and September 1998 testing and excavation of the significant sites proceeded as outlined in the Dutch John Mitigation Plan. This volume reports the results of those excavations.

Agroforestry In The United States: Research And Technology Transfer Needs For The Next Millennium

United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

If society's needs and aspirations for forestderived goods, services, and amenities truely are to be met, we must find ways of augmenting traditional forestry by gleaning some portion of these benefits from agricultural lands. For example: windbreaks, riparian forest buffers, hybrid poplar trees, farm woodlots, and grazing/timber systems.

Integrating Agroforestry Into Usda Programs: A Task Force Report To The Usda Interagency Working Group On Agroforestry, W. J. Rietveld, James P. Lassoie, Charles A. Francis, William Farris, Catalino Blanche, Bruce Wight

United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

The task force collected and synthesized infonnation and recommended actions to develop the potential of agroforestry to help attain USDA sustainable development goals.

Summer Home Range Size Of The Eastern Cascade Mountain Beaver (Aplodontia Rufa Rainieri) In Relation To Availability Of Preferred Food, Robert Julian Stagg

All Master's Theses

Optimal foraging theories relate food preference to nutrient content and nutrient availability to home range size. After synthesizing these theories, I hypothesized that the availability of preferred food plants influences the home range size of generalist herbivores. I also hypothesized that the availability of preferred foods does not affect weight gain of time-minimizing generalist herbivores, but should affect the weight gain of energy-maximizing generalist herbivores. To test these hypotheses, I studied the home ranges, weights, weight gains, food habits, and habitats of six adult female mountain beavers (Aplodontia rufa) from six separate sites where bracken fern was either …

Global Trends And The Future Of National Forests, Nels C. Johnson

The National Forest Management Act in a Changing Society, 1976-1996: How Well Has It Worked in the Past 20 Years?: Will It Work in the 21st Century? (September 16-18)

23 pages.

Contains 3 pages of references.

Forest Planning On The National Forests Under Ecosystem Management, John Sessions, K. Norman Johnson

The National Forest Management Act in a Changing Society, 1976-1996: How Well Has It Worked in the Past 20 Years?: Will It Work in the 21st Century? (September 16-18)

17 pages.

Contains 2 pages of references.