Forest Biology Commons^™

Monitoring The Influence Of Acid Deposition On Soil And Implications To Forest Health In The Daniel Boone National Forest, Tyler M. Sanderson

Theses and Dissertations--Forestry and Natural Resources

Combustion of fossil fuels has contributed to many environmental problems including acid deposition. The Clean Air Act (CAA) was created to reduce ecological problems by cutting emissions of sulfur and nitrogen. Reduced emissions and rainfall concentrations of acidic ions have been observed since the enactment of the CAA, but soils continue to receive some acid inputs. Soils sensitive to acid deposition have been found to have low pH, a loss of base cations and a shift in the mineral phase controlling the activity of Al³⁺ and/or SO₄^2-. If inputs continue, soil may be depleted of base …

Winter Movements Of Louisiana Pine Snakes (Pituophis Ruthveni) In Texas And Louisiana, Josh B. Pierce, D. Craig Rudolph, Shirley J. Burgdorf, Richard R. Schaefer, Richard N. Conner, John G. Himes, C. Mike Duran, Laurence M. Hardy, Robert R. Fleet

Faculty Publications

Despite concerns that the Louisiana Pine Snake (Pituophis ruthveni) has been extirpated from large portions of its historic range, only a limited number of studies on their movement patterns have been published. Winter movement patterns are of particular interest since it has been hypothesized that impacts of management practices would be reduced during the winter. Using radiotelemetry, we determined winter movement patterns of Louisiana Pine Snakes (11 males, 8 females) in 5 study areas (2 in Louisiana and 3 in Texas). Movements during winter (November–February) were greatly curtailed compared to the remainder of the year; however, snakes occasionally undertook substantial …

Soils Of Temperate Rainforests Of The North American Pacific Coast, Dunbar N. Carpenter, James G. Bockheim, Paul F. Reich

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Temperate rainforests have high conservation and natural resource value, but the soils of this bioregion have not previously been studied as a unit. Here we examine the soils of North America's Pacific coastal temperate rainforests, utilizing databases from the United States Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Canadian Centre for Land and Biological Resources Research to (i) identify the soil taxa, (ii) evaluate the soil properties, and (iii) compare soils in temperate and tropical rainforests. There are strong climate gradientswithin these temperate rainforests,with the mean temperature declining from 11.7 °C to 6.1 °C and the mean annual precipitation increasing from …

Recovery Of Wolverines In The Western United States: Recent Extirpation And Recolonization Or Range Retraction And Expansion?, Kevin S. Mckelvey, Keith B. Aubry, Neil J. Anderson, Anthony P. Clevenger, Jeffrey P. Copeland, Kimberley S. Heinemeyer, Robert M. Iman, John R. Squires, John S. Waller, Kristine L. Pilgrim, Michael K. Schwartz

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

Wolverines were greatly reduced in number and possibly extirpated from the contiguous United States (U.S.) by the early 1900s. Wolverines currently occupy much of their historical range in Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, but are absent from Utah and only single individuals are known to occur in California and Colorado. In response, the translocation of wolverines to California and Colorado is being considered. If wolverines are to be reintroduced, managers must identify appropriate source populations based on the genetic affinities of historical and modern wolverine populations. We amplified the mitochondrial control region of 13 museum specimens dating from the late …

Housing Development Erodes Avian Community Structure In U.S. Protected Areas, Eric M. Wood, Anna M. Pidgeon, Volker C. Radeloff, David Helmers, Patrick D. Culbert, Nicholas S. Keuler, Curtis H. Flather

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

Protected areas are a cornerstone for biodiversity conservation, but they also provide amenities that attract housing development on inholdings and adjacent private lands. We explored how this development affects biodiversity within and near protected areas among six ecological regions throughout the United States. We quantified the effect of housing density within, at the boundary, and outside protected areas, and natural land cover within protected areas, on the proportional abundance and proportional richness of three avian guilds within protected areas. We developed three guilds from the North American Breeding Bird Survey, which included Species of Greatest Conservation Need, land cover affiliates …

Performance Of Species Richness Estimators Across Assemblage Types And Survey Parameters, Gordon C. Reese, Kenneth R. Wilson, Curtis H. Flather

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

Aim A raw count of the species encountered across surveys usually underestimates species richness. Statistical estimators are often less biased. Nonparametric estimators of species richness are widely considered the least biased, but no particular estimator has consistently performed best. This is partly a function of estimators responding differently to assemblage-level factors and survey design parameters. Our objective was to evaluate the performance of raw counts and nonparametric estimators of species richness across various assemblages and with different survey designs.

Location We used both simulated and published field data.

Methods We evaluated the bias, precision and accuracy of raw counts and …

A New Metric For Quantifying Burn Severity: The Relativized Burn Ratio, Sean A. Parks, Gregory K. Dillon, Carol Miller

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

Satellite-inferred burn severity data have become increasingly popular over the last decade for management and research purposes. These data typically quantify spectral change between pre-and post-fire satellite images (usually Landsat). There is an active debate regarding which of the two main equations, the delta normalized burn ratio (dNBR) and its relativized form (RdNBR), is most suitable for quantifying burn severity; each has its critics. In this study, we propose and evaluate a new Landsat-based burn severity metric, the relativized burn ratio (RBR), that provides an alternative to dNBR and RdNBR. For 18 fires in the western US, we compared the …

Floristic Composition, Diversity And Structure Of The Kimboza Forest In Morogoro Region, Tanzania, David S. Kacholi

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

Kimboza forest reserve in Morogoro region, is an important biodiversity hotspot among the Eastern Arc forests of Tanzania. High population pressure and encroachment threatens its conservation values. This is based on a study which aimed at investigating the composition, diversity, and structure of the tree community in the forest. All trees with DBH ≥ 10cm were inventoried from 0.72ha in a total of 18 plots of 20m × 20m placed randomly from the forest edge to the interior. Most important families and species were determined using familial importance value (FIV) and species importance value (IVI) indices, respectively. Diversity was analyzed …

Nutrient Limitation In Three Lowland Tropical Forests In Southern China Receiving High Nitrogen Deposition: Insights From Fine Root Responses To Nutrient Additions, Feifei Zhu, Muneoki Yoh, Frank S. Gilliam, Xiankai Lu, Jiangming Mo

Biological Sciences Faculty Research

Elevated nitrogen (N) deposition to tropical forests may accelerate ecosystem phosphorus (P) limitation. This study examined responses of fine root biomass, nutrient concentrations, and acid phosphatase activity (APA) of bulk soil to five years of N and P additions in one old-growth and two younger lowland tropical forests in southern China. The old-growth forest had higher N capital than the two younger forests from long-term N accumulation. From February 2007 to July 2012, four experimental treatments were established at the following levels: Control, N-addition (150 kg N ha^–1 yr^–1), P-addition (150 kg P ha^–1 yr^{–1 …}

Geo 585 Field Methods: Edge Effects [In The Gordon Natural Area], Matthew Long, James Gregory, Timothy Snow

Gordon Natural Area Biodiversity Studies Documents

No abstract provided.

Effect Of Prescribed Burning In The Forests Of Buffalo National River, Arkansas, Francis Ndar Onduso

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Prescribed burning (also referred to as controlled or hazard reduction burning) refers to the use of fire under controlled conditions to achieve a desired end product or goal. However, the nature and magnitude of the changes that result from prescribed burning are still incompletely known, and this is especially true for the forests of the Ozarks of northern Arkansas. The overall objective of the research project described herein was to obtain the data necessary to develop a better understanding of these changes, particularly as they relate to the use of prescribed burning as a management technique in the Buffalo National …

Ecological Importance Of Ectomycorrhizal Linkages In The Ozark Mountains And The Fernow Experimental Forests, Shelly Kendra Bursick

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Underground stem-to-stem linkages involving ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi are probably important in forest ecosystems, since these linkages could assist in the survival of established trees as well as increasing the growth and development of seedlings and saplings. This study compared forest communities of the Ozark Mountains of northwest Arkansas and the Fernow Experimental Forest in West Virginia by examining species richness, diversity, relative abundance, and the potential for stems to exhibit spatial distribution and clustering patterns that reflected the existence of linkages by ECM fungi. Data on forest communities in the Ozarks were obtained from eight plot locations in Devil's Den …

National Park Service Cave Ecology Inventory And Monitoring Framework, Gretchen M. Baker, Steven J. Taylor, Shawn Thomas, Rick Olson, Kathy Lavoie, Marie Denn, Steven Thomas, Hazel Barton, Kurt Helf, Rene Ohms, Joel Despain, Jim Kennedy, David Larson

National Cave and Karst Management Symposium 2013

A team developed the Cave Ecology Inventory and Monitoring Framework for National Park Service (NPS) units. It contains information for NPS cave managers across the United States to determine how to inventory and monitor cave ecology. Due to the wide geographical scope of NPS caves and their many different types, the document does not prescribe exact protocols. Instead, it provides guidance for what types of inventory and monitoring are possible, a framework for deciding how to prioritize inventory and monitoring activities, and references to specific protocols that are already in place at NPS cave parks.

Keywords: cave ecology, cave microbiology, …

Carbon Dynamics In The Future Forest: The Importance Of Long-Term Successional Legacy And Climate–Fire Interactions, E. Louise Loudermilk, Robert M. Scheller, Peter J. Weisberg, Jian Yang, Thomas E. Dilts, Sarah L. Karam, Carl Skinner

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Understanding how climate change may influence forest carbon (C) budgets requires knowledge of forest growth relationships with regional climate, long-term forest succession, and past and future disturbances, such as wildfires and timber harvesting events. We used a landscape-scale model of forest succession, wildfire, and C dynamics (LANDIS-II) to evaluate the effects of a changing climate (A2 and B1 IPCC emissions; Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory General Circulation Models) on total forest C, tree species composition, and wildfire dynamics in the Lake Tahoe Basin, California, and Nevada. The independent effects of temperature and precipitation were assessed within and among climate models. Results …

Climate Change And North American Rangelands: Assessment Of Mitigation And Adaptation Strategies, Linda A. Joyce, David D. Briske, Joel R. Brown, H. Wayne Polley, Bruce A. Mccarl, Derek W. Bailey

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

Recent climatic trends and climate model projections indicate that climate change will modify rangeland ecosystem functions and the services and livelihoods that they provision. Recent history has demonstrated that climatic variability has a strong influence on both ecological and social components of rangeland systems and that these systems possess substantial capacity to adapt to climatic variability. Specific objectives of this synthesis are to: 1) evaluate options to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and future climate change; 2) survey actions that individuals, enterprises, and social organizations can use to adapt to climate change; and 3) assess options for system transformation when adaptation …

Capturing Fire: Rxcadre Takes Fire Measurements To Whole New Level, Gail Wells

Joint Fire Science Program Digests

Models of fire behavior and effects do not always make accurate predictions, and there is not enough systematically gathered data to validate them. To help advance fire behavior and fire effects model development, the Joint Fire Science Program is helping fund the RxCADRE, which is made up of scientists from the U.S. Forest Service and several universities who orchestrate and collect data on prescribed burns in the southeastern United States. The RxCADRE-prescribed burns are yielding a comprehensive dataset of fire behavior, fire effects, and smoke chemistry and dynamics, with measurements taken systematically at multiple, cascading scales. RxCADRE data will help …

Residential Edges As Ecological Traps: Postfledgling Survival Of A Ground-Nesting Passerine In A Forested Urban Park, Amy A. Shipley, Michael T. Murphy, Adam H. Elzinga

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Substantial offspring mortality can occur during the postfledging period of birds, but few postfledging survival studies have been conducted within the context of habitat suitability. We conducted a 2-year radiotelemetry study of Spotted Towhee (Pipilo maculatus) reproductive success and fledgling survival in a 24-ha forested park in a residential area of Lake Oswego, Oregon. In corroboration of previous research on this species, we found (1) that Spotted Towhees nested closer to the edge between the park and residential neighborhoods than expected by chance, and (2) that pairs nesting near edges produced the largest and most offspring. However, fates were reversed …

Long-Term Nitrogen Addition Decreases Carbon Leaching In A Nitrogen-Rich Forest Ecosystem, X. Lu, Frank S. Gilliam, G. Yu, H. Chen, J. Mo

Biological Sciences Faculty Research

Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) plays a critical role in the carbon (C) cycle of forest soils, and has been recently connected with global increases in nitrogen (N) deposition. Most studies on effects of elevated N deposition on DOC have been carried out in N-limited temperate regions, with far fewer data available from N-rich ecosystems, especially in the context of chronically elevated N deposition. Furthermore, mechanisms for excess N-induced changes of DOC dynamics have been suggested to be different between the two kinds of ecosystems, because of the different ecosystem N status. The purpose of this study was to experimentally examine …

Estudios Científicos En El Estado De Hidalgo Y Zonas Aledañas, Volumen Ii, Griselda Pulido-Flores, Scott Monks

Zea E-Books Collection

Los 16 capítulos que conforman este libro son una contribución al conocimiento de la biodiversidad y conservación de los recursos naturales en el estado de Hidalgo, México.

Se aborda el derecho de propiedad intelectual en la biodiversidad, citando algunos ejemplos de México. Así mismo, se presenta un estudio de la biodiversidad y distribución de la herpetofauna en cuatro tipos de vegetación. Desde el punto de vista de la helmintología se presentan dos estudios de los helmintos parásitos de vertebrados silvestres; con nuevos registros de hospederos y localidades de algunas especies de helmintos para Hidalgo. También, se aborda el uso de …

Climate Change Tipping Points: A Point Of No Return?, Elise Lequire

Joint Fire Science Program Digests

Summer 2012 saw records fall for intensity of drought and number, size, and cost of wildfires in the Central and Western United States, and the climate forecast calls for more of the same in the near and distant future. When wildfire breaks out, emergency responders decide their immediate strategy based on past experience and quick judgment calls. But in the long term, land managers need to plan for a warmer climate on a time scale of decades, or even a century or more, to better reflect the life span of trees and forests. Studies supported by the Joint Fire Science …