Forest Management Commons^™

Smokejumper Obituary: May, Paul James (Missoula 1970), National Smokejumper Association

Smokejumper Obituaries

No abstract provided.

Ms Environmental Biology Capstone Project, Reilly Miller

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

Habitat loss due to deforestation is a primary threat to global biodiversity. Clearing tropical rainforests for agriculture leads to forest fragmentation. Forest fragments contain fewer large trees and provide lower food availability for primates compared to continuous forests. Mantled howler monkeys inhabit the increasingly fragmented rainforests of Central and South America and may need to alter their activity and spatial cohesion to mitigate competition and preserve energy in fragments where there is lower quality food. We compared howler monkey activity and spatial cohesion across a small forest fragment (La Suerte Biological Research Station, LSBRS) and a large, continuous forest (La …

2024 Annual Report, Tennessee. Division Of Forestry And Tennessee. Department Of Agriculture

Forestry Annual Reports

This annual report presents an overview of Tennessee Forestry Commission programs and management.

Environmental Biology Masters Capstone, Antonio Gonzalez-Pita

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

Human wildlife interactions (HWI) pose a complex challenge for wildlife managers. Human encroachment into wildlife habitat and the growing number of outdoor recreationists are increasing the frequency of contact and conflict, especially in regions such as the Front Range of Colorado. Geographic information systems (GIS), which use a combination of remote sensing and environmental survey data, allow for predictive spatial analyses of where human wildlife interactions are likely to occur. I used publicly reported observations of moose to create spatial predictive maps in a species distribution model framework. Slope and elevation were shown to be the strongest predictors of HWI, …

Timber Talk, Vol. 62, No. 1, March 2024

Timber Talk: Nebraska Forest Industry Newsletter

Timber Talk, Vol. 62, No. 1, March 2024

Timber Talk, Vol. 62, No. 4, December 2024

Timber Talk: Nebraska Forest Industry Newsletter

Timber Talk, Vol. 62, No. 4, December 2024

Felling For Photovoltaics: Remote Sensing For The Detection Of Solar Facilities In Maine, James A. Lane

Honors Theses

Solar power is an area with increasing development in the State of Maine. Photovoltaic solar, which uses large arrays of panels constructed on facilities of several hectares, is an ideal renewable energy source for Maine, because of its low population density and small proportion of conserved lands. Since most of the state of Maine is forested, the development of photovoltaic solar will require increasing amounts of deforestation. Environmental impacts of this deforestation include loss of carbon sequestration, erosion, damage to habitat, and inhibition of other forest benefits. This study uses Landsat data and remote sensing to analyze a large portion …

An Rnai-Based Approach To Ips Calligraphus Management: A Promising Strategy For Forest Protection, Mary Wallace

Theses and Dissertations--Entomology

As climate change leads to more frequent and severe extreme weather, host tree stress is increasing the occurrence of large-scale bark beetle outbreaks. One such beetle, Ips calligraphus (Germar), a native bark beetle in the southeastern United States, has traditionally been considered a secondary pest of pine trees. Management has relied on silvicultural practices that enhance forest resilience, enabling host trees to effectively use natural defenses to deter beetle infestation. However, during periods of forest stress caused by storms, droughts, human disturbance, and other factors, beetle outbreaks can cause considerable ecological and economic damage.

Addressing worsening I. calligraphus outbreaks will …

Timber Talk, Vol. 62, No. 2, June 2024

Timber Talk: Nebraska Forest Industry Newsletter

Timber Talk, Vol. 62, No. 2, June 2024

Timber Talk, Vol. 62, No. 3, September 2024

Timber Talk: Nebraska Forest Industry Newsletter

Timber Talk, Vol. 62, No. 3, September 2024

Determining The Quality And Quantity Of California Sitka Spruce (Picea Sitchensis) On Private Commercial Timberland For Use In Domestic Acoustic Steel-String Guitars, Ryan Eugene Cooper

Undergraduate Scholarship

Development of additional revenue streams for timber products with relatively low profitability is an important step in securing future economic success for the forestry sector in Humboldt county. Utilization of California Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis) for use in domestic acoustic steel-string guitar manufacturing may provide exactly that. Determining the quality and quantity of California Sitka spruce is the logical first step in achieving this.

Quality was determined from tree core samples gathered at sites on Green Diamond Resource Company’s (GDRco) California timberlands and the Arcata Community Forest (ACF) with high basal area of Sitka spruce. Rings Per Inch …

Assessing Understory Vegetation Response And Fuel Load Levels Following Silvicultural Treatments In Headwaters Forest Reserve, Humboldt County, California, Kyle James Railton, Madison Tatar

Undergraduate Scholarship

Old growth forests are important for ecological resilience, especially in temperate rainforest ecosystems. There are presently 3,000 acres of old growth forest within the 7,472 acres of the Headwaters Forest Reserve (HFR) in Humboldt County, California. Remaining acres were subjected to unsustainable logging practices, such as clearcutting, that resulted in a severely overstocked second-growth forest. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) created a management plan for the reserve to restore previously harvested areas to their historic condition. The goal for the BLM is to accelerate growth rates of residual forests, to align them on a trajectory of achieving old-growth forest …

Practical Challenges In Delivering Dsrna For Woody Plant Protection, Zachary Bragg

Theses and Dissertations--Entomology

Unprecedented weather events associated with climate change, coupled with extensive anthropogenic stresses, have reduced the effectiveness of traditional forest pest management approaches, which can no longer keep pace with invasive species overwhelming naïve landscapes and native pests experiencing eruptive and expansive outbreaks. Double-stranded RNA-(dsRNA) mediated gene silencing, a type of RNA interference (RNAi), has been coopted for use as a biopesticide against a multitude of agricultural and horticultural pests and could serve as a powerful tool for woody plant protection. While effective initiation of gene silencing and subsequent mortality have been demonstrated in multiple tree pests, effective and efficient methods …

Surface Mining Interacts With Timber Harvesting To Facilitate The Invasion Of Woody Invasive Species In A Temperate Forest Of Central Appalachia, Usa, William Wittenbraker

Theses and Dissertations--Forestry and Natural Resources

Appalachian forests are subjected to various short- and long-term anthropogenic disturbances. Surface mining is among the most potent drivers of land use change in the Appalachian region, reducing native forest cover and causing landscape fragmentation. Furthermore, the ecological footprint of surface mining could be expanded to adjacent forests, and such spill-over effects may be exacerbated by in-situ forest disturbances such as timber harvesting. However, it remains elusive how these two disturbance agents may be compounded to degrade forest health and landscape integrity. One of the major threats to forest health in the Appalachian forests is the invasive species. Many woody …

Communicating Climate Change: Adaptive Silviculture In Central Appalachian Kentucky, Logan Baker

Theses and Dissertations--Forestry and Natural Resources

Climate change communication is an emerging field that requires a multidisciplinary understanding of both climate and social science. Communicating with underrepresented woodland owners about climate change, specifically climate change adaptation in forestry applications, necessitates appropriately adjusted approaches. In Central Appalachian Kentucky, outreach with underrepresented woodland owners on forest adaptation topics has not been examined in depth. The recent establishment of an Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change research site in the University of Kentucky’s Robinson Forest has created an opportunity to generate regionally specific climate adaptation information for Appalachian Kentucky forests. It is imperative to investigate how best to approach communicating …

Dynamic Patterns Of Resource Selection In Northern Bobwhite Across The Annual Cycle In A Region With Poor Edaphic Conditions, Autumn S. Randall

Theses and Dissertations--Forestry and Natural Resources

Developing successful management strategies requires an understanding of how an organism's resource needs change over the course of its life cycle. For almost a century, northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) populations have been declining range-wide, mostly as a result of habitat loss and degradation. Resource selection studies conducted at coarse-temporal resolutions and in areas with fertile soils form the majority of current management recommendations for bobwhites. In this thesis, we quantified resource selection patterns for 1,302 bobwhites in a region with poor soil conditions with respect to several common management practices (fire, fallow fields, supplemental feeding, and brush management …

Wildfires Are Burning Less Frequently And More Severely Than Historically In The Western Us: A Novel Approach To Calculating Fire-Regime Departures, Jeffrey Ryan Chandler

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Changing climate, vegetation, and fire exclusion are altering and homogenizing fire-regime attributes compared to historic conditions. Fire-regime changes are commonly quantified using departure metrics, which are often based on measures of central tendency (i.e. changes in the mean). These metrics can mischaracterize complex changes to the distributional characteristics of fire-regime attributes. Here we develop a fire-regime departure metric that quantifies nonparametric distributional changes to fire-regime attributes over time. We use this metric to compare fire frequency and severity between historical (~1600-1880) and contemporary (1880- 2021) time periods in western US forests. Our analysis revealed that 89% of Western US forests …

Late Holocene Fire History Reconstruction Of Beaver Lake In The Northwest Lowlands Of The Olympic Peninsula, Grace Mckenney

All Master's Theses

Fire is an essential component of the landscapes and forests of the Pacific Northwest, including the temperate rainforests of the Olympic Peninsula. Previous fire history reconstructions from the peninsula show that fire return intervals varied throughout the postglacial period, primarily in response to climatic changes and corresponding shifts in vegetation. However, much less is known about the fire history of the low-elevation forests of the Olympic Peninsula and the role of cultural fire regimes in these environments. The purpose of this study was to reconstruct the paleoenvironmental history of a low-elevation study site, Beaver Lake, located in the northwestern part …

Quantifying The Ecological Effects Of Salix Fragilis On Riparian Habitat In Kittitas County, Washington, Landon Shaffer

All Master's Theses

Invasive species threaten plant community structure and function globally. Riparian areas, the zone near streams where water influences vegetation, are especially sensitive to invasive species colonization, suffering large-scale shifts in community composition. Salix fragilis (crack willow) is a nonnative riparian species abundant in the lower elevation tributaries of central Washington. Some speculate whether this willow should be listed as invasive in Washington, despite a lack of regional supporting evidence. I studied riparian communities dominated by either S. fragilis or native species in the Kittitas Valley and measured biodiversity, quantified differences in solar attenuation, and compared leaf decomposition rates to learn …

Post-Fire Persistance Of Sequoia Semperviens In A Secondary Forest: Examining Drivers Of Basal Resprouting Response, Jackson T. Carrasco

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Historically frequent-fire forest ecosystems are now facing increased size, frequency, and severity of fires attributed to climate change, intensive forest management, and fire exclusion. Understanding post-fire resilience in forest ecosystems is critical amidst escalating challenges posed by recent increases in fire activity. This study examined the basal resprouting response of coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) in a secondary forest two years after the CZU Lightning Complex fire on the central coast of California. Robust allometric equations were developed to quantify redwood resprout biomass and leaf area, revealing strong explanatory power for biomass equations (R² > 0.85). Probability of …