Forest Sciences Commons^™

Why Real Impact Stories Of Forest-Dependent Communities Are Essential In Carbon Marketing, Andrew Mwape

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

As the global carbon market matures, the pressure on companies and project developers to prove the integrity and social value of their carbon offset initiatives has never been greater. At the heart of this growing scrutiny lies a key opportunity: to move beyond metrics and tell authentic, human-centered stories that reflect the real impact of carbon projects; especially those rooted in forest landscapes.

The Perfect Pairing: Early Stand Dynamics In Conventional Aspen And Mixedwood Forests In Northern Minnesota, Usa, Chelsea C. Semper, John M. Zobel, Sawyer S. Scherer, Michael R. Reinikainen, Matthew B. Russell, Tyler S. Gifford, Marcella A. Windmuller‑Campione

Aspen Bibliography

In North America, mixedwood management is being increasingly considered by natural resource managers as an alternative to single species management for a variety of ecological, economic, and cultural reasons. In northern Minnesota, USA, natural resource managers are increasingly using treatments to establish mixedwood forests in aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx, Populus grandientata Michx) dominated ecosystems by planting white spruce (Picea glauca (Moench). However, little quantitative information is known regarding differences between stand structure and composition in conventional aspen and aspen-white spruce during early stand development. To provide greater clarity for managers, we sampled 40 aspen stands across a chronosequence …

Resist!: Sustaining Forest Carbon Sequestration And Wood Production After Insect Disturbance, Christopher M. Gough, Ben Bond-Lamberty, Robert T. Fahey, Catherine Mcguigan, Brandon C. Alveshere, Cameron Clay, Erin Darby Mcclain, Charles E. Flower, Kayla C. Mathes, Ariel Johnson, Lisa T. Haber, Kalyn Dorheim, Derek M. Johnson, Lucas E. Nave, Kerstin Niedermaier

Michigan Tech Publications

Disturbances from insect pests threaten ecologically and economically important goods and services supplied by forests, including wood production and carbon sequestration. We highlight the factors that influence these services’ resistance, a term quantifying the initial response to disturbance. Insects inflict damage through a range of mechanisms, prompting distinct plant physiological responses that scale to influence ecosystem processes and, with time, goods and services. The degree and timing of tree mortality and defoliation affect the amount of residual vegetation available to support compensatory wood production and influence carbon sequestration by changing rates of detritus-fueled decomposition. Compounding, or sequential, insect attacks may …

Support For The Us Endangered Species Act Is High And Steady Over The Past Three Decades, John Vucetich, Jeremy T. Bruskotter, Robyn Wilson, L. Mark Elbroch, Adam Feltz, Thomas Offer-Westort

Michigan Tech Publications

Conservation professionals expect increased attempts to weaken the US Endangered Species Act (ESA) during the second Trump administration. As such, it is important to understand Americans’ level of support for the ESA. Prior research indicates that support for the ESA remained consistently strong across four studies conducted over a two-decade period, 1996–2015. The research presented here extends those observations to six studies conducted over a three-decade period, 1996–2025. We find that support of the ESA over that period has remained consistently high, at about 84%, and opposition has remained consistently low, at about 12%. We also report on other trends …

Long-Term Nitrogen Fertilization Inhibits Carbon And Nitrogen Loss During Late-Stage Fungal Necromass Decomposition Depending On Necromass Chemistry, Lang C. Delancey, Craig R. See, Katherine Heckman, Peter G. Kennedy, Sarah E. Hobbie

Michigan Tech Publications

Fungal necromass is increasingly recognized as a key component of soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycling. However, how C and N loss from fungal necromass during decomposition is impacted by global change factors such as anthropogenic N addition and changes to soil C supply (e.g. via changing root exudation and rhizosphere priming) remains unclear and understudied relative to plant tissues. To address these gaps, we conducted a year-long decomposition experiment with four species of fungal necromass incubated across four forested sites in plots that had received inorganic N and/or labile C fertilization for two decades in Minnesota, USA. We …

Specialized Insectivores Drive Differences In Avian Community Composition Between Primary And Secondary Forest In Central Africa, Eleanor M. Barrie, Billi A. Krochuk, Crinan Jarrett, Diogo F. Ferreira, Patricia F. Rodrigues, Susana Lin Mufumu, Silvestre Esteban Malanza, Agustin Ebana Nsue Akele, Cayetano Ebana Ebana Alene, Kristin Brzeski, Jacob C. Cooper, Jared Wolfe, Luke L. Powell

Michigan Tech Publications

The human population of sub-Saharan Africa is projected to triple by 2100, drastically increasing anthropogenic pressure on biodiversity. When rainforest is disturbed by anthropogenic drivers, species respond heterogeneously; these patterns have rarely been quantified for Congo rainforest fauna. Our objective was to understand how community composition changed with human disturbance—with particular interest in the guilds and species that indicate primary rainforest. At a long-term bird banding site on mainland Equatorial Guinea, we captured over 3200 birds across 6 field seasons in selectively logged secondary forest and in largely undisturbed primary forest. Our multivariate ordination indicated a significant split between primary …

Influence Of Increasing Fires On Mixed Conifer Stand Dynamics In The U.S. Southwest, Simon D. Baker, Kristen M. Waring, David Auty, Nicholas Wilhelmi

Aspen Bibliography

(1) Stand-replacing fires may threaten the continued stability of mixed conifer forests in the U.S. Southwest. Increasing fire frequency and severity have made post-fire forest recovery trajectories uncertain for many coniferous species, potentially leading to long-term shifts in forest structure and composition. (2) The purpose of this study was to examine post-fire stand dynamics over a 10-year period, using a network of permanent plots established prior to wildfire events across Arizona and New Mexico. We assessed changes in over story composition, regeneration, and fuel loading across different fire severities. (3) High severity fire caused near-total over story mortality, with little …

Experiments To Enhance Post-Fire Aspen Seedling Survival And Growth, Larissa L. Yocom, Mark R. Kreider, Owen T. Burney, Tammy Parsons, Ryan T. Choi, Emily K. Liese, Karen E. Mock

Aspen Bibliography

Aspen forests provide wildlife, watershed, and aesthetic value, and the potential for reduced fire occurrence, behavior, and severity. There is interest in planting aspen to achieve various management objectives. However, few studies have investigated the optimal conditions for aspen seedlings in the western US. We conducted two experiments to address this knowledge gap. First, we tested the effects of shading structures (i.e., logs) and biochar on the survival and growth of 960 outplanted aspen seedlings in three exclosures in a recent fire footprint. Second, we tested whether experimentally placing logs near 120 naturally-occurring post-fire aspen seedlings affected survival or growth. …

Prescribed Fire Leads A Pine Flatwoods Specialist Tree Frog To Seek Local Refugia, Ian Biazzo, Pedro F. Quintana-Ascencio

Faculty Publications

Pine savannas of the southeastern United States evolved with frequent low-intensity wildfires. Today, land managers use prescribed fires to restore this ecological process while also controlling vegetative fuel accumulation. Given the ubiquitous application of this management tool, studies should consider impacts on target and nontarget taxa in these systems. During fires, animal populations persist in the landscape when individuals emigrate to unburned areas or seek refugia within the burn zone; otherwise, they experience local extirpation. We examined the effect of prescribed fires on a pine flatwoods specialist frog, the pinewoods treefrog Dryophytes femoralis, in a frequently burned pine landscape. …

Arts-Based Sustainability: From New York To Malawi, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Recognizing that libraries serve multiple constituencies and subject areas, this chapter documents and advocates for development of transdisciplinary arts-based research (ABR) and culture-related projects linked to environmental challenges. Libraries contribute collections and spaces, as well as the research of library and information scientists. Libraries are currently among invisible contributors to sustainability planning and services. The chapter will link this invisibility to the value of what visual arts refer to as negative space elements in subjects ranging from traditional ecological knowledge to environmental science. Library collections, projects, and research contribute to education for sustainable development (ESD) as required to achieve the …

Climate Change Threatens Water Resources For Major Field Crops In The Serbian Danube River Basin By The Mid-21st Century, Jamshid Jalali, Nishan Bhattarai, Jillian Greene, Tao Liu, Oskar Marko, Mirjana Radulović, Molly Sears, Sean A. Woznicki

Michigan Tech Publications

Study region: Serbian Danube River Basin Study focus: As climate change makes weather patterns more erratic, water supply for agriculture is becoming increasingly uncertain. This is concerning in the Serbian Danube River Basin, where crops are mainly rainfed and the growing season is becoming warmer and drier. Assessing the balance between future agricultural water demand and availability in a changing climate is critical to address agricultural water scarcity. To understand how changing climate will affect water availability during 2041–2070, we used the Soil and Water Assessment Tool+ hydrological model with field-scale crop rotations and irrigated extent data and forced with …

Belowground Biomass Shifts Along A Temperate Forest Edge, Lara Holbrook Roelofs

Dartmouth College Undergraduate Theses

Anthropogenic land use change and development has caused widespread global forest fragmentation, resulting in a greater proportion of forests at or near a forest edge. Temperate forests are the most fragmented forest biome, and forests in the Northeastern U.S. are particularly fragmented due to a history of intense land use and development pressure. Nearly a quarter of these forests are now within 30 meters of a forest edge. These edge ecosystems have distinct abiotic and biotic gradients that differentiate them from forest interiors, including increased light, temperature, and exposure to wind and other disturbances, as well as decreases in humidity …

Indigenous Science And The Legacy Of Fire: Resilience, Fuels, Mosaics, And Eco-Cultural Landscapes In Oregon’S Coastal And Cascade Range, Julia Alcalá

University Honors Theses

Most of Oregon's western Cascade and Coastal range is a landscape that has historically been considered devoid of mid to low-intensity fires by Western science. However, for time immemorial, Indigenous peoples have been stewarding the forests through the use of "good fire," creating diverse and heterogenous landscapes with mixed fire regimes, ranging from less than a decade to several centuries since the last fire, resulting in a mosaic of patchy forest, oak savannas, prairies, and wetlands. Yet centuries of Indigenous displacement, cultural assimilation, and suppression of cultural burning contributed to this prevailing belief. Despite that, in recent decades, Western scientists …

Rapid Riparian Ecosystem Decline In Rocky Mountain National Park, David J. Cooper, E William Schweiger, Jeremy R. Shaw, Cherie J. Westbrook, Kristen Kaczynski, Hanem Abouelezz, Scott M. Esser, Koren Nydick, Isabel De Silva, Rodney Chimner

Michigan Tech Publications

Understanding the drivers of ecosystem collapse is critical for resource management, particularly for protected areas mandated to preserve biodiversity. In Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, tall willows (Salix spp.) dominated riparian vegetation, and a beaver-willow state was the natural ecosystem type in the Colorado River headwaters. However, willows comprise a portion of elk diets and are a preferred food for recently introduced moose, and the vegetation structure has changed dramatically since the early 2000s. To assess ecosystem changes, we analyzed time-series data on willow height from 1997 to 2021 inside and outside 3 exclosures built to exclude ungulates, area of …

Pulped Landscapes, Allison P. Abrams

Masters Theses

Large corporations control intensive and extractive industrial land use practices through acts of dumping, capping, and neglect. The abandonment of industrial sites is increasing as well as the environmental consequences of such actions. How can impacted communities proactively engage in remediation processes while post-industrial sites sit in limbo?

With the former Foley Cellulose Plant in Perry, Florida (closed in 2023) as a case study, this thesis researches and speculates on potentials of phytoremediation experimentation and harvesting of plant fibers on contaminated soils. The site is a pulped landscape: land directly impacted by intensive, large corporation-led pulp production practices that is …

Covered In Snow, Katelynn M. Rogers

Masters Theses

Covered in Snow is a photographic exploration into the ripple effect of maternal loss and environmental decay in my hometown of Canton, Ohio. In the wake of a miscarriage, the woods I had grown up within began calling to me, urging me to return. Unbeknownst to me, a series of accidental deaths of women had been happening throughout these trees my entire life, their stories only coming to the surface as I looked to the trees for solace. This series of inexplicable deaths in the woods I so desperately loved began to alter my relationship to the trees, a distrust …

Sexual And Vegetative Recruitment Of Trembling Aspen Following A High-Severity Boreal Wildfire, Denyse A. Dawe, Ellen Whitman, Michael Michaelian, Alan J. Tepley, Marc-André Parisien

Aspen Bibliography

Background High-severity fire is rare in trembling aspen-dominated forests of the boreal region. The post-fire recruitment strategy of aspen, by either vegetative suckering or sexually (i.e., by seed), has considerable implications for subsequent forest structure, genetic diversity, and ecological resilience to shifting climatic and disturbance regimes. In this study, we take advantage of the unique opportunity provided by the Chuckegg Creek Wildfire Fire (310,000 ha) in northern Alberta, Canada, which burned at high severity through aspen stands before and after spring green-up, to document how phenology, fire severity, and stand characteristics affect recruitment one year following the fire.

Results We …

Factors Impacting The Variability Of Post-Fire Forest Regeneration In Central European Pine Plantations, Florent Jouy, Maren Schüle, Yojana Adhikari, Anja Binder, Danica Clerc, Werner Gerwin, Thilo Heinken, Thomas Raab, Frank Repmann, Susanne Rönnefarth, Marina Schirrmacher, Marie-Therese Schmehl, Jens Schröder, Pierre L. Ibisch

Aspen Bibliography

Fire is increasingly posing a risk to forests and plantations, even in the temperate latitudes of central Europe. Little is known about fire ecology in this region, and therefore, appropriate approaches for the management and reforestation of burned sites are mostly lacking. In a Scots pine plantation region in Brandenburg (northeast Germany), the early tree regeneration of two nearby areas that burned 1 year apart was investigated. We observed that 3 years after the fire events, the forest in one study area showed a relatively high regeneration with a mean density of 7765 saplings/ha, clearly dominated by European aspen (93%); …

Transcriptome Analysis Reveals Nutrient Deprivation Reduces Nitrate Content In Lettuce (Lactuca Sativa Var. Ramosa Hort.) And Enhances Nitrogen Metabolism, Yingying Zhang, Xuena Liu, Shikai La, Mingjiao Wang, Xu Hu, Ainoug Shi, Jinghuai Guo, Lingdi Dong

Horticulture Faculty Publications and Presentations

Introduction Excessive nitrate accumulation in leafy vegetables poses health risks and indicates inefficient nitrogen use in conventional agriculture. While nitrogen metabolism has been extensively studied, the molecular mechanisms linking nutrient deprivation to nitrate reduction in vegetables remain unclear. Methods In this study, we investigated these mechanisms in lettuce (Lactuca sativa var. ramosa Hort.) by analyzing nitrate content and gene expression in leaves and roots under nutrient deprivation. Results After five days of treatment, nitrate content decreased by 57.49% in leaves and 50.77% in roots. Transcriptome sequencing identified 323 and 3,494 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in leaves and roots, respectively, with …

Pollinator Plant Communities Within Restored Montane Longleaf Pine Ecosystems, Hanen Van Rossem

Master's Theses

Historically the fire-dependent and biodiverse longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) ecosystem was the dominant ecosystem of the Southeastern US. This ecosystem’s range was massively reduced due to land conversion and fire exclusion, causing the decline of many native species. Efforts to restore and protect longleaf pine stands are now ongoing with the goal of expanding habitat and refuge for threatened species. Differences in restoration practices and prior land use may influence the extent to which restored habitat patches can support pollinators and their plants. This study compared pollinator plant biodiversity between restored neighboring montane longleaf pine stands that differed in …