Forest Sciences Commons^™

Risk Of Oak Wilt Expanding Northward: Examining Nitidulidae Vector Communities And Host Phenology Beyond The Current Disease Range, Kathleen E. Bershing

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Oak wilt is a fatal fungal pathogen to oak trees, caused by the fungus Bretziella fagacearum. This fungus targets oak species (Quercus spp.), where members of the red oak group (sect. Lobatae) are at greatest risk of mortality. Oak wilt is widespread throughout the eastern United States, currently present in 24 states. Recently in 2023, oak wilt was detected in trees for the first time in Canada. Although removed from the locations of the first Canadian detections, there is continual concern that the range of oak wilt is at risk for expansion northward. This is further evident …

The Effects Of Strip Clearcutting On Natural And Artificial Northern Red Oak Regeneration In A Central Appalachian Hardwood Stand, Patrick Aaron Plaugher

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

There are well-known difficulties associated with regenerating oak stands throughout the Central Hardwoods region. To successfully regenerate oak, competitive sources of advance reproduction are required ahead of harvesting—a condition that is rarely present, especially on productive sites. While treatments that enhance seedling competitiveness (e.g., midstory removals, burning, vegetation control) are available, in practice, these are rarely implemented and/or effective because of large treatment costs and/or because they require delaying harvest.

As a potential alternative practice, we report the 10-yr results of a strip clearcut regeneration method. This method removes alternating 45-m wide strips across a mixed Appalachian hardwood …

Linking Empirical Data And Numerical Simulation To Characterize Dynamic Fire Behavior Associated With Interacting Firelines, Marta Sergeevna Jerebets

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Understanding fuel pattern-fire process relationships is key for predicting fire behavior and effects with follow-on benefits to proactive fire management and model validation. To characterize dynamic fire behavior, this thesis leverages empirical data and numerical simulation through two complementary studies.

In the first study, longwave thermal sensors aboard unmanned aerial systems (UAS) were used to capture fine-scale fire behavior in two experimental grass burns. A novel paired design was used to quantify the effects of fuel arrangement on fire behavior with 3.66 m diameter treatments cut to a height of 0.15 m. The treatments ephemerally reduced fire rate of spread …

Refine Fuels Treatments In The Wildland–Urban Interface With Wildlife In Mind, Miles Becker, Catrin M. Edgeley, David Stoner

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Conserving urban tree and shrub cover provides many benefits for wildlife and people, yet often becomes a lower priority than fuels treatments to mitigate fire risk in the wildland–urban interface (WUI). We support the principle that considering multiple objectives on privately owned property is valuable and can be achieved. Data sharing and collaboration between wildfire experts and wildlife biologists could improve the quality and extent of managing both animals and fire. Furthermore, the adoption of statewide policy and municipal regulations for preventing wildfires in the WUI provides an opportunity to incorporate ecological functions in the same directives for a balanced …

Modeling Neighborhoods As Fuel For Wildfire, Bryce Alan Young

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Wildfire models drive billions of dollars in risk mitigation efforts. However, the modeling community currently lacks a representative fuelscape on which to base simulations of fire spread in the built environment and the wildland-urban interface (WUI) where vegetation and structures act together as fuel for wildfire. This thesis advances wildfire risk modeling by addressing the underdeveloped representation of the built environment in existing frameworks. By identifying inconsistencies in how structure and defensible space features are defined and used across empirical studies, predictive indices, and fire spread models, this research lays the groundwork for standardized modeling approaches and feature selection (Chapter …

Bridging The Gap Between Plot-Level And Landscape-Scale Analysis For Wildfire Risk Assessment, Vanessa Leigh Niemczyk

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Remote sensing technology has advanced greatly over the past couple of decades proving its ability to aid in wildfire risk assessment and improve our understanding of forest structure and fuel inventory across the landscape. While some aerial and satellite sensors perform better than others, they all have a common weakness, their reduced ability to capture understory fuels with high detail. Terrestrial laser scanning is an emerging solution due to its understory perspective. This research leverages the beneficial aspects of both terrestrial laser scanning and various aerial- or satellite-based remote sensing platforms (aerial laser scanning, digital aerial photogrammetry, and Sentinel-2) to …

Ineligible Partners: Tribal Nations And Cooperative Federalism In The Historical Development Of National Forest Law And Policy, James H. Baker

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Lands within the National Forest System (NFS), like all federal public lands, are rooted in Aboriginal Title and were once exclusively inhabited by Indigenous peoples and communities. Through the process of treaty-making, the federal government amassed millions of acres of ceded Tribal lands, many of which are now managed by federal public land agencies, including 194 million acres managed by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). Several Tribes reserved various use and property rights on these lands that are protected by the U.S. Constitution’s Treaty and Supremacy Clauses. The federal government also has an overarching trust obligation to Tribes – a …

A Retrospective Assessment Of Post-Fire Planting In The Us: Aligning Actual And Optimal Planting Sites To Address The Reforestation Gap, Lewis Faller

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The natural regeneration processes that maintain semi-arid North American conifer forests are being disrupted. Increasingly, large wildfires burn core areas beyond the typical seed dispersal range of surviving adult trees and even when seeds are present, climate conditions increasingly are unsuitable for conifer recruitment, establishment, and survival. The USDA Forest Service (USFS), mandated to maintain forest cover in response to harvest or disturbance, now faces a planting backlog of over 3.8 million acres. Here, we conduct a retrospective assessment (1986–2023) of USFS post-fire reforestation to evaluate (1) whether historical planting patterns align with the goal to close the national reforestation …

The Role Of Floodplain Complexity In Wood Turtle Habitat Use, Laura S. Deming

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Wood turtles occupy cold, low-gradient riverine habitat throughout the northeastern United State and southeastern Canada. Stream alterations, such as dams, channel straightening, and floodplain development have diminished the natural hydrologic and sedimentation regimes that result in complex channel and floodplain geomorphology. Studies throughout the species’ range have quantified many aspects of their habitat, but none have quantified components of geomorphology of wood turtle sites. The goal of this study was to explore the role of stream channel and floodplain geomorphology in wood turtle habitat use, with specific objectives to (1) quantify components of stream channel and floodplain geomorphic complexity, (2) …

Firelog: An Open-Source, Low-Cost System For Temperature Logging During Wildland Fires With High Spatial And Temporal Resolution, Nipuna Chamara, Yufeng Ge, Sabrina E. Russo

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Measuring flame, air, and soil temperatures during wildland fires, including wildfires and controlled burns in land management contexts, is crucial for research and applications in fire ecology, safety, and management in a wide array of ecosystems, from grasslands to forests. However, open-source and commercial systems are needed for measuring and logging flame and air temperatures that are user-friendly, economical, modular, and customizable. This paper details the design, development, and validation of the FireLog system. Laboratory validation experiments demonstrated high measurement accuracy, with a minimum coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.98 and the highest observed root mean square error (RMSE) of …

An Analysis Of Moth Diversity In Garbhanga Reserve Forest, Basistha, Assam, India, Golphina Ahmed, Arup Nama Das, Lupamudra Borah, Rezina Ahmed

Journal of Bioresource Management

The Garbhanga Reserve Forest, located on the south-western side of Guwahati City, covers an area of about 117 km2 and borders the foothills of Meghalaya (26°05´36˝N and 91°44´57˝E). Despite the constant threat of exploitation due to its proximity to the rapidly developing city, this area hosts a diverse ecosystem of moths and butterflies. In a study conducted over one year from January 2022 to December 2022, a total of 140 moth species were documented, with the majority belonging to the Erebidae family (46 species) and 1090 individuals, followed by the Crambidae family (31 species) and 704 individuals. The dominance of …

Economic Analysis And Profitability Of Honey Production And Marketing In Cross River State, Nigeria, Joseph A. Ugbe, Tee T.N., Ancha P.U

Journal of Bioresource Management

The significance of honey in the socio-economic livelihoods of rural and semi-urban populations is paramount, as it tackles issues such as unemployment, income, and ecosystem preservation. The decrease in the timber industry has caused numerous individuals who rely on forests for their income to be without jobs, making it difficult to find other ways to make a living. This study examines the economic analysis and profitability of honey production and marketing in Cross River State, Nigeria, over 5 years (2017-2021) for sustainable forest management. Six hundred and eighty-four (684) respondents were selected from three ecological zones in the state using …

Tourism Carrying Capacity At Petungkriyono Forest And Its Supporting Areas, Nurwidya Ambarwati

Journal of Environmental Science and Sustainable Development

Supported by a variety of diversity and landscapes, the development of tourism in the Petungkriyono area is growing rapidly. Optimizing ecotourism services in the Petungkriyono forest without disrupting the ecosystem and damaging the environment can be done by limiting the number of visitors at tourism sites. This study aims to find out information about the tourism capacity of some tourist attractions in the local forest. This study uses the Cifuentes model to predict the maximum number of visitor capacities that can be accommodated in a tourist attraction called Physical Carrying Capacity (PCC), Real Carrying Capacity (RCC), and Effective Carrying Capacity …

Smokejumper Obituary: Harbine, Patrick E. “Pat” (Missoula 1951), National Smokejumper Association

Smokejumper Obituaries

No abstract provided.

Function Over Form: The Benefits Of Aspen As Surrogate Brood-Rearing Habitat For Greater Sage-Grouse, Michel T. Kohl, Charles P. Sandford, Paul C. Rogers, Renee Chi, Terry A. Messmer, David K. Dahlgren

Aspen Bibliography

Species of conservation concern are often habitat specialists, posing significant risk to those species when specific plant communities are threatened. As a result, practitioners habitually focus conservation efforts on these communities while ignoring ecological mechanisms that explain the wildlife–plant relationships. In doing so, practitioners may overlook alternative vegetation communities that could maintain wildlife populations under alternative conditions (e.g., climate change). Here, we term these areas surrogate habitat, defined as vegetation communities or resource sites that provide similar critical resources as conventional sites, and assess their potential for conservation using a case study of greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) on …

Tree Rings Reveal Mixtures Of Aspen And Spruce Exhibit Greater Drought Resilience In A Planted Field Experiment, Jéssica Chaves Cardoso, Linhao Wu, Marcel Schneider, Charles A. Nock

Aspen Bibliography

Boreal forests provide a wealth of ecosystem services, many of which are linked to forest productivity. Climate change is expected to increase the frequency, duration, and severity of drought, and undermine the productivity of western boreal forests. Favouring species mixtures has emerged as a potential strategy to increase forest resilience to drought. To test the hypothesis that mixtures of trembling aspen and white spruce were more productive than pure stands because they were more resistant and resilient to drought, we analyzed community and species responses to drought utilizing measurements of annual growth obtained from stem disc samples from a planted …

Comparing Multivalent Cross-Linked Sodium Alginate/ Montmorillonite Beads Containing Curcumin Or Cayenne Pepper As Drug Carriers And Their Antimicrobial Resistance, Shionainn Traynor, Shubham Sharma

SURE Journal: Science Undergraduate Research Experience Journal

The aim of the following work was to investigate and compare curcumin and cayenne pepper in microbeads composed of sodium alginate (SA) crosslinked with montmorillonite (MMT) to act as drug carriers and their antimicrobial resistance. The microbeads were prepared through ion-exchange in multivalent solutions of CaCl₂, MgCl₂ and AlCl₃. The microbeads were characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Energy Dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) and the time required for intercalation of curcumin and cayenne pepper with MMT. Simulated intestinal fluid (pH 7.3) and gastric fluid (pH 1.2) at 37°C were used for comparison in swelling studies. …

Editorial - Sure Journal Vol 6, Anne M. Friel, Eva Campion, Sinead Loughran

SURE Journal: Science Undergraduate Research Experience Journal

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Greening Of A Boreal Rich Fen Driven By Co2 Fertilisation, Sandeep Thayamkottu, T. Luke Smallman, Jaan Pärn, Ülo Mander, Eugénie S. Euskirchen, Evan Kane

Michigan Tech Publications

Boreal peatlands store vast amounts of soil organic carbon (C) owing to the imbalance between productivity and decay rates. In the recent decades, this carbon stock has been exposed to a warming climate. During the past decade alone, the Arctic has warmed by ∼ 0.75°C which is almost twice the rate of the global average. Although, a wide range of studies have assessed peatlands’ C cycling, our understanding of the factors governing source / sink dynamics of peatland C stock under a warming climate remains a critical uncertainty at site, regional, and global scales. Here our focus was on answering …

Society Of American Foresters (Saf) Academic Publications As They Relate To The Curriculum Standards For Saf Forestry Program Accreditation: A Content Analysis, Lisa M. Bentley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Goals that impact decision-making components within academic programs in the university system have the potential to define and change the direction of a field of study, and, with that, should be thoughtfully approached with a certainty of evidence that supports responsible paradigms in forestry education. Periodic revision of the standards for accreditation by SAF influences institutional expectations that result in shifts in forestry education and should be consistent with professional forestry standards. The methodology utilized in this research contextualizes data from a sociological perspective intentionally as a method to holistically integrate data as evidence to support the interpretation of Society …