Forest Sciences Commons^™

Evaluating Functional Zoning Based On Site Index To Achieve Competing Objectives Held By Family Forest Owners On Southern U.S. Pine Forest Tracts, Bradley S. Resch

Theses and Dissertations

Family forests comprise a significant portion of total forest lands in the southern United States and their owners frequently have multiple, competing objectives. This research evaluated the effectiveness of functional zoning based on site index on forest sizes relevant to family forest owners. A total of fifty family forests were randomly selected from counties in the East Texas Pineywoods region. Timber production and quail habitat were used as proxies for competing objectives. It was found that 80% of family forest parcels had sufficient site index heterogeneity to benefit from functional zoning. For forest parcels that could benefit from functional zoning, …

Novel Silviculture Practices For Non-Industrial Private Forest Landowners, Darcey Alyce Collins

Theses and Dissertations

Many landowners in the southeastern United States have invested in southern yellow pine plantations and managed them using traditional management schemes. However, non-industrial private forest landowners often have goals and challenges that make traditional management less desirable or possible. This thesis contains two projects that offer potential solutions for these landowners. The first project is a management option for landowners with small parcels that wish to manage pine plantations and proposes low-density management paired with crown lifting for the production of saw logs without commercial thinning entries. The second proposes a method for incorporating mixed-species management into already existing plantations. …

The Effects Of Drought And Shade On Bottomland Hardwood Regeneration, Charles Joseph Pell

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Floodplain forests support a high diversity of tree species adapted to regenerate under fluctuating water and light availability. Regeneration regulates species composition, and shade and flood tolerance influence the likelihood of regeneration. Regeneration failure of shade-intolerant and flood-tolerant tree species commonly occurs in southcentral and southeastern floodplain forests of the United States, also known as bottomland hardwoods (BLHs). In many BLHs reduced flooding has resulted in a dryer floodplain. These changes in flooding are linked to recent shifts in species composition. The mechanisms controlling regeneration in BLHs and these composition shifts are poorly understood. In a controlled germination experiment, I …

Smokejumper Obituary: Brown, Malvin L. (Pendleton 1945), National Smokejumper Association

Smokejumper Obituaries

No abstract provided.

Quantifying Aboveground Biomass In A Tropical Forest Using A Lidar Waveform Weighted Allometric Model, Alejandro Rojas

Theses and Dissertations

Our knowledge of the distribution and amount of terrestrial above ground biomass (AGB) has increased using lidar technology. Recent advancements in satellite lidar has enabled global mapping of forest biomass and structure. However, there are large biases in satellite lidar estimates which impacts our understanding of carbon dynamics, particularly in tropical forests.

Ni-Meister et al. (2022) developed a lidar full waveform weighted height-based allometric model which produced very good results in temperate deciduous/conifer forest in the continental US. The purpose of this study was to evaluate this biomass model in an African tropical forest using the Land Vegetation and Ice …

Post-Fire Erosional And Hydrological Processes Promoting Debris Flow Initiation In A Douglas Fir And Western Hemlock Forest In The Riverside Burn Area, Oregon, Morena Nicole Hammer

Dissertations and Theses

Post-fire debris flows initiated by overland flow in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) are largely undocumented. Instead, debris flows are typically initiated by shallow landslides that result in a mud slurry of water and sediments traveling downhill under the force of gravity. However, because of the Fall 2020 fires in Oregon, the typical initiation style and erosional patterns in burned catchments may have changed because of unusually high burn severity. Due to the intensity of these fires, we set out to determine how hydrologic processes and erosion occurred, when they occurred, and what process was primarily responsible for the erosion that …

Smokejumper Obituary: Compton, Leo P. (Mccall 1947), National Smokejumper Association

Smokejumper Obituaries

No abstract provided.

Quantification Of Hydrologic Response To Forest Disturbance In Western U.S. Watersheds, Sara A. Goeking '92

Doctoral Dissertations

Forested watersheds produce more than half of the water supply in the United States. Forests affect how precipitation is partitioned into available water versus evapotranspiration. This dissertation investigated how water yield and snowpack responded to forest disturbance following recent disturbances in western U.S. forests during the period 2000-2019.

Chapter 2 systematically reviewed 78 recent studies that examined how water yield or snowpack changed after forest disturbances. Water yield and snowpack often increased after disturbance, but decreased in some circumstances. Decreased water yield was most likely to occur following disturbances that did not remove the entire forest canopy. It was also …

Quantifying And Predicting Drought Performance In Woody Semi-Arid Seedlings In South Texas: Implications For Enhancing Drought Resilience In Restoration, Zarek Contreras

Theses and Dissertations

Increasingly frequent and severe droughts in the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge have been observed to cause large variation in species-specific mortality patterns in young seedlings, spanning 6 – 43 % mortality within the first year. To understand the underlying mechanisms behind this, we subjected seedlings of five woody semi-arid species (Celtis pallida, Forestiera angustifolia, Sideroxylon celastrinum, Phaulothalmnus spinescens, and Zanthoxylum fagara) to a point-of-no-return drought experiment in order to (1) identify potential metrics capable of predicting species wilting and mortality responses, and (2) to understand the underlying mechanisms that correspond to species drought performance …

Evaluation Of Energy Release From Wildfires Across The Elevation Gradient, Isabelle Rose Butler

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Wildfires are an integral process in vegetative terrestrial land which shape ecosystem functions. A warming climate, however, has increased the size and severity of fires with significant ecosystem and societal implications. Furthermore, warming has changed characteristics of wildfires enabling a median upslope advance of 252 m in high-elevation forest fires from 1984 to 2017, allowing wildfires to burn in areas that were previously too wet to burn frequently. This exposed an additional 81,500 square kilometers (11%) of western US montane forests to fires.

In this thesis, I test the hypothesis that wildfires burn more intensely in high-elevation mesic forests than …

Flora Of Doe Mountain Recreation Area, Johnson County, Tennessee, Benjamin Mccullough

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A botanical inventory of Doe Mountain Recreation Area (DMRA) in northeastern Tennessee was conducted to help guide conservation-based management. A total of 484 species were found in DMRA, comprising 94 families, and 285 genera, 10 species listed in the state rare plant list, and 76 exotic species. Two species, Liatris virgata and Lycopodiella inundata, were new state records. Water in the Lycopodiella seep was an order of magnitude more acid than at other sites. An analysis of the wildland-urban interface showed that only 13% of the area was classified as uninhabited. The inventory-invasion index, introduced to quantify the relative …

Quantification Of Hydrologic Response To Forest Disturbance In Western U.S. Watersheds, Sara A. Goeking

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Forested watersheds produce more than half of the water supply in the United States. Forests affect how precipitation is partitioned into available water versus evapotranspiration. This dissertation investigated how water yield and snowpack responded to forest disturbance following recent disturbances in western U.S. forests during the period 2000-2019.

Chapter 2 systematically reviewed 78 recent studies that examined how water yield or snowpack changed after forest disturbances. Water yield and snowpack often increased after disturbance, but decreased in some circumstances. Decreased water yield was most likely to occur following disturbances that did not remove the entire forest canopy. It was also …

Evaluating The Functional Traits Of The Pioneering Species: Insights To Forest Restoration, Rovana Mansul Jawani, Nomar Ali Ramoncito, Gretchen Quimson

Journal of Environmental Science and Sustainable Development

The influence of plant traits on interspecific demographic rates to growth and mortality has recently received an increasing attention because it allows understanding of the underlying determinants of species success especially in open degraded areas. This study examined the trait-based approach in selecting potential species for forest restoration. Five (5) native/indigenous pioneer species were evaluated for functional traits such as plant height, branching architecture, leaf dry matter content, specific leaf area, stem density, and bark thickness. All samples were collected from healthy and well grown mature trees growing in secondary forest of Central Mindanao University. The range of values for …

Reviving Ghost Alleles: Genetically Admixed Coyotes Along The American Gulf Coast Are Critical For Saving The Endangered Red Wolf, Bridgett M. Vonholdt, Joseph W. Hinton, Amy C. Shutt, Sean M. Murphy, Melissa L. Karlin, Jennifer R. Adams, Lisette P. Waits, Kristin Brzeski

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

The last known red wolves were captured in southwestern Louisiana and eastern Texas in 1980 to establish a captive breeding population. Before their extirpation, gene flow with coyotes resulted in the persistence of endangered red wolf genetic variation in local coyote populations. We assessed genomic ancestry and morphology of coyotes in southwestern Louisiana. We detected that 38 to 62% of the coyote genomes contained red wolf ancestry acquired in the past 30 years and have an admixture profile similar to that of the canids captured before the extirpation of red wolves. We further documented a positive correlation between ancestry and …

Limited Effects Of Precipitation Manipulation On Soil Respiration And Inorganic N Concentrations Across Soil Drainage Classes In Northern Minnesota Aspen Forests, Anna B. Stockstad, Robert A. Slesak, Alan J. Toczydlowski, Charles R. Blinn, Randall K. Kolka, Stephen D. Sebestyen

Aspen Bibliography

It is critical to gain insight into the responses of forest soils to the changing climate. We simulated future climate conditions with growing season throughfall reduction (by 50%) and winter snow removal using a paired-plot design across a soil drainage class gradient at three upland, Populus-dominated forests in northern Minnesota, USA. In situ bulk soil respiration and concentrations of extractable soil N were measured during the summers of 2020–2021. Soil respiration and N concentrations were not affected by throughfall reduction and snow removal, which was largely attributed to the limited treatment effects on soil moisture content and soil temperature. …

Understory Plant Communities Show Resistance To Drought, Hurricanes, And Experimental Warming In A Wet Tropical Forest, Aura M. Alonso-Rodríguez, Tana E. Wood, Jamarys Torres-Díaz, Molly A. Cavaleri, Sasha C. Reed, Benedicte Bachelot

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Global climate change has led to rising temperatures and to more frequent and intense climatic events, such as storms and droughts. Changes in climate and disturbance regimes can have non-additive effects on plant communities and result in complicated legacies we have yet to understand. This is especially true for tropical forests, which play a significant role in regulating global climate. We used understory vegetation data from the Tropical Responses to Altered Climate Experiment (TRACE) in Puerto Rico to evaluate how plant communities responded to climate warming and disturbance. The TRACE understory vegetation was exposed to a severe drought (2015), 2 …

Smokejumper Obituary: Goldammer, Albert Charles (Missoula 1964), National Smokejumper Association

Smokejumper Obituaries

No abstract provided.

Bbt Acoustic Alternative Top Bracing Cadd Data Set-Norev-2022jun28, Bill Hemphill

STEM Guitar Project’s BBT Acoustic Kit

This electronic document file set consists of an overview presentation (PDF-formatted) file and companion video (MP4) and CADD files (DWG & DXF) for laser cutting the ETSU-developed alternate top bracing designs and marking templates for the STEM Guitar Project’s BBT (OM-sized) standard acoustic guitar kit. The three (3) alternative BBT top bracing designs in this release are
(a) a one-piece base for the standard kit's (Martin-style) bracing,
(b) 277 Ladder-style bracing, and
(c) an X-braced fan-style bracing similar to traditional European or so-called 'classical' acoustic guitars.

The CADD data set for each of the three (3) top bracing designs includes …

Influence Of Strip Clearcuts, Deer Exclusion And Herbicide On Initial Sapling Recruitment In Northern Hardwood Forests, Stefan Hupperts, Christopher R. Webster, Robert Froese, Brandon Bal, Yvette L. Dickinson

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Sapling recruitment in hardwood forests is often suppressed by overstory shade, interspecific competition, and browsing pressure from white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus Zimmerman). In some northern hardwood stands, these three interacting factors may cause persistent recruitment failure of the dominant canopy species, sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.), into the sapling size class. In this study, we compared initial (two-year) sugar maple and hophornbeam (Ostrya virginiana ((Mill.) K. Koch) seedling and sapling recruitment in strip clearcuts to strip selection cuts, with combinations of herbicide and deer exclosures, in a northern hardwood forest with limited sugar maple sapling recruitment. We found that sugar …

Coping With Environmental Constraints: Geographically Divergent Adaptive Evolution And Germination Plasticity In The Transcontinental Populus Tremuloides, Roos Goessen, Nathalie Isabel, Christian Wehenkel, Nathalie Pavy, Lisa Tischenko, Lyne Touchette, Isabelle Giguère, Marie-Claude Gros-Louis, Jérôme Laroche, Brian Boyle, Raju Soolanayakanahally, Karen E. Mock, Javier Hernández-Velasco, Sergio Leonel Simental-Rodriguez, Jean Bousquet, Ilga M. Porth

Aspen Bibliography

Societal Impact Statement

Syntheses clearly show that global warming is affecting ecosystems and biodiversity around the world. New methods and measures are needed to predict the climate resilience of plant species critical to ecosystem stability, to improve ecological management and to support habitat restoration and human well-being. Widespread keystone species such as aspen are important targets in the study of resilience to future climate conditions because they play a crucial role in maintaining various ecosystem functions and may contain genetic material with untapped adaptive potential. Here, we present a new framework in support of climate-resilient revegetation based on comprehensively understood …