Treesearch

Variations in landscape-scale acorn production have been studied across the Quercus genus to understand its role in ecosystem ecology and forest regeneration. Multiple weather conditions may influence annual acorn production, especially the positive influence of seasonal rainfall. Prior studies have assessed the effects of rainfall measured over monthly and seasonal scales, but have not focused on the potential influence of daily rainfall events (e.g., frequency and volume) on acorn production. Here, we examined 19 years of daily rainfall data with annual acorn data collected from Quercus...

Agroforestry is widely promoted in smallholder farming systems as a means of improving soil conditions, strengthening resilience to rainfall variability, and supporting rural livelihoods. However, households that adopt agroforestry may differ systematically from those that do not. We examine selection into agroforestry adoption and its relationship with crop production value per adult household member among smallholder farmers in Tabora Region, Tanzania. The practices promoted in the study area include planting the nitrogen-fixing tree Gliricidia sepium, pigeonpea–cassava intercropping, or...

1. While collaborative science is becoming the norm in ecology, many ecologists participating in collaborations are less aware of the body of research that studies the processes by which collaborative teams organize and communicate.2. Here, we discuss how we successfully used a shared leadership model in the Dry Rivers Research Coordination Network. We discuss how this model promoted our success in different stages of the project, using the Tuckman model of team development: forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning.3. Shared leadership in the forming phase helped us recruit a...

Accurate modeling of wildland fuelbeds requires knowledge of not only where fuels are in three-dimensional (3D) space but also what they are. In this study, we introduce an object-based scanning protocol designed to generate detailed three-dimensional mesh models of individual fuel particles (e.g., seedlings, shrubs, litter, and cones) using an industrial-grade laser scanner. While traditional terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) or photogrammetric approaches tend to require objects to be segmented from broader-scope environment-level point clouds, our approach begins with the object itself.By...

This report summarizes the findings of data collected as part of the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program in the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) using data collected during inventory years spanning 2014 to 2024. The year 2024 was the first year the All Conditions Inventory (ACI) was employed and notable differences from traditional forest land inventory are highlighted in this report. The ACI yielded more information than measuring forest land alone. It has promise in island inventories where urban trees, fruit trees, yard trees, and other land conditions not defined as forest are...

Oxine copper is listed in the United States as a wood preservative for exterior aboveground use, with active Environmental Protection Agency registrations for both oil- and water-based formulations. While it has limited use in many markets, water-based oxine copper is widely used by the US military to protect wood packing materials for munitions because of its low risk to human health and demonstrated activity against certain insects, decay, and sapstain fungi. Thus, it will likely persist as a wood treatment while other preservatives may face greater restrictions or elimination due to...

Understanding and controlling agglomeration of cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) is critical to enable their effective use in various applications. Light scattering techniques are powerful tools for studying how CNCs self-assemble in aqueous suspensions. We used small angle light scattering (SALS) and polarized microscopy to study the formation of ordered domains in CNC suspensions of moderate concentration (1–9 wt%) as a function of time and ultrasonication. Concentration, time and ultrasonication all influenced the structure and rate of tactoid formation. Ultrasonication allowed long-range...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program provides this resource update yearly as an overview of forest resources in Iowa. These estimates are derived from field data collected across a systematic network of fixed-radius forest monitoring plots located on both public and private land. New updates are provided annually as a subset of plots within the State are remeasured. Each year, field crews visit and measure a subset of all FIA plots across the entire State (the size of the subset varies by State and year). Combining all the...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program provides this resource update yearly as an overview of forest resources in Illinois. These estimates are derived from field data collected across a systematic network of fixed-radius forest monitoring plots located on both public and private land. New updates are provided annually as a subset of plots within the State are remeasured. Each year, field crews visit and measure a subset of all FIA plots across the entire State (the size of the subset varies by State and year). Combining all...

Carbon stocks and stock changes in harvested wood products (HWPs) are an important part of land sector greenhouse gas (GHG) estimation and reporting. HWPs broadly categorized as products in-use (e.g., solid wood and paper products) and in solid waste disposal sites (SWDS; e.g., landfills), store carbon transferred from harvested trees. In the United States (US), estimates of carbon in HWPs have historically been reported in the US GHG Inventory and included in submissions to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. These data have been obtained from national and internatio...