Arabidopsis is a fast-growing short-lived species. For forest managers there is another question: can trees that sprouted 30
This is a concern for foresters--trees live a long time but will they die if the climate rug is pulled out from under them?
Ecology, super-sizedthe University of Wisconsin-Madison home of pioneering ecologists who studied lakes forests wetlands
On land Paleon (the Paleo-Ecological Observatory Network) is looking backward to see forward assembling long-term records from lake sediments and other natural archives to build large-scale reconstructions of forest and climate
Forests can either supply carbon to the atmosphere or remove it says UW-Madison geography Professor Jack Williams director of the Nelson Center for Climatic Research.
Some ecosystem models predict that forests will store more carbon over this century but others say they will release more.
Will forests multiply or mitigate climate change? The Wisconsin scientists are versed well in the multiple methods used to document past forests
and climates including isotopes inside decaying plant material pollen and charcoal trapped in lake sediments historic land surveys and tree rings.
and are helping track the poorly known history of the great forest that stretched from Minnesota to New york and New england.
With our traditional strengths in field and laboratory ecology and in building large-scale data syntheses we can carry a heavy burden in the effort to map the changes in North american forests over the last thousand years up through the present.
and can provide snapshots of forest composition from one decade to the next. Paleon is getting information about the early 1800s by reanalyzing records that show forest density
and composition taken by federal surveyors who mapped Wisconsin and other parts of the Northwest territories.
Much of the Wisconsin data has been assembled by David Mladenoff in the Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology says Williams. We are building on 20 years of David's work for Wisconsin
and beech says Goring compared to modern upper Midwestern forests which look like young forests that follow fire or other disturbance with more poplar and white birch.
The ultimate goal is to flesh out a deeper history of the effects of climate variability on forests which are essential for the ecosystem models that explore the feedbacks between forest ecosystems
and climate change Williams says. Having this rich history will help us run the various models
Among the gloomy outlooks for Lake erie and the farm industry researchers and other experts offered more encouraging news about the recovery of Ohio forests and improved energy efficiency in electricity distribution and the operation of hospital systems statewide.
Similarly Ohio's forests--which are now recovering from heavy timber exploitation in the early 20th century--are expected to fare better than those in the arid west or along the coasts.
and organismal biology who specializes in forest ecology; and Richard Moore professor of environment and natural resources who studies agricultural trends in the state.
Whereas for example in a young-growth forest plants will grow and develop at comparatively close range vegetation will thin out
#Drought in amazon rain forest: Continued studies may help predict future health of rain foreststwo major droughts within a five-year period have done significant damage to the Amazon forest in Brazil
but analyzing how the forest has responded may help researchers predict the long-term impact of global warming according to research scientist Izaya Numata of the Geographic Information science Center of Excellence at South dakota State university.
Through a three-year $602349 NASA grant Numata and a team of scientists will assess how the 2005 and 2010 droughts affected the forest edges
and to what extent deforestation patterns affect the trees'vulnerability. His team consists of senior scientist Mark Cochrane a wildfire expert;
and are deforested heavily yet have scattered fragments of remaining forest. Slowing deforestationthe Brazilian Amazon covers 60 percent of the country an area half the size of the continental United states Numata explained.
To expand production they simply cleared more forest area. In the last decade the Brazilian government has been enforcing regulations that have helped slow deforestation he added.
Researchers at the California Institute of technology found that the forest canopy had recovered not yet from the 2005 drought
This double-whammy may have lasting-effects on the forest Numata added. However the impact will likely be different based on the shape and size of the forest fragments according to Numata.
Trees near the edge of forest fragments are subjected to more solar radiation lower humidity and stronger winds.
This then causes thinning of the tree canopy death of trees and plants and significant changes in the species the forest can support.
These edge effects vary based on distance from edge to interior forest and time since the creation of forest edge Numata explained.
Since the southern Amazon is deforested intensively and fragmented Numata hypothesizes that these forest edges are more vulnerable to drought than trees in the interior forest.
To verify this he and his team will examine Landsat satellite data from 1997 through 2014 to document
when forest fragments were created and how their size and age affect their reaction to drought.
After characterizing the forest fragments spatially the team will visit specific sites across the gradient of intensity of both droughts
and forest fragmentation in July to measure vegetation at regular intervals from the forest edge according to Numata.
Then the field results will be compared with spatial and temporal changes in forest biophysical conditions such as evapotranspiration phenology
Based upon the results the scientists will try to predict the vulnerability and response of the forest to future changes in climate and land cover.
The forest edges may serve as indicators of the tipping point at which future drought events and climate change can cause a lot of ecological changes to the Amazonian system Numata added.
#Tropical rain forests: Humans have doubled more than nitrogen inputsa new paper co-written by four University of Montana researchers finds that humans have doubled more than tropical nitrogen inputs.
Benjamin Sullivan a researcher working with UM College of Forestry and Conservation Professor Cory Cleveland led the team that looked at the nitrogen cycle in tropical rain forests.
Sullivan and his colleagues used a new method to demonstrate that biological nitrogen fixation in tropical rain forests may be less than a quarter of previous estimates.
That could be given a problem the high biodiversity of tropical rain forests and their important role in the global carbon cycle and the Earth's climate.
Past research has assumed that tropical rain forests have high levels of biological nitrogen fixation and that humans add relatively little nitrogen to tropical ecosystems.
Her study was funded through the university's Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station and the Memphis Zoological Society.
Understanding the gastrointestinal bacteria in pandas will help guide reforestation efforts throughout China's mountainous region.
Concerned hunters and foresters sent the carcasses to the University of Veterinary medicine Vienna for analysis. Extensive investigations have revealed now that the animals died of bacterial pneumonia caused by two strains of bacteria that are highly unusual in chamois.
or foresters it is extremely important determining the causes. Early identification of the cause of disease or death can be crucial to prevent a wide-scale outbreak.
Close cooperation with hunters and foresters is essential to ensure that any outbreaks are detected as soon as possible.
#Emissions from forests influence very first stage of cloud formationclouds play a critical role in Earth's climate.
and decreases of nucleation observed in field experiments over the course of a year especially for measurements near forests.
This latter test is a strong confirmation of the fundamental role of emissions from forests in the very first stage of cloud formation
because it is a temperate forest with a comparatively narrow window of time when the bees emerge in the spring
#International standards significantly reducing insect stowaways in wood packaging materiala new international standard for wood packaging material used in international trade is significantly slowing the inadvertent export of stowaway invasive bark-and wood
Lead author Robert Haack a research entomologist with the U s. Forest Service's Northern Research Station in East Lansing Mich. and his colleagues found as much as a 52 percent drop in the infestation rate
The study Effectiveness of the International Phytosanitary Standard ISPM No 15 on Reducing Wood Borer Infestation Rates in Wood Packaging Material Entering the United states was published today in the journal PLOS ONE.
Wood packaging material has carried numerous nonnative forest pest invaders to countries throughout the world. Several hundred nonnative forest insect species have become established in the U s
. and recent arrivals such as the Asian longhorned beetle and the emerald ash borer have killed millions of trees and altered urban landscapes in the Northeast and Midwest.
and the Forest Products Lab. Forest Service research is vital to informing national and international policies addressing those problems.
The above story is provided based on materials by USDA Forest Service-Northern Research Station. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
This is especially true for museum scientists studying some of Earth's smallest species in remote jungles of the Congo and isolated areas of Hawaii.
#Sustaining northern hardwood forests: Are we doing what we think were doing? Northern hardwood forests give many gifts to many people.
Natural beauty recreation a source of lumber wood pulp for paper products raw material for biofuels. They also generate jobs
There's a system in place for assuring the productivity of northern hardwood forests. It's called the selection silviculture system a method of using partial harvests done to a strict formula to sustainably manage the trees.
It's been around centuries and it works. There's only one problem. A study by Michigan Technological University researchers found that the system generally isn't being used.
or because it's too much trouble to use it strictly as it was designed says Robert Froese associate professor at Michigan Tech's School of Forest Resources
and Environmental science and author of a paper titled Sustainability of the Selection System in Northern Hardwood Forests published in the April 2014 issue of the journal Forest Science.
Also if true we should consider what the implications are for the wide range of values that our forests provide.
If harvests are too gentle then it's likely that there isn't enough light reaching the forest floor to ensure regeneration.
Over time that will lead to forests that look quite different from the old-growth northern hardwood forests that are considered self-sustaining.
Nagel now works at the Cloquet Forestry Center at the University of Minnesota. Funding for the study was provided by Frontier Renewable Resources and a State of Michigan 21st Century Jobs Trust fund grant.
Silviculture is the applied science of impacting how forests establish and grow to meet diverse needs.
It could also involve tending natural stands to accelerate the development of old-growth character or to conserve biodiversity.
What distinguishes silviculture from forest ecology is the idea of managing the forests to preserve
And that value doesn't have to be timber. It can be producing the smaller pole trees that provide wood for the pulp and paper industry.
It could be assuring that enough seedlings are taking root or it could be preserving the forest as a natural recreation location.
The selection silviculture system is a particular method for tending forests where repeated partial harvests are used to manage the trees.
Usually a specific structure (amount of trees by size and arrangement) is desired and trees are removed to produce this structure.
One critical factor is that to be selection silviculture one of the goals must be providing for the regeneration of new trees
) In 1957 a research forester named Carl Arbogast wrote a guide for the selection system for managing northern hardwoods.
The guide has become the core of northern hardwood silviculture particularly in the Great lakes region.
whether Arbogast's selection system is applied widely in the Great lakes northern hardwood forests. They studied recent timber harvests on state forest lands forests under corporate ownership and privately owned forests.
They measured the trees in 10 randomly located circular plots under all three kinds of ownership
They expected to find that state forests were most compliant with the Arbogast guidelines and corporate forests were the least compliant.
What they actually found surprised them. Only 22 of 96 stands of trees studied were harvested in compliance with the guidelines that have been shown to create a balanced and sustainable structure that assures the future productive potential of the forests.
The other 74 stands were being overcut or undercut. Overcutting ultimately results in diminished yield and quality of the wood but the effects of undercutting are subtler.
Undercutting could mean that an opportunity was missed to harvest more wood without harming the forest.
There could also be an ecological cost. For seedlings to survive and grow in northern hardwoods there must be gaps big enough to allow light to reach the forest floor.
Without enough light seedlings might not establish and thrive. Another surprise: The variation within forests owned by each type of landowner was much more substantial than the variation between kinds of landowners.
There are no significant differences among the three landowner types compared Froese says in the journal article.
The researchers spoke with forest managers almost all of whom claimed that production of high quality timber
Yet the way they were managing their forests did not reflect the Arbogast guideline. Stated goals objectives and management plans do not necessarily translate to activity in the woods Froese notes.
and economic consequences of not following the selection silviculture system. Terry Sharik dean of Michigan Tech's School of Forest Resources and Environmental science called the study important.
I think this work is significant because it suggests that large expanses of forests managed by the graduates of our forestry programs in the US are not being managed to their optimum with respect to long-term sustainability of goods and services.
This in turn begs the question of why this is the case. The answer is given undoubtedly complex the host of ecological social
and David Greenwood of Manitoba's Brandon University researchers used fossil beetles to determine winter temperatures where they couldn't place a thermometer--in the 50-million-year-old uplands of British columbia and Washington.
And as fertilizing nutrient nitrogen enhances the growth of forests which binds CO2. Currently the health effects of nitrogen pollution are clearly more important
Borneoâ##s productive trees vitally important for global carbon cyclinga team of scientists has found that the woody growth of forests in North borneo is half as great again as in the most productive forests of northwest Amazonia
an average difference of 3. 2 tons of wood per hectare per year. The new study published today in the Journal of Ecology examined differences in aboveground wood production (one component of the total uptake of carbon by plants)
which is critically important in the global cycling of carbon. Trees are taller for a given diameter in Southeast asia compared with South america meaning they gain more biomass per unit of diameter growth
and Borneo to measure properties of both the forests and their soils making robust comparisons among different continents possible for the first time.
Aboveground wood production is the amount of biomass gained in the woody parts of a tree.
The study examined data from 26 hectares of forest and 12000 trees which have been monitored for more than twenty years.
Lead author Dr Lindsay Banin from the UK's Centre for Ecology & Hydrology said In Borneo dipterocarps--a family of large trees with winged seeds--produce wood more quickly than their neighbours.
The fact that dipterocarp-dominated forests achieve faster wood growth than even the most diverse forests in the Amazon shows that the random evolutionary histories of continents can determine their whole ecology.
Understanding variation in the capacity for forests to store and sequester carbon is vitally important for managing them best to keep carbon out of the atmosphere.
#Threats seen to 3 billion birds in vast Canadian forestindustrial encroachment in North america's 1. 5 billion-acre boreal forest could endanger billions of birds
and other species. A new report calls for saving half of boreal forest acreage to protect the habitat for more than 300 migratory bird species. The northern landscape is beset with oil gas mining
and other industrial hazards destined for a vast pristine woodland. Stretching from Alaska to Newfoundland the boreal forest--the circumpolar woods that circle the upper Northern hemisphere--provides habitat for up to 3 billion nesting and migratory birds according to the report Boreal Birds Need Half:
Maintaining North america's Bird Nursery and Why it Matters released this week by the Boreal Songbird Initiative Ducks Unlimited and Ducks Unlimited Canada.
While the boreal forest remains one of the largest intact forests On earth it is seen also as the last great frontier for natural resource extraction said Wells of the urgency to protect these areas.
Southern boreal forests have already been affected by oil and gas mining forest product industries hydropower and roads and infrastructure.
The Comprehensive Cancer Center of Wake Forest Baptist Medical center is one of only a handful of cancer centers that is attempting to give lung cancer patients out of treatment options a chance to keep the cancer at bay.
and Oncology and the Journal of Thoracic Oncology outline the treatment success at Wake Forest Baptist. â#oeone of the toughest challenges of lung cancer is
and a radiation oncologist at Wake Forest Baptist. â#oewith some of the technological advances in radiation treatments that have occurred in the last five to 10 years weâ##re beginning to re-look at the issue
and minimizes the dose to the surrounding normal tissue. â#oewake Forest Baptist has been developing expertise in doing thisâ#Urbanic said. â#oeweâ##re finding that there are patients who are alive years later.
The above story is provided based on materials by Wake Forest Baptist Medical center. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
#Fungus may help stop invasive spread of tree-of-heavena naturally occurring fungus might help curb the spread of an invasive tree species that is threatening forests in most of the United states according to researchers.
The treatment completely eradicated the tree-of-heaven plants in those forests. It appears that this treatment is effective in Pennsylvania
Don Davis professor of plant pathology Penn State said that in 2003 he noticed a large number of tree-of-heaven deaths in a southwestern Pennsylvania forest.
The foresters in the area then took him to a site where large-scale wilt was affecting the trees.
because tree-of-heaven is very hard to kill said Davis. The researchers noticed a number of Ambrosia beetles near the infected stands leading them to theorize that the fungus often carried through the forests by beetles was involved in the tree deaths.
and Distributions shows that EABS were feasting on ash trees in southeast Michigan by the early 1990s well before this pest was discovered in 2002 said Deb Mccullough MSU professor of forest entomology.
We suspect they arrived inside wood crating or pallets imported from Asia where the beetle is said native she.
but ash trees are common in urban landscapes as well as in forests. When they emerged there were likely ash trees nearby providing food for the beetles and their offspring.
and two Canadian provinces and have become the most destructive and costly forest insect to ever invade North america Mccullough said.
The Midwest's agricultural lands forests Great lakes industrial activities and cities are all vulnerable to climate variability and climate change.
These changes limit the capacity of ecosystems such as forests barrier beaches and wetlands to continue to play important roles in reducing the impacts of extreme events on infrastructure human communities
Wake Forest's Associate Director of Landscaping Services David Davis says a rain garden fills with a few inches of water after a storm
Wake Forest's horticulture crew excavated and installed a rain garden on campus with only a line level
The above story is provided based on materials by Wake Forest University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length h
and the tropical forests of the Congo region are likely to be affected much less MÃ ller stresses.
in arid scrub woodland. In each line dispensers alternated between treated and untreated cotton and dispensers were 130 feet apart--more than twice 55 feet making it likely each nesting finch had a favorite dispenser.
and become caring stewards for our urban forests even at a young age. Link to the article's abstract at:
#Leaf chewing links insect diversity in modern and ancient forestsobservations of insects and their feeding marks on leaves in modern forests confirm indications from fossil leaf deposits that the diversity of chewing damage relates directly to diversity of the insect
The direct link between richness of leaf-chewing insects and their feeding damage across host plants in two tropical forests validates the underlying assumptions of many paleobiological studies that rely on damage-type richness as a means to infer changes in relative
MÃ nica R. Carvalho graduate student Cornell University and Peter Wilf professor of geosciences Penn State and colleagues looked at leaf predation in two tropical forests in Panama to test
This is the first attempt to compare leaf-chewing damage inflicted by many kinds of living insects on many kinds of plants throughout a large forest area both to the culprit insects
Bekker collaborated with researchers from the U s. Forest Service Columbia University and Utah State university. The team is currently working on a climate reconstruction based on tree rings that date back more than 1000 years.
save endangered animals cheaplychanging cattle fields to forests is a cheap way of tackling climate change
We studied older forests that are around 20-30 years old and found they had recovered around half of the carbon of a really mature forest.
The study also found that letting forests regenerate had a massive impact on the populations of threatened species. In secondary forests in the region researchers found 33 of 40 red-listed bird species that are threatened with extinction.
This research shows that there are great environmental and ecological benefits to changing land use from cattle farming to forest
Agriculture & Forestry) Senior Researcher at the MTT Agrifood Research Finland detected in his doctoral dissertation study that the principles of feeding planning normally used for silage feeding also apply to grazing.
but we also know that Canadian forests and tundra underlain by permafrost are thawing and creating these kinds of high methane-producing ecosystems.
and forest soils in Northern europe. This type of bacterium has also been found among the microbial community following the Deepwater horizon oil spill in 2010.
an unamended control a 10-cm wood waste mulch treatment and an annual fertigated application of 20 g of phosphorus (as ammonium polyphosphate) per tree at full bloom.
and adapt to it emphasises Permanent Secretary Jaana Husu-Kallio from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.
In the northern coniferous forest belt including Finland the growth of forests is accelerating and some species are growing more abundant while others decline.
and California says Sapsucker captain Chris Wood. It's a brand-new route for us with new challenges and lots of unknowns.
In Arizona's Santa Rita Mountains forests of oaks and pines rise up from dry desert.
and cutting-edge technologies to find answers to some of the biggest environmental threats Wood says.
#Untangling Brazils controversial new forest codeapproved in 2012 Brazil's new Forest Code has few admirers.
Environmentalists counter that it imperils millions of hectares of forest threatening to release the billions of tons of carbon they contain.
Entitled Cracking Brazil's Forest Code the article is the first to quantify the implications of recent changes to the Forest Code
The Brazilian Forest Code is the largest single protector of forests on private properties which contain over half of Brazil's remaining forests and savannahs.
Though championed by conservationists the law has proved challenging to enforce. As global demand for beef and animal feed increased in the early 2000s annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon surged to more than 20000 km2 per year--prompting global outrage
and restore forests. The new Forest Code is the product of a long and bitter debate in the Brazilian congress fueled by tensions between the agribusiness lobby government enforcement agencies and conservationists.
According to the study the new law granting amnesty to landowners who deforested illegally before 2008 reduces the area to be reforested from 500000 km2 to 210000 km2.
and sabotage the Forest Code they will be shooting themselves in the foot. Ultimately he warns agricultural productivity depends on the conservation of native ecosystems
The recent changes affect conservation in all Brazilian biomes including the Amazon Cerrado and Atlantic Forest.
Despite big losses for the environment the law also introduced two key conservation measures that could pave the way for commoditizing standing forests in all biomes.
First it creates a new market that allows landowners to trade surplus forests (those that could be deforested legally) on one property to offset restoration requirements on another.
The Forest Code continues to be difficult to enforce and some worry that the amnesty provided for illegal deforestation may set a dangerous precedent creating the expectation of impunity for future deforestation.
To be effective the Forest Code must be tied to economic incentives that reward landowners who conserve native vegetation says co-author Raoni Rajã£o of UFMG.
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