These include the larvae of the palm weevil a type of beetle in a number of tropical regions;
The cameras also captured other threatened species including tree-loving Asiatic black bears which are hunted for their skins paws
The birds that fly through Central park you still have to call them wild the trees that grow in Central park you still have to call them wild he said.
The project which was developed in an experimental forest at the University of California at Berkeley's Sagehen Creek Field Station near Lake Tahoe in California creates pockets of thinner trees in areas where the fire risk is high
For instance giant sequoia cones are sealed by a glue that only melts in fire releasing their seeds.
and cramped trees providing the perfect fuel for blazing hot fires. Hot fires scorch the earth burning seeds in the ground
Many areas are too steep to reach with bulldozers to rip out trees said Scott Conway a vegetation management officer with the U s. Forest Service in the Tahoe National Forest who is also involved with the project.
and tree density local weather patterns and historical fire data combined with habitat information to find the areas that are likeliest to burn catastrophically.
and fuel before fire season does help control fires in Western conifer forests like the tall giants of Sequoia National park in Northern California.
I work in Sequoia National park and we've had a prescription burning program for the last 40 years
when houses burn blown embers are at fault not trees or chaparral. The primary spread of fire where we lose houses under wind-driven conditions is from embers Fotheringham said.
What really threw me off was the trees don't burn said Fotheringham who was involved not in the study
and spacing remaining trees and bushes to prevent fire from spreading. Some residents scrape a moonscape around their homes removing all plants
In fact the burning homes set their own shrubs and trees on fire. Raging Western Wildfires in Photos That's because clearing land encourages the growth of weeds flashy fuels that easily ignite from embers.
and trees can help absorb heat and deflect embers Halsey said. For the most up-to-date advice visit http://firecenter. berkeley. edu/toolkit.
#Fighting to Save an Endangered Bird With Vomit A psychological warfare program centered on vomit could help save the marbled murrelet an endangered seabird that nests in California's old-growth redwood forests.
but lays one pointy blue-green egg each year on the flat mossy branch of a redwood.
After the chick hatches it pecks off its redwood-colored down and flying solo launches straight for the ocean.
and they have this crazy lifestyle that's like a living link between the old-growth redwood forests
and the Pacific ocean said Keith Bensen a biologist at Redwood National park. It's strange to have an animal with webbed feet in the forest he said.
Yet even though the state's remaining old-growth redwood trees are protected now the murrelets continue to disappear.
and squirrels it's having a real impact on a very rare bird nesting overhead in an old-growth redwood tree Bensen told Ouramazingplanet.
Murrelets to their misfortune nest in the same tree every year. Masters of disguise the first marbled murrelet nest wasn't discovered by scientists until 1974 in Big Basin Redwoods State Park.
The seabird doesn't actually build a nest instead choosing a flat branch covered in cozy moss and needles with cover to hide from airborne predators.
In spring 2010 and spring 2011 a team zip-tied hundreds of the copycat eggs to redwood-tree branches in several parks.
In spring 2012 during murrelet nesting season researchers spread hundreds of vomit-inducing eggs throughout Butano State Park and Portola Redwoods Park in the Santa cruz Mountains.
This year the project included Memorial Park a county park with old-growth redwoods. Nature's Giants:
Tallest Trees On earth It's worked amazingly well Halbert said. We've found a significant decrease in predations by jays the number of times eggs get broken she said.
Now with everything from stickers on the back of bathroom stalls to new signs at campsites Redwood Parks visitors are warned to Keep it crumb clean.
At Big Basin Redwood State Park Halbert has installed also animal-proof food lockers and trash cans.
At Redwood National park the staff reconfigured the outdoor sinks so jays and squirrels can't steal leftovers from dishes.
While Redwood National park is going oecrumb clean the park will wait on the vomit eggs Bensen said.
Mangroves showed the largest increases in regions where cold snaps became less frequent over the past 30 years study co-author Kyle Cavanaugh an ecologist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research center in Maryland wrote in an email.
The trees and shrubs that live in these regions can thrive in salty water shifting sands
and hot temperatures and tree roots trap sediments slowing the lapping of water and allowing other life to flourish.
Instead the regions with expanding mangroves experienced fewer cold snaps periods when the temperature dips below 25 degrees Fahrenheit minus 4 degrees Celsius.
As mangroves expand they displace salt marsh. Both of these habitats are important ecologically and economically and both are threatened by rising sea levels and coastal development.
With further global warming mangrove expansion probably won't be confined to Florida. There is evidence that the ranges of mangroves in other parts of the world are restricted also by cold temperatures Cavanaugh said.
And because water-dispersed plants can often travel farther than those dispersed by wind or plants the mangrove expansion could be very rapid the authors write in their paper.
Follow Tia Ghose on Twitterâ and Google+.+Â Followâ Livescience@livescience Facebookâ & Google+.+Original article onâ Livescience Â
 The team identified eight plant species that the animals eat finding that they seem to prefer fruit particularly from the breadfruit tree.
but these teeth are used actually just to carry fruit from one tree to another Wiles said.
Tree cover that obscures spring sunshine might be expected to retain snow longer. But recent research published in the journal Water Resources Research suggests that in some areas snow melts faster under forests than it does in open spaces.
Though researchers and snow enthusiasts have known long forests affect how long the fat wet piles of snow persist it wasn't clear precisely how trees made a difference.
In studies from all over the world they found a surprising connection between tree cover and snowmelt times.
We found that in sites with warmer winter temperatures snow tends to last longer in open sites than under trees Dickerson-Lange said.
Quicker melting in forests was unrelated also to the tree well phenomenon familiar to skiers the well of soft snow that forms around a tree trunk sheltered by branches.
or shaded by trees. Trees became key players in melting snow in warmer locations they found.
In colder places like Colorado snow still lasts longer in forests which protect it from sun and wind according to Dickerson-Lange.
Everything that has a temperature--trees soil people the sun--emits radiation. Trees like other objects on the earth mainly emit long-wave infrared radiation
while sunlight contains a lot of shorter-wave radiation. In places where temperatures are already close to water's melting point the infrared energy can accelerate the melting of snow.
 On a north-facing slope where sunlight is less of a factor the energy from trees may have a stronger effect Dickerson-Lange said.
The potential effects of massive tree die offs in Western forests have been a concern since a sudden uptick in bark beetle attacks in the late 1990s.
A species called the mountain pine beetle is one of the primary culprits leaving large swaths of forest dying of a fungus carried by the tiny insects.
whether tree deaths sent more water into streams (because there is less vegetation to suck up precipitation) as well as released additional carbon
and nitrogen from dead decaying trees. Even when up to 80 percent of trees were killed by beetles Ewers
and his colleagues saw little evidence of these worrisome effects. Alien Invaders: Photos of Destructive Invasive Species Even though bark beetles have an enormous visual impact the forest is resilient to the attack Ewers told Livescience.
And in Colorado's Front Range in the Rocky mountains above Denver pine beetle infestations don't add extra nitrogen to waterways that eventually drain to the city according to a study led by USFS research scientist Chuck Rhoades.
because beetles don't kill all the trees at once the survivors gobble up extra water and nutrients freed up by the fatalities both studies found.
In four different study sites 40 percent of older trees grew two times faster in the years after bark beetles munched through the forest Rhoades and his colleagues found.
In Wyoming the understory plant cover which includes new tree seedlings shrubs and flowers more than doubled Ewers found.
Turns out that both the surviving trees and new growth can eat and drink all the free water and fertilizer in the forest.
because their diet especially acacia leaves their favorite food contains a lot of water. When they do get thirsty they have to bend down awkwardly to drink
and they eat leaves buds and branches from mimosa and acacia trees. Their height helps them reach food well above where other animals can reach.
Because they get just a few leaves in every bite they spend most of their day eating Acacia trees have long thorns that deter most animals but not giraffes.
while the giraffe is reaching for tree leaves. Giraffes are ruminants like cows and their stomachs have four compartments that digest the leaves they eat.
Giraffes used to live throughout arid and dry-savanna zones of Sub-saharan africa wherever there were trees.
and they eat a wide variety of plants including grasses shrubs tree leaves and shoots.
Males mark this with a scent gland that they rub against trees A full-grown adult male weighs around 30 pounds (12.5 kilograms)
Koalas live in trees and eat primarily eucalyptus leaves. These leaves are very fibrous low in nutrition
and contain a toxin that must be filtered out by the animal's digestive system. Their strong jaws also help koalas chew their tough food.
Koalas have an excellent sense of smell that can differentiate between different types of eucalyptus leaves and signal the amount of toxin in the leaves.
and long sharp claws that help them climb tree trucks. Koalas'have five fingers one of which is an opposable thumb
Their thickly padded tail helps them sit for hours in trees. Though koalas generally don't make noise the male has a loud call during breeding season that can be heard about a kilometer away.
When it emerges from the pouch the joey remains with its mother for six more months riding on her back feeding on both milk and eucalyptus leaves.
Though there are more than 700 species of eucalyptus in Australia koalas eat only 50 of them.
Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary Adelaide Zoo-Koalas Sea world-Koalas National Koala Conservation and Management Strategy Government of Australia IUCN-Koala Australia Zoo
When leopards do make a kill they'll drag the carcass up a tree to keep it away from scavenging lions and hyenas.
Male leopards have been known to kill small giraffes and drag the carcasses into trees. The leopard's name comes from the Greek word leopardus a combination of leon (lion) and pardus (panther.
They're experts at climbing up and down trees often descending headfirst. They're the largest cat species that regularly climbs trees;
they even sleep sprawled out on tree branches. Â Other resources: IUCN Red List: Leopards Catalogue of Life:
Much of a moose's energy is maintained by eating flowering plants and fresh shoots from trees such as willow and birch.
Despite its rotund appearance the devil is capable of surprising feats of strength climbing trees and swimming across rivers.
Two well-known species of Hexathelidae are the Sydney funnel spider and the northern tree funnel spider;
and the tree-dwelling venomous biters have garnered deadly reputations in the Land Down Under. Appearance These funnel spiders are sized medium getting up to about one inch
Tree dwellers While most funnel spiders live on the ground a few species on the eastern coast of Australia live in wet forest trees.
but the two most notorious are the Sydney funnel-web spider and the northern tree-dwelling funnel spider.
The northern tree-dwelling funnel spider is also highly dangerous but much more rarely encountered
and twigs in trees. Blossom is the first gerenuk born at the Denver Zoo. Her parents were paired through the Species Survival Plan of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
Herbal remedies for GERD include licorice slippery elm and chamomile although rigorous studies herbal remedies for GERD are lacking.
#Giant Iceberg Breaks Off Antarctic Glacier A massive iceberg larger than the city of Chicago broke off of Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier on Monday (July 8)
Scientists with NASA's Operation Icebridgefirst discovered a giant crack in the Pine Island Glacier in October 2011 as they were flying over
Antarctica s Pine Island Glacier Cracks Humbert and her colleagues studied high resolution radar images taken by the Terrasar-X satellite to track the changes in the two cracks
Using the images we have been able to follow how the larger crack on the Pine Island Glacier extended initially to a length of 28 kilometers 17 miles Nina Wilkens one of the team researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute
As the Pine Island Glacier retreats and flows out to sea it develops and drops icebergs as part of a natural and cyclical process Humbert said.
The Pine Island Glacier ice shelf the part of the glacier that extends out into the water last produced large icebergs in 2001 and 2007.
Yet the flow of the Pine Island Glacier may be driven by other factors Humbert said. The glacier flows to the Amundsen Sea at a rate of about 2. 5 miles (4 km) per year.
The Pine Island Glacier currently acts as a plug holding back part of the immense West Antarctic Ice Sheet whose melting ice contributes to rising sea levels.
and napping in his favorite spot in one of the tallest trees on his exhibit the zoo added.
#Giant sequoias and Redwoods: The Largest and Tallest Trees Giant sequoias and California redwoods (also called coast redwoods) are nature s skyscrapers.
These enormous trees exist primarily in Northern California and though they have a number of common characteristics including distinctive cinnamon-red bark they are different species. One giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) known as General Sherman is the world's largest tree
while a redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) called Hyperion is the tallest. Giant sequoias Giant sequoias can grow to be about 30 feet (9 meters) in diameter and more than 250 feet (76 meters) tall.
The biggest of these behemoths is General Sherman a giant sequoia in Sequoia National park. General Sherman stands 275 feet (84 meters) tall has a 102-foot (31 meters) circumference
and weighs an incredible 2. 7 million pounds (1. 2 million kilograms). Giant sequoias can live to 3000 years with the oldest on record living more than 3500 years.
Mature sequoias lack branches on the lower half of their trunks. Sequoia trunks taper as they rise forming a rounded top where individual branches sweep downward.
Their green leaves are small scale-like and arranged in spirals. Both male and females cones are carried on the same tree e
#Giant sequoias at Risk from California Fire A raging forest fire sweeping toward Yosemite national park in California may threaten giant sequoia trees.
The massive Rim Fire is an intense crown fire meaning it is burning and leaping in the tops of trees instead of crawling along the ground.
The National park service has closed two of Yosemite's three giant sequoia groves to work on preventive fire efforts a park service statement said.
The Merced and Tuolumne groves are about 4 miles (6 kilometers) from the edge of the Rim Fire
which is burning toward those groves said Matt Brooks Yosemite Field Station leader for the U s. Geological Survey's Western Research Ecology Center.
The Rim fire is now the 13th largest fire in California since 1932 burning more than 150000 acres (607 square km.
One of the world's tallest trees giant sequoias have evolved to withstand frequent forest fires experts say.
Protected by bark up to 3 feet (90 centimeters) thick sequoias also drop their lower branches
so fire can't crawl into their bushy tops. These ground fires can actually help the sequoias clearing crowded plants
and fallen debris such as leaf litter thus leaving room for sequoia seedlings to sprout and grow.
Black burn scars that hollow out the living giants attest to their resistance to flames. A 1993 study published in the journal Science examined these scars
and showed that the ancient trees which live for thousands of years can survive scores of fires.
Under natural conditions these forests have burned for millions of years with frequent fires said Jon Keeley a fire ecologist with the U s Geological Survey who is based in Sequoia
and Kings Canyon National parks. So the main threat to giant sequoias has been past fire management Keeley told Livescience.
More than a century of fire suppression has built up piles of dead wood that fuel hot intense fires that burn into the tops of trees instead of staying low on the ground.
But I think the Rim Fire those kind of fire intensities are just not something that's been typical in the past Parsons told Livescience Recognizing the threat forest fires pose to giant sequoias the National park service started prescribed burns in giant sequoia groves beginning in the 1960s.
Scientists think that a longer dry season will stress trees raising the risk of wildfires and forest dieback.
#Go Plant a Tree! 5 Odd Facts About Arbor day Today is not a holiday that spawns the excitement of Christmas or even Valentine's day.
Yes it's Arbor day celebrated nationally on the last Friday in April though some states have their own dates to better coincide with good tree-planting weather.
When you think of trees what state jumps to mind? California with its redwoods? Vermont and its sugar maples?
How about Nebraska? Image Gallery: One-of-a-Kind Places On earth Despite (or rather because of) a naturally treeless prairie landscape Nebraska is the birthplace of Arbor day.
The holiday began with journalist Julius Sterling Morton who moved from Detroit to Nebraska in 1854.
Plant a tree. Morton rose to become the state secretary and helped establish the first Arbor day on April 10 1872.
More than 1 million trees were planted across the state that day. Arbor day became a national sensation in 1907
and the importance of trees. 2. We really do need trees Nebraska may not have been a naturally tree-friendly spot
The East Coast easily competed with the enormous Redwoods of the Pacific seaboard. At the time when Christopher Columbus landed in The americas it's said that squirrels could travel from tree to tree from the Northeast to the Mississippi without ever having to touch the ground Chris Roddick chief arborist at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in New york told Livescience in 2009.
In the old-growth forests in the Northeast you had hemlock that were six or seven feet in diameter chestnut trees 200 feet tall.
Trees sequester carbon that would otherwise end up in the atmosphere warming the globe Roddick said.
They also provide some of the benefits that Morton was looking for including shade that lowers the need for air conditioning.
And America's national tree is America has a national tree and it's all thanks to Arbor day.
In 2004 the National Arbor day Foundation hosted a vote on its website for a national tree.
The oak tree. In December 2004 Congress passed legislation designating the oak as Americ'a national tree touting its infamous strength.
The oak won 101000 votes in the National Arbor Foundation contest. The redwood came in second place with 81000 votes.
Dogwood maple and pine rounded out the top five contenders. 4. That's a lot of trees The National Arbor Foundation isn't just about crowning the prettiest tree of them All the group
which formed in 1972 distributes some 10 million trees each year and works with the National Forest Service to replant lost forests.
The group estimates that its donations have funded the planting of more than 20 million trees in forests since 1990.5.
Birdsey takes Arbor day international Americans aren't the only ones digging out the garden spades come spring.
In 1895 a retired Connecticut clergyman named Birdsey Grant Northrop went to Japan and brought his love of trees.
Northrop had researched previously forestry in Europe triggering a wave of environmental self-examination back in Connecticut
He also evangelized about trees in Australia Canada and Europe according to the Connecticut state government. Today at least 36 countries worldwide celebrate Arbor day.
a decapitated white goat tied to a tree near the Indian Boundary Golf course. That was strange enough
Scientists Say Yellowstone national park grizzly bears could be removed from the Endangered Species list after a new federal report revealed that the bears are threatened not by the loss of one of their main foods whitebark pine nuts.
It does not take into account the situation the realities of the conditions on the ground in whitebark pine forests said Jesse Logan the retired head of the U s. Forest Service's bark beetle research unit.
Whitebark pines are increasingly falling victim to mountain pine beetles which kill trees in the process of laying their eggs under the bark.
Climate change has made the high-elevation whitebark pines more accessible to the destructive beetles. Bear battle The fight over the delisting of the Yellowstone grizzly population is a years-long saga.
The bears were removed temporarily from the Endangered Species list in 2007 after the U s. Fish
In 2009 a federal district court in Montana overturned the delisting bumping the grizzlies back to protected status. The judge cited concerns that the USFWS had failed to consider the decline in whitebark pine in its decision.
One is calorie-rich whitebark pine nuts. Yellowstone bears also eat cutthroat trout meat from elk
According to a new federal report presented to the committee this week bear health is linked not to the availability of whitebark pine nuts.
when the impact of the loss of the whitebark pine started to be said felt Logan. The USFWS was prepared ill to track the outbreak of the beetle infestation Logan told reporters during a press briefing today (Dec 12.
When the agency first delisted the grizzly bear from the Endangered Species list in 2007 it estimated that 16 percent of the whitebark pine in the habitat had been affected by beetles.
The sea of dead trees along ridgelines called that number into serious doubt Logan said.
We were able to launch a study in the summer of 2009 to measure the impact of mountain pine beetles in whitebark pine he said.
Evidence suggests that bears especially females are eating more meat to compensate for the loss of whitebark pine nuts.
The depiction of Punt at the Deir el-Bahari temple shows oescenes of the Puntite s village (with) conical reed-built huts built on poles above the ground entered via ladders Shaw writes adding that palms
and myrrh trees can be seen. oethe ruler of Punt is distinguished from the Egyptians primarily by his beard
all goodly fragrant woods of God s-land heaps of myrrh-resin with fresh myrrh trees with ebony and pure ivory with green gold of Emu.
These fires kill between 10 and 50 percent of the trees in the areas they burn
As the researchers trekked through the desert they noticed silts mud cracks remnants of trees even shells all telltale signs of water.
The scientists also used dendrochronology a method of determining trees'ages based on their growth rings. The results suggested the wet period occurred from the mid-1100s to the late 1800s.
Surviving ivories from the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia at Sparta depict birds male and female figures and even a oetree of life or oesacred tree.
whom have presumed that the feast was devoted to Saman the god of the dead...According to the ancient sagas Samhain was the time
Keep Christmas trees watered well don't unattended leave candles and use caution whenever you are on a ladder.
Merrymakers may not see their Christmas tree as potential tinder but from 2009 through 2011 fire departments across the United states responded to an average of 200 blazes yearly that started with the evergreen.
For those buying a live tree the agency recommended picking a fresh one with green needles that don't come off easily.
The tree should be watered often and placed away from fireplaces vents and radiators becuase heat could cause it to dry out quickly.
All holiday lights strung around the tree should be checked for damage such as fraying and bare wires and extension cords should be in good condition CPSC officials said.
And when choosing an artificial tree the agency recommended looking for fire resistant labels and avoiding electric lights for metallic trees.
If Santa is generous this year you might have torn lots of-up wrapping paper to discard but don't throw these scraps in the fireplace.
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011