ALBERT

Description: Timber harvest can adversely affect forest biota. Recent research and application suggest that retention of mature forest elements (‘retention forestry’), including unharvested patches (or ‘aggregates’) within larger harvested units, can benefit biodiversity compared to clearcutting. However, it is unclear whether these benefits can be generalized among the diverse taxa and biomes in which retention forestry is practiced. Lack of comparability in methods for sampling and analysing responses to timber harvest and edge creation presents a challenge to synthesis. We used a consistent methodology (similarly spaced plots or traps along transects) to investigate responses of vascular plants and ground-active beetles to aggregated retention at replicate sites in each of four temperate and boreal forest types on three continents: Douglas-fir forests in Washington, USA; aspen forests in Minnesota, USA; spruce forests in Sweden; and wet eucalypt forests in Tasmania, Australia. We assessed (i) differences in local (plot-scale) species richness and composition between mature (intact) and regenerating (previously harvested) forest; (ii) the lifeboating function of aggregates (capacity to retain species of unharvested forest); and whether intact forests and aggregates (iii) are susceptible to edge effects and (iv) influence the adjacent regenerating forest. Intact and harvested forests differed in composition but not richness of plants and beetles. The magnitude of this difference was generally similar among regions, but there was considerable heterogeneity of composition within and among replicate sites. Aggregates within harvest units were effective at lifeboating for both plant and beetle communities. Edge effects were uncommon even within the aggregates. In contrast, effects of forest influence on adjacent harvested areas were common and as strong for aggregates as for larger blocks of intact forest. Our results provide strong support for the widespread application of aggregated retention in boreal and temperate forests. The consistency of pattern in four very different regions of the world suggests that, for forest plants and beetles, responses to aggregated retention are likely to apply more widely. Our results suggest that through strategic placement of aggregates, it is possible to maintain the natural heterogeneity and biodiversity of mature forests managed for multiple objectives. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Forest policymakers and managers have long sought ways to evaluate the capability of forest landscapes to jointly produce timber, habitat, and other ecosystem services in response to forest management. Currently, carbon is of particular interest as policies for increasing carbon storage on federal lands are being proposed. However, a challenge in joint production analysis of forest management is adequately representing ecological conditions and processes that influence joint production relationships. We used simulation models of vegetation structure, forest sector carbon, and potential wildlife habitat to characterize landscape-level joint production possibilities for carbon storage, timber harvest, and habitat for seven wildlife species across a range of forest management regimes. We sought to: (1) characterize the general relationships of production possibilities for combinations of carbon storage, timber, and habitat; and (2) identify management variables that most influence joint production relationships. Our 160,000-ha study landscape featured environmental conditions typical of forests in the western Cascade Mountains of Oregon (US). Our results indicate that managing forests for carbon storage involves tradeoffs among timber harvest and habitat for focal wildlife species, depending on the disturbance interval and utilization intensity followed. Joint production possibilities for wildlife species varied in shape, ranging from competitive to complementary to compound, reflecting niche breadth and habitat component needs of species examined. Managing Pacific Northwest forests to store forest sector carbon can be roughly complementary with habitat for Northern Spotted Owl, Olive-sided Flycatcher, and Red Tree Vole. However, managing forests to increase carbon storage potentially can be competitive with timber production and habitat for Pacific Marten, Pileated Woodpecker, and Western Bluebird, depending on the disturbance interval and harvest intensity chosen. Our analysis suggest that joint production possibilities under forest management regimes currently typical on industrial forest lands (e.g., 40- to 80-year rotations with some tree retention for wildlife) represent but a small fraction of joint production outcomes possible in the region. Although the theoretical boundaries of the production possibilities sets we developed are probably unachievable in the current management environment, they arguably define the long-term potential of managing forests to produce multiple ecosystem services within and across multiple forest ownerships. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: In dry mixed‐conifer forests of central Oregon 100+ years of fire suppression has led to more crowded forests, increased competition and greater drought‐sensitivity despite repeated defoliation events by Pandora moth. Across this period, drought stress increased and precluded benefits of rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations where stand basal area at the initiation of fire suppression exceeded 25 m2/ha or leaf area index exceeded 2.3 m2/m−2. Therefore, greater resilience of dry mixed‐conifer could be obtained by managing landscapes to promote conditions that are more open compared to these threshold values. Abstract A century of fire suppression across the Western United States has led to more crowded forests and increased competition for resources. Studies of forest thinning or stand conditions after mortality events have provided indirect evidence for how competition can promote drought stress and predispose forests to severe fire and/or bark beetle outbreaks. Here, we demonstrate linkages between fire deficits and increasing drought stress through analyses of annually resolved tree‐ring growth, fire scars, and carbon isotope discrimination (Δ13C) across a dry mixed‐conifer forest landscape. Fire deficits across the study area have increased the sensitivity of leaf gas exchange to drought stress over the past 〉100 years. Since 1910, stand basal area in these forests has more than doubled and fire‐return intervals have increased from 25 to 140 years. Meanwhile, the portion of interannual variation in tree‐ring Δ13C explained by the Palmer Drought Severity Index has more than doubled in ca. 300–500‐year‐old Pinus ponderosa as well as in fire‐intolerant, ca. 90–190‐year‐old Abies grandis. Drought stress has increased in stands with a basal area of ≥25 m2/ha in 1910, as indicated by negative temporal Δ13C trends, whereas stands with basal area ≤25 m2/ha in 1910, due to frequent or intense wildfire activity in decades beforehand, were initially buffered from increased drought stress and have benefited more from rising ambient carbon dioxide concentrations, [CO2], as demonstrated by positive temporal Δ13C trends. Furthermore, the average Δ13C response across all P. ponderosa since 1830 indicates that photosynthetic assimilation rates and stomatal conductance have been reduced by ~10% and ~20%, respectively, compared to expected trends due to increasing [CO2]. Although disturbance legacies contribute to local‐scale intensity of drought stress, fire deficits have reduced drought resistance of mixed‐conifer forests and made them more susceptible to challenges by pests and pathogens and other disturbances.

Description: Longitudinal analyses are crucial for understanding long-term processes such as development and behavioral rhythms. For a complete understanding of such processes, both organism-level observations as well as single-cell observations are necessary. Sleep is an example for a long-term process that is under developmental control. This behavioral state is induced by conserved sleep-active neurons, but little is known about how sleep neurons control the physiology of an animal systemically. In the nematode C. elegans , sleep induction crucially requires the single RIS interneuron to actively induce a developmentally regulated sleep behavior. Here, we used RIS-induced sleep as an example of how longitudinal analyses can be automated. We developed methods to analyze both behavior and neural activity in larva across the sleep-wake cycle. To image behavior, we used an improved DIC contrast to extract the head and detect the nose. To image neural activity, we used GCaMP3 expression in a small number of neurons including RIS combined with a neuron discrimination algorithm. Thus, we present a comprehensive platform for automatically analyzing behavior and neural activity in C. elegans exemplified by using RIS-induced sleep during C. elegans development. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Hydrothermal reaction of cadmium nitrate and the conformationally flexible dipyridine 3-pyridylnicotinamide (3-pna) with a substituted succinic acid derivative afforded a pair of crystalline coordination polymers, whose dimensionality depends critically on the number of 2-position methyl groups on the acid precursor. The two new crystalline extended metal-organic solids were structurally characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. {[Cd(msuc)(3-pna)] · 2H 2 O} n ( 1 ) (msuc = 2-methylsuccinate) manifests [Cd(msuc)] n layer motifs that contain {Cd 2 (OCO) 2 } dimeric units, linked into a non-interpenetrated 3D 6-connected pcu network by tethering anti -conformation 3-pna ligands. {[Cd 2 (dmsuc) 2 (3-pna) 2 ] · 1.5H 2 O} n ( 2 ) (dmsuc = 2,2-dimethylsuccinate) shows 1D [Cd(dmsuc)] n ribbons containing {Cd 2 O 2 } dimeric units. In turn these are connected into 2D [Cd 2 (dmsuc) 2 (3-pna) 2 ] n layer motifs via anti -conformation 3-pna linkers; the layers are decorated by pendant monodentate 3-pna ligands. The subtle steric variance alters the supramolecular environment for co-crystallized water molecule tetramers, with a discrete chain seen in 1 and a cyclic ring in 2 . Thermal and luminescent properties of these two new materials are also presented.

Description: Wildfires pose a unique challenge to conservation in fire-prone regions, yet few studies quantify the cumulative effects of wildfires on forest dynamics (i.e. changes in structural conditions) across landscape and regional scales. We assessed the contribution of wildfire to forest dynamics in the eastern Cascade Mountains, USA from 1985 to 2010 using imputed maps of forest structure (i.e. tree size and canopy cover) and remotely-sensed burn severity maps. We addressed three questions: (1) How do dynamics differ between the region as a whole and the unburned portion of the region?, (2) How do dynamics vary among vegetation zones differing in biophysical setting and historical fire frequency?, (3) How have forest structural conditions changed in a network of late successional reserves (LSRs)? Wildfires affected 10% of forests in the region, but the cumulative effects at this scale were primarily slight losses of closed-canopy conditions and slight gains in open-canopy conditions. In the unburned portion of the region (the remaining 90%), closed-canopy conditions primarily increased despite other concurrent disturbances (e.g. harvest, insects). Although the effects of fire were largely dampened at the regional scale, landscape scale dynamics were far more variable. The warm ponderosa pine and cool mixed conifer zones experienced less fire than the region as a whole despite experiencing the most frequent fire historically. Open-canopy conditions increased slightly in the mixed conifer zone, but declined across the ponderosa pine zone even with wildfires. Wildfires burned 30% of the cold subalpine zone, which experienced the greatest increase in open-canopy conditions and losses of closed-canopy conditions. LSRs were more prone to wildfire than the region as a whole, and experienced slight declines in late seral conditions. Despite losses of late seral conditions, wildfires contributed to some conservation objectives by creating open habitats (e.g. sparse early seral and woodland conditions) that otherwise generally decreased in unburned landscapes despite management efforts to increase landscape diversity. This study demonstrates the potential for wildfires to contribute to regional scale conservation objectives, but implications for management and biodiversity at landscape scales vary geographically among biophysical settings, and are contingent upon historical dynamics and individual species habitat preferences. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: While advances in remote sensing have made stand, landscape, and regional assessments of the direct impacts of disturbance on forests quite common, the edge influence of timber harvesting on the structure of neighboring unharvested forests has not been examined extensively. In this study, we examine the impact of historical timber harvests on basal area patterns of neighboring old-growth forests to assess the magnitude and scale of harvest edge influence in a forest landscape of western Oregon, USA. We used lidar data and forest plot measurements to construct 30-m resolution live tree basal area maps in lower and middle elevation mature and old-growth forests. We assessed how edge influence on total, upper canopy, and lower canopy basal area varied across this forest landscape as a function of harvest characteristics (i.e., harvest size and age) and topographic conditions in the unharvested area. Upper canopy, lower canopy, and total basal area increased with distance from harvest edge and elevation. Forests within 75 m of harvest edges (20% of unharvested forests) had 4% to 6% less live tree basal area compared with forest interiors. An interaction between distance from harvest edge and elevation indicated that elevation altered edge influence in this landscape. We observed a positive edge influence at low elevations (〈800 m) and a negative edge influence at moderate to high elevations (〉800 m). Surprisingly, we found no or weak effects of harvest age (13 to 60 years) and harvest area (0.2 to 110 ha) on surrounding unharvested forest basal area, implying that edge influence was relatively insensitive to the scale of disturbance and multi-decadal recovery processes. Our study indicates that the edge influence of past clearcutting on the structure of neighboring uncut old-growth forests is widespread and persistent. These indirect and diffuse legacies of historical timber harvests complicate forest management decision-making in old-growth forest landscapes by broadening the traditional view of stand boundaries. Furthermore, the consequences of forest harvesting may reach across ownership boundaries, highlighting complex governance issues surrounding landscape management of old-growth forests. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Fire is an important disturbance in many forest landscapes, but there is heightened concern regarding recent wildfire activity in western North America. Several regional-scale studies focus on high-severity fire, but a comprehensive examination at all levels of burn severity (i.e., low, moderate, and high) is needed to inform our understanding of the ecological effects of contemporary fires and how they vary among vegetation zones at sub-regional scales. We integrate Landsat time series data with field measurements of tree mortality to map burn severity in forests of the Pacific Northwest, USA, from 1985 to 2010. We then examine temporal trends in fire extent and spatial patterns of burn severity in relation to drought and annual fire extent. Finally, we compare results among vegetation zones and with expectations based on studies of historical landscape dynamics and fire regimes. Small increases in fire extent over time were associated with drought in all vegetation zones, but fire cumulatively affected 〈3% of wet vegetation zones, and most dry vegetation zones experienced less fire than expectations from fire history studies. Although the proportion of fire at any level of severity did not increase over time, temporal trends toward larger patches of high-severity fire were related to drought and annual fire extent, depending on vegetation zone. In vegetation zones with historically high-severity regimes, high-severity fire accounted for a large proportion of recent fire extent (43–48%) and occurred primarily in patches ≥100 ha. In vegetation zones with historically low- and mixed-severity regimes, low (45–54%)- and moderate-severity (24–36%) fires were prevalent, but proportions of high-severity fire (23–26%), almost half of which occurred in patches ≥100 ha, were much greater than expectations from most fire history studies. Our results support concerns about large patches of high-severity fire in some dry forests but also suggest that spatial patterns of burn severity across much of the extent burned are generally consistent with current understanding of historical landscape dynamics in the region. This study highlights the importance of considering the ecological effects of fire at all levels of severity in management and policy initiatives intended to promote forest biodiversity and resilience to future fire activity.

Description: Twentieth-century land management has altered the structure and composition of mixed-conifer forests and decreased their resilience to fire, drought, and insects in many parts of the Interior West. These forests occur across a wide range of environmental settings and historical disturbance regimes, so their response to land management is likely to vary across landscapes and among ecoregions. However, this variation has not been well characterized and hampers the development of appropriate management and restoration plans. We identified mixed-conifer types in central Oregon based on historical structure and composition, and successional trajectories following recent changes in land use, and evaluated how these types were distributed across environmental gradients. We used field data from 171 sites sampled across a range of environmental settings in two subregions: the eastern Cascades and the Ochoco Mountains. We identified four forest types in the eastern Cascades and four analogous types with lower densities in the Ochoco Mountains. All types historically contained ponderosa pine, but differed in the historical and modern proportions of shade-tolerant vs. shade-intolerant tree species. The Persistent Ponderosa Pine and Recent Douglas-fir types occupied relatively hot?dry environments compared to Recent Grand Fir and Persistent Shade Tolerant sites, which occupied warm?moist and cold?wet environments, respectively. Twentieth-century selective harvesting halved the density of large trees, with some variation among forest types. In contrast, the density of small trees doubled or tripled early in the 20th century, probably due to land-use change and a relatively cool, wet climate. Contrary to the common perception that dry ponderosa pine forests are the most highly departed from historical conditions, we found a greater departure in the modern composition of small trees in warm?moist environments than in either hot?dry or cold?wet environments. Furthermore, shade-tolerant trees began infilling earlier in cold?wet than in hot?dry environments and also in topographically shaded sites in the Ochoco Mountains. Our new classification could be used to prioritize management that seeks to restore structure and composition or create resilience in mixed-conifer forests of the region. # doi:10.1890/13-1585.1

Description: Disturbances are key drivers of forest ecosystem dynamics, and forests are well adapted to their natural disturbance regimes. However, as a result of climate change, disturbance frequency is expected to increase in the future in many regions. It is not yet clear how such changes might affect forest ecosystems, and which mechanisms contribute to (current and future) disturbance resilience. We studied a 6364-ha landscape in the western Cascades of Oregon, USA, to investigate how patches of remnant old-growth trees (as one important class of biological legacies) affect the resilience of forest ecosystems to disturbance. Using the spatially explicit, individual-based, forest landscape model iLand, we analyzed the effect of three different levels of remnant patches (0%, 12%, and 24% of the landscape) on 500-year recovery trajectories after a large, high-severity wildfire. In addition, we evaluated how three different levels of fire frequency modulate the effects of initial legacies. We found that remnant live trees enhanced the recovery of total ecosystem carbon (TEC) stocks after disturbance, increased structural complexity of forest canopies, and facilitated the recolonization of late-seral species (LSS). Legacy effects were most persistent for indicators of species composition (still significant 500 years after disturbance), while TEC (i.e., a measure of ecosystem functioning) was least affected, with no significant differences among legacy scenarios after 236 years. Compounding disturbances were found to dampen legacy effects on all indicators, and higher initial legacy levels resulted in elevated fire severity in the second half of the study period. Overall, disturbance frequency had a stronger effect on ecosystem properties than the initial level of remnant old-growth trees. A doubling of the historically observed fire frequency to a mean fire return interval of 131 years reduced TEC by 10.5% and lowered the presence of LSS on the landscape by 18.1% on average, demonstrating that an increase in disturbance frequency (a potential climate change effect) may considerably alter the structure, composition, and functioning of forest landscapes. Our results indicate that live tree legacies are an important component of disturbance resilience, underlining the potential of retention forestry to address challenges in ecosystem management. # doi:10.1890/14-0255.1