While current projections of future climate change associated with increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases have a high degree of uncertainty, the potential effects of climate change on forests are of increasing concern. A number of studies based on forest simulation models predict substantial alteration of forest composition, forest dieback, or even loss of forest cover in response to increas...

We present the idea of using potential infringements on annual allowable harvest targets as an approach to estimate threats from invasive species to the forest products sector. The approach uses present-day harvest levels as a reference level to estimate when and where the impact of a nonnative forest pest could become economically damaging. We use a generic model that simulates spread and dama...

1. Range expansions mediated by recent climate warming have been documented for many insect species, including some important forest pests. However, whether climate change also influences the eruptive dynamics of forest pest insects, and hence the ecological and economical consequences of outbreaks, is largely unresolved. 2. Using historical outbreak records covering more than a century, we doc...

Patterns in food-web structure have frequently been examined in static food webs, but few studies have attempted to delineate patterns that materialize in food webs under nonequilibrium conditions. Here, using one of nature's classical nonequilibrium systems as the food-web database, we test the major assumptions of recent advances in food-web theory. We show that a complex web of interactions ...

Climate change is a global and local challenge to both sustainable livelihoods and economic development. Tanzania as other countries of the world has been affected. Several studies have been conducted on farmers' perceptions and adaptation to climate change in the country, but little attention has been devoted to forest adjacent households in humid areas. This study assessed this gap through as...

Land cover types of Hustai National Park (HNP) in Mongolia, a hotspot area with rare species, were classified and their temporal changes were evaluated using Landsat MSS TM/ETM data between 1994 and 2000. Maximum-likelihood classification analysis showed an overall accuracy of 88.0% and 85.0% for the 1994 and 2000 images, respectively. Kappa coefficients associated with the classification were ...

There has been a significant increase in the establishment of forestry plantation species in Indonesia over the last decade and it appears that this is likely to continue as the native forest resource rapidly dwindles. The future success of these monocultures will be dependent upon future breeding programs that not only select for yield and form, but more importantly a high level of resistance ...

Recruitment algorithms in forest gap models are examined with particular regard to their suitability for simulating forest ecosystem responses to a changing climate. The traditional formulation of recruitment is found limiting in three areas. First, the aggregation of different regeneration stages (seed production, dispersal, storage, germination and seedling establishment) is likely to result ...

Forest genetic sustainability is an important component of forest health because genetic diversity and evolutionary processes allow for the adaptation of species and for the maintenance of ecosystem functionality and resilience. Phylogenetic community analyses, a set of new statistical methods for describing the evolutionary relationships among species, offer an innovative approach for assessin...

A raging inferno consumed more than 160,000 acres of national forest north of Los Angeles earlier this month, causing extensive property damage and killing two firefighters before it was eventually snuffed. Fighting these so-called megafires that burn on public lands is the purview of the National Forest Service, and on August 14 th , Tom Vilsack, the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture,...