Background Japanese pine trees have been severely damaged by the pine wilt diseases, and hardly been keeping the productive forest in Japan. The pine wood nematode,Bursaphelenchus xylophilus, is a virulent pathogen in Japan, while it is originated and is an endemic one in the United State [1]. The diseases have now been spread not only in East Asia but also in a part of Europe. The Japanese Gov...

Isozymes of female gametophyte tissue were analyzed for allelic variation in knobcone, lodgepole, loblolly, Jeffrey, and sugar pines and in Douglas-fir. Linkage was studied in the five pines. The average number of alleles and average herozygosity per enzyme locus were estimated. Knobcone pine ranked lowest among the six species in number of alleles and average heterozygosity; loblolly pine and ...

1. Given sexual size dimorphism, differential mortality owing to body size can lead to sex-biased mortality, proximately biasing sex ratios. This mechanism may apply to mountain pine beetles, Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins, which typically have female-biased adult populations (2 : 1) with females larger than males. Smaller males could be more susceptible to stresses than larger females as deve...

A distributed water balance model is used to simulate the soil moisture regime of the Motueka catchment. The model is a major simplification of the Distributed HydrologyeVegetationeSoil Model (DHVSM) with modifications suitable for the study area. The model was applied at 25-m resolution with a 1-day time-step for 10 years. The simulated hydrograph showed good correspondence with the observed h...

On 26 May 2003, intense rainfall from a series of thunderstorms in eastern North Carolina caused flooding that eventually destroyed the concrete dam in Hope Mills, draining Hope Mills Lake, and revealing a formerly submerged and buried structure that was identified as a timber crib dam. Inspection revealed these logs to be old-growth longleaf pines, which are now rare on the coastal plain lands...

We evaluated the efÞcacy of the systemic insecticides dinotefuran, emamectin benzoate, Þpronil, and imidacloprid for preventing attacks and brood production of southern pine engraver beetles (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae) and wood borers (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) on standing, stressed trees and bolt sections of loblolly pine, Pinus taeda L., in eastern Texas. Emamectinbenzoate signiÞc...

Pre-commercial thinning is a thinning method performed prior to trees reaching merchantable size, typically around 4.5 inches dbh (diameter at breast height measured at 4.5 ft. above the ground). The objective of a pre-commercial thinning is to release some trees in overstocked stands by reducing densities to prevent stagnation and increase the growth of the remaining trees. Many southern pine ...

Global warming is posing a threat to the health and condition of forests as the amount and length of biotic and abiotic disturbances increase. Most methods for detecting disturbances and measuring forest health are based on multiand hyperspectral imaging. We conducted a test with spruce and pine trees using a hyperspectral Lidar instrument in a laboratory to determine the capability of combined...

Although elevated atmospheric CO2 has been shown to increase growth of tree seedlings and saplings, the response of intact forest ecosystems and established trees is unclear. We report results from the ®rst large-scale experimental system designed to study the effects of elevated CO2 on an intact forest with the full complement of species interactions and environmental stresses. During the ®rst...

Mature trees of eastern white, jack, Scotch, and shortleaf pines were inoculated with 25,000-34,000 pinewood nematodes, Bursaphelenchus xylophilus, isolated from infected Scotch pines in Missouri. Equal numbers of trees of each species inoculated with distilled water served as controls. Nine of fifteen Scotch pines died within 4 months of nematode infection or during the winter and early spring...