Establishment and maintenance of pitch pine/hardwood ecosystems in the southern Appalachians depends on intense wildfiie. These ecosystems typically have a substantial evergreen shrub component (Kalmia latifolia) which limits regeneration of future overstory species. Wildfires provide microsite conditions conducive to pine regeneration and reduce Kalmia competition. R e c e n t d r o u g h t s ...

Chaparral shrublands burn in large high-intensity crown fires. Managers interested in how these wildfires affect ecosystem processes generally rely on surrogate measures of fire intensity known as fire severity metrics. In shrublands burned in the autumn of 2003, a study of 250 sites investigated factors determining fire severity and ecosystem responses. Using structural equation modeling we sh...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Rhamnus alaternus is a Mediterranean shrub commonly used in reforestation programs. Although several aspects of its reproductive biology have been studied, little is known about the importance of the different recruitment stages in the overall regeneration process of this species, which limits its proper use in Mediterranean forests and shrubland management. The aim of the p...

Gray wolves (Canis lupus) were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park in 1995–96, thus completing the park’s large predator guild. In the fall of 2010, approximately 15 years after wolf reintroduction, we sampled ten genera/species of berry-producing shrubs within 97 aspen (Populus tremuloides) stands in the park’s northern ungulate winter range. Regression analysis indicated shrub heights...

Nitrogen (N)-fixing species have a function to enrich N in soil. Mixing N-fixing shrub species into poplar stands can be assumed as a measure to increase productivity while improving soil fertility. To verify this assumption and to understand the temporal influences of N-fixing shrub species mixed into poplar plantations on soil fertility, we investigated selected soil chemical and microbial pr...

An indigenous species coastal planting trial was established at Ohiwa Spit, eastern Bay of Plenty in mid-2005 by the the Ohiwa Beach Coast Care group, Whakatohea Trust, Environment Bay of Plenty and Opotiki District Council. The aim of the trial was to evaluate the performance of a range of local indigenous ground cover and shrub species planted within three demarcated zones on a relatively sta...

Forest fragmentation results in a loss of forest interior and an increase in edge habitat. We studied how understorey bird community composition and habitat variables changed along an edge-to-interior gradient in a 1248-ha lowland rainforest patch in peninsular Malaysia. Birds and environmental variables such as vegetation structure and litter depth were detected within a 25-m radius of each of...

Questions Rhododendron ponticum subsp. baeticum is an invasive shrub of growing concern in continental Europe, but little known about its impact on native plant communities. Here we ask: do environmental conditions differ between forest stands invaded by it and uninvaded stands? Do these differences correlate with R. ponticum's cover? Are associated taxonomic functional diversity vascular speci...

planting shrub seedlings under oil mulches has frequently been used for stabilizing mobile sands in iran for during the last three decades. sandy desert of samad abad, sarakhs, northeast iran, has been fixed by cultivating seedling of haloxylon aphyllum under the oil mulches. therefore this study was designed to investigate the effects of the sand fixation project on soil and vegetation propert...