In 1996, nine federal agencies with mandates to inventory and manage the nation's land, water, and biological resources signed a memorandum of understanding entitled "Developing a Spatial Framework of Ecological Units of The United States." This spatial framework is the basis for interagency coordination and collaboration in the development of ecosystem management strategies. One of the objecti...

Mark S. Sisterson and Jianchi Chen, United States Department of Agriculture–Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS), San Joaquin Valley Agricultural Sciences Center, Parlier, CA 93611; Mario A. Viveros, University of California Cooperative Extension, Bakersfield 93307; Edwin L. Civerolo and Craig Ledbetter, USDA-ARS, San Joaquin Valley Agricultural Sciences Center; and Russell L. Groves, Depar...

a USDA Forest Service, Southern Research Station, P.O. Box 12254, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-2254, USA b USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station, 160 Holdsworth Way, Amherst, MA 01003-9285, USA c Department of Environmental Conservation, University of Massachusetts, 160 Holdsworth Way, Amherst, MA 01003-9285, USA d Family Forest Research Center, University of Massachusetts, 160 Hol...

College of Forest Resources, University of Washington, Box 352100, Seattle, WA 98195, United States USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station, 1992 Folwell Ave., St. Paul, MN 55108, United States c School of Forest Resources, Penn State University, 203 Forest Resources Bldg., University Park, PA 16802, United States Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of ...

When I request a memory from 2012 to dairy farmers, almost unanimously they respond “drought stress.” According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA, 2013), the spring and summer drought of 2012 will be remembered as one of the “worst agricultural calamities” in the United States (USDA, 2013). The drought of 2012 reduced the national corn grain and silage yields by 16.2 and 16.3%, respecti...

The introduction of alien species, which are also called exotic or non-native species, can cause a decrease in biotic similarity among areas when different species are introduced to each area and remain localized, a process called biotic differentiation (Olden & Poff, 2003; Qian et al., 2008). However, over time, alien species often spread widely and cause an increase in biotic similarity among...

Dongping Wang,1 Mingsheng Qi,1 Bernarda Calla,1 Schuyler S. Korban,2 Steven J. Clough,1,3 Peter J. A. Cock,4 George W. Sundin,5 Ian Toth,4 and Youfu Zhao1 Department of Crop Sciences, Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, U.S.A.; USDA Agricultural Research Service, Urbana, IL 61801, U.S.A.; Cellular and Molecular...

W E I Z H E N G , * , † , ‡ S C O T T R . Y A T E S , ‡ S H A R O N K . P A P I E R N I K , § A N D M I N G X I N G U O † , ‡ Department of Environmental Sciences, University of California, Riverside, California 92521, USDA-ARS, Soil Physics and Pesticides Research Unit, George E. Brown Jr. Salinity Laboratory, Riverside, California 92507, and USDA-ARS, North Central Soil Conservation Research ...

Nonresponse caused by denied access and hazardous conditions are a concern for the USDA Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program, whose mission is to quantify status and trends in forest resources across the USA. Any appreciable amount of nonresponse can cause bias in FIA's estimates of population parameters. This paper will quantify the magnitude of nonresponse and describe ...

Promoting rural wealth creation in the United States is a high priority of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and of a growing number of rural development organizations. Secretary Vilsack argued in 2009 that USDA “must help rural communities create wealth so they are self-sustaining, repopulating and thriving economically”, and this is one of the four goals of USDA’s current strategic pl...