Tree recruitment is a spatially structured process that may undergo change over time because of variation in postdispersal processes. We examined seed pilferage, seed germination, and seedling survival in whitebark pine to determine whether 1) microsite type alters the initial spatial pattern of seed caches, 2) higher abiotic stress (i.e. higher elevations) exacerbates spatial distribution chan...

subalpine ecosystems are highly fragile as compared to biological andenvironmental factors. landslide is one of the ruinous upshots of this ecosystem. one of theimpressionable areas in the cause of natural factor is masoleh watershed in western alborzmt, (iran). in order to landslide hazard zonation, landslide index and frequency ratio methodbased on twelve causative factors such as slope, slop...

How does recent climate warming and climate variability alter fitness, phenotypic selection and evolution in natural populations? We combine biophysical, demographic and evolutionary models with recent climate data to address this question for the subalpine and alpine butterfly, Colias meadii, in the southern Rocky Mountains. We focus on predicting patterns of selection and evolution for a key ...

The snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus) is a habitat specialist with a broad geographic range associated with boreal and subalpine forests in North America (Hall 1981, Hodges 1999a,b). It reaches southern range limits in the Southern Rocky Mountains in northern New Mexico, USA. Here, scant and mostly anecdotal evidence suggests that it is restricted to high-elevation, subalpine conifer forests dom...

Widespread tree mortality caused by outbreaks of native bark beetles (Circulionidae: Scolytinae) in recent decades has raised concern among scientists and forest managers about whether beetle outbreaks fuel more ecologically severe forest fires and impair postfire resilience. To investigate this question, we collected extensive field data following multiple fires that burned subalpine forests i...

Relationships between the flammability properties of a given plant and its chances of survival after a fire still remain unknown. We hypothesize that the bark flammability of a tree reduces the potential for tree survival following surface fires, and that if tree resistance to fire is provided by a thick insulating bark, the latter must be few flammable. We test, on subalpine tree species, the ...

Research on protection forests designed to alleviate rockfall hazard has increased enormously over the last decade. Data are available concerning the most suitable stem spacing and density regimes in stands. The species used in protection forests can also influence enormously the effectiveness of the forest in conferring a protective role. Little information exists, however, about either the me...

Quick biodiversity studies on poorly studied taxa and areas are increasingly popular for setting conservation priorities over a wide range of spatial scales. However, the implementation of such studies is complicated by the variable extent to which the different criteria used in prioritisation are correlated to each other. Using methods of constrained ordination, we examined the specieshabitat ...

The correlation of the distribution of five subalpine and montane tree species with precipitation and temperature were modeled using GIS. The results were compared with data presented by Thompson et al. (2000). Distributions of subalpine fir (Abies concolor), Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmannii), lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta), limber pine (Pinus flexilis) and bristlecone pine (Pinus aristata)...

Diversity and species composition of endophytic fungi on leaves of 11 tree 10 species in Betulaceae were studied, with reference to climatic, tree species, and seasonal 11 variations. A total of 186 fungal isolates were obtained from 190 leaves collected in a 12 subalpine, a cool temperate, and a subtropical forest in Japan and were divided into 46 13 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) accordin...