The Appalachian region of USA hosts diverse forests and abundant high-quality coal reserves. Surface mining methods are often used for coal extraction. Because common reclamation methods in past years have not restored forest vegetation, surface mining has created a diverse land base. Although some mined lands have been placed into managed uses, most have not. Little is known about the extent a...

Abstract. Rangeland vegetation dynamics encompass all processes of changes in vegetation composition and structure over time. Investigating the rangeland ecosystem dynamics makes it possible to determine the effects of climatic and management conditions on qualitative and quantitative changes of the vegetation in a specific period of time. Accordingly, data collection and measurements for evalu...

In the United States, many state and federally funded conservation programs are required to quantify the water quality benefits resulting from their efforts. The objective of this research was to evaluate the impact of conservation practices subsidized by the Oklahoma Conservation Commission on phosphorus and sediment loads to Lake Wister. Conservation practices designed to increase vegetative ...

Exclusion and not using of rangeland in the long term affects the composition and homogeneity of vegetation and consequently leads to the improvement of plants status. In this study, the characteristics and structural changes of the rangeland of Gonbad, Hamadan province, Iran, in 2014 (after 20 years of enclosure) were evaluated using Braun-Blanquet plot, Phytosociology and multivariate analysi...

The New England cottontail (Sylvilagus transitionalis) is a high conservation priority in the Northeastern United States and has been listed as a candidate species under the Endangered Species Act. Loss of early successional habitat is the most common explanation for the decline of the species, which is considered to require habitat with dense low vegetation and limited overstory tree canopy. F...

There is less published research on ecosystems of forested rangeland in Iran. This research was conducted to investigate the forested rangeland area based on legal definition via comparison of indices species richness, diversity, and morphology of the trees and shrubs in Sabzkouh watershed, Chaharmahal Bakhtiari province, Iran. Quantitative characteristics of trees and shrubs were measured by 5...

Estimation of evapotranspiration (ET) is important for monitoring crop water stress and for developing decision support systems for irrigation scheduling. Techniques to estimate ET have been available for many years, while more recently remote sensing data have extended ET into a spatially distributed context. However, remote sensing data cannot be easily used in decision systems if they are no...

We examined the effects of shade from multiple kelp canopy layers (surface Macrocystis pyrifera canopy, understory Pterygophora californica canopy), both individually and in combination, on an understory algal assemblage in a central Californian kelp forest. The removal of both kelp canopies resulted in a dense recruitment of the understory brown alga Desmarestia ligulata that formed a third ca...