Mixed-Conifer Management

Understory shrubs play important ecological roles in forests of the western US, but they can also impede early tree growth and lead to fire hazard concerns when very dense. Some of the more common genera (Ceanothus, Arctostaphylos, and Prunus) persist for long periods in the seed bank, even in areas where plants have been shaded out.

Background. In forests subject to stand-replacing disturbances, conventional models of succession typically overlook early-seral stages as a simple re- organization/establishment period.

Tree invasions have been documented throughout Northern Hemisphere high elevation meadows, as well as globally in many grass and forb-dominated ecosystems.

Aims Postfire logging recoups the economic value of timber killed by wildfire, but whether such forest management activity supports or impedes forest recovery in stands differing in structure from historic conditions remains unclear.

Previous studies have debated the flammability of young regenerating stands, especially those in a matrix of mature forest, and no consensus has emerged as to whether young stands are inherently prone to high severity wildfire.

A methodological framework is provided for the quantification of climate change effects on site index. Spatio-temporal predictions of site index are derived for six major tree species in the German state of Baden-Württemberg using simplified universal kriging (UK) based on large data sets from forest inventories and a climate sensitive site-index model.

Management efforts to promote forest resiliency as climate changes have often used historical forest structure and composition to provide general guidance for fuels reduction and forest restoration treatments.

Healthy trees are beneficial to our environment and our property values - but how do we determine if a tree is healthy? This publication briefly discusses common tree health problems and outlines a procedure for assessing tree conditions and getting diagnoses and recommendations from tree health professionals.

Many scientists and forest land managers concur that past fire suppression, grazing, and timber harvesting practices have created unnatural and unhealthy conditions in the dry, ponderosa pine forests of the western United States. Specifically, such forests are said to carry higher fuel loads and experience fires that are more severe than those that occurred historically.

Active 20th century fire suppression in western US forests, and a resulting increase in stem density, is thought to account for a significant fraction of the NorthAmerican carbon sink. We compared California forest inventories from the 1930s with inventories from the 1990s to quantify changes in aboveground biomass.