The Difficulty of Predicting Eastern Spruce Dwarf Mistletoe in Lowland Black Spruce: Model Benchmarking in Northern Minnesota, USA

Quantifying Variability in the Alaskan Black Spruce

Effects of permafrost melting on CO2 and CH4 exchange of a poorly drained black spruce lowland

[1] Permafrost melting is occurring in areas of the boreal forest region where large amounts of carbon (C) are stored in organic soils. We measured soil respiration, net CO2 flux, and net CH4 flux during May–September 2003 and March 2004 in a black spruce lowland in interior Alaska to better understand how permafrost thaw in poorly drained landscapes affects land-atmosphere CO2 and CH4 exchange...

Availability of Ectomycorrhizal Fungi to Black Spruce above the Present Treeline in Eastern Labrador

Ectomycorrhizal fungi (ECMF) are an important biotic factor in the survival of conifer seedlings under stressful conditions and therefore have the potential to facilitate conifer establishment into alpine and tundra habitats. In order to assess patterns of ectomycorrhizal availability and community structure above treeline, we conducted soil bioassays in which Picea mariana (black spruce) seedl...

Reflectance of Alaskan black spruce and white spruce foliage in relation to elevation and latitude.

Leaf reflectance at visible and near-infrared wavelengths (400-1000 nm) is related primarily to pigmentation, leaf structure and water content, and is an important tool for studying stress physiology and relationships between plants and their growth environment. We studied reflectance of two co-occurring Alaskan conifers, black spruce (Picea mariana (Mill.) BSP) and white spruce (Picea glauca (...

High-resolution transcript profiling reveals shoot abscission process of spruce dwarf mistletoe Arceuthobium sichuanense in response to ethephon

Arceuthobium (dwarf mistletoes) are hemiparasites that may cause great damage to infected trees belonging to Pinaceae and Cupressaceae. Currently, dwarf mistletoe control involves the use of the ethylene-producing product ethephon (ETH), which acts by inducing dwarf mistletoe shoot abscission. However, the process by which ETH functions is mostly unknown. Therefore, the transcriptome of the ETH...