Abstract Given accelerating trends of deforestation and human population growth, immediate and innovative solutions to conserve biodiversity are sorely needed. Between 1995 and 2010, we regularly monitored the population size and structure of colobus monkey populations in the forest fragments outside of Kibale National Chapter 7 Going, Going, Gone: A 15-Year History of the Decline of Primates i...

The 90,674 wildland fires that burned 2.9 million ha at an estimated suppression cost of $1.6 billion in the United States during the 2000 fire season demonstrated that forest fuel loading has become a hazard to life, property, and ecosystem health as a result of past fire exclusion policies and practices. The fire regime at any given location in these regions is a result of complex interaction...

BACKGROUND Natural forest succession often affects soil physical and chemical properties. Selected physical and chemical soil properties were studied in an old-growth forest across a forest successional series in Dinghushan Nature Reserve, Southern China. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS The aim was to assess the effects of forest succession change on soil properties. Soil samples (0-20 cm dept...

we studied 11 gaps covered with beech saplings (< 1.30 m tall) in a reserve compartment (compartment 139, district one, langa forest, watershed 36: kazemrood) of the caspian beech forest in n iran. two transects, each 2 m wide, were laid along the longest (n-s) and shortest (e-w) axis of each gap. five micro sample plots, each 4 m2, were established: one at the center, and one at each corner. q...

There is limited understanding of the carbon (C) storage capacity and overall ecological structure of oldgrowth forests of western Montana, leaving little ability to evaluate the role of old-growth forests in regional C cycles and ecosystem level C storage capacity. To investigate the difference in C storage between equivalent stands of contrasting age classes and management histories, we surve...

Using wood wastes provides an opportunity to avoid fossil carbon emissions from the combustion of natural gas or other fossil fuels. Using a life-cycle assessment, a new biomass boiler sourced by forest residuals, sawmill residuals, and clean demolition material (CDM) was compared with an existing natural gas boiler for supplying heat to a large-scale district heating system. Potential alternat...

Information about how vegetation composition and structure vary quantitatively and spatially with physical environment, disturbance history, and land ownership is fundamental to regional conservation planning. However, current knowledge about patterns of vegetation variability across large regions that is spatially explicit (i.e., mapped) tends to be general and qualitative. We used spatial pre...

Habitat loss and fragmentation are the leading causes of species' declines and extinctions. A key component of studying population response to habitat alteration is to understand how fragmentation affects population connectivity in disturbed landscapes. We used landscape genetic analyses to determine how habitat fragmentation due to timber harvest affects genetic population connectivity of the ...

The relationship between climate and forest productivity is an intensively studied subject in forest science. This thesis is embedded within the general framework of future forest growth under climate change and its implications for the ongoing forest conversion of pure pine forests into mixed oak-pine forests. My objective is to investigate future forest productivity at different spatial scale...