The probability of landscape-scale disturbances such as fire are expected to increase in the future due to anticipated climate changes and past land management practices. These disturbances can produce dramatic changes in hydrologic responses (e.g. overland flow) that can pose risks to human life, infrastructure, and the environment. Assessing these risks and associated remediation strategies r...

In tropical countries, upland forests, mid-elevation and lowland agriculture and coastal zones used to provide most if not all of the goods and services that local populations relied on for their livelihood. The forests provided necessary building materials as well as supplies for boat construction, and a host of food products and medicinal plants. The lowland areas provided all agricultural st...

Mountainous rangeland ecosystems have a highly delicate position in ecologic areabecause of severe environmental conditions and having wildlife and livestock. Knowing andrealizing the biotic and abiotic components, which have an interaction with each other in thisecosystem, perform the most important role in to desirable management of it. The systematicmanagement is one of the managing features...

Soil erosion is one of the vital factors contributing to the loss of fertility and environmental degradation. Generally accepted diagnostics of eroded soils is based on comparison of the sloping soils profile depth with the watershed soils. In this case, there is a separate problem of slope soils with a naturally shortened profile and eroded soils. Formation of the soil’s natura...

We compared small mammal communities between riparian (stream corridor) and nearby upland habitats in a hardwood forest ecosystem on Fort A.P. Hill, Caroline County, Virginia. We used a combination of small-scale drift fence/pitfall trap arrays and snap traps to capture small mammals during April October 1998, with an additional winter sample in January 1999. We captured seven small mammal spec...

Significant advances in upland erosion modeling have been achieved in the past decade. The TREX (Two-dimensional Runoff, Erosion, and Export) watershed model has been developed at Colorado State University for the simulation of surface runoff from spatially and temporally distributed rainstorms on watersheds. The model has been applied in several countries with different climatic conditions. TR...

Livestock grazing can be used as a key management tool for maintaining healthy ecosystems. However, the effectiveness of using grazing to modify habitat for species of conservation concern depends on how the grazing regime is implemented. Timing of grazing is one grazing regime component that is less understood than grazing intensity and grazer identity, but is predicted to have important impli...

The tidal marshes of North America are home to a diverse collection of morphologically differentiated reptiles, birds, and mammals. We reviewed the existing molecular studies on endemic tidal-marsh vertebrates, including turtles, snakes, sparrows, rails, shrews, and rodents. We found both deep and shallow divergences from their nearest upland relatives in all geographic regions. In the Northeas...