Herbivory by megaherbivores on woody vegetation in general is well documented; however studies focusing on the individual browsing effects of both mega- and mesoherbivore species on recruitment are scarce. We determined these effects for elephant Loxodonta africana and nyala Tragelaphus angasii in the critically endangered Sand Forest, which is restricted to east southern Africa, and is conserv...

Spatial analyses of ecosystem system services that are directly relevant to both forest management decision making and conservation in the subtropics are rare. Also, frameworks that identify and map carbon stocks and corresponding forest management drivers using available regional, national, and international-level forest inventory datasets could provide insights into key forest structural char...

In previous work we have investigated a framework for distributed temporal plan repair. Using temporal constraints for activities to be executed, we developed a distributed algorithm capable of dealing with temporal changes (disruptions) in these constraints to perform fast plan repair. This framework, however, did not include resource management issues. In this paper, we extend our framework t...

Leaf litter decomposition is the key ecological process that determines the sustainability of managed forest ecosystems, however very few studies hitherto have investigated this process with respect to silvicultural management practices. The aims of the present study were to investigate the effects of forest management practices on leaf litter decomposition rates, nutrient dynamics (C, N, Mg, K...

A wide variety ofsofiware tools are available to s~ipport decision making in the management of ,forest eco.systems. These tools include rfatabase.~, growth and yield models, wildlife models, .silvicultz~ral expert .systems, ,financial models, geogi.aphica1 information systems, and visualization tools. Typically, each of these tools has its own complex inferface and data ,format. To use these to...

The evolution of mod& forest resource management is focusing on ecologically-sensitive forest operations. This shift in management strategies is producing a new set of functional requirements for forest operations. Systems to implement ecosystem management prescriptionsmay need to be economically viable over a wider range of piece sizes, for example. Increasing demands for more efficient fiber ...

Managing natural processes at the landscape scale to promote forest health is important, especially in the case of wildfire, where the ability of a landowner to protect his or her individual parcel is constrained by conditions on neighboring ownerships. However, management at a landscape scale is also challenging because it requires cooperation on plans and actions that cross ownership boundari...