The tropical deforestation literature advocates multi-agent enquiry in recognition that key dynamics arise from inter-agent interactions. Studies of tropical forest-cover gain have lagged in this respect. This article explores the roles and key aspects of interactions shaping natural forest regeneration and active reforestation in Eastern Panama since 1990. It employs household surveys of agric...

In this paper we develop a bioeconomic model of timber harvesting that includes dynamic interactions between mountain pine beetle (MPB) and a lodgepole pine forest with a disaggregated size structure. The model is used to investigate the consequences of alternative public management strategies on forest dynamics in the presence of MPB outbreaks. Management practices similar to those commonly pr...

We examined the effects of forest stand age on soil respiration (SR) including the heterotrophic respiration (HR) and autotrophic respiration (AR) of two forest types. We measured soil respiration and partitioned the HR and AR components across three age classes ~15, ~25, and ~35-year-old Pinus sylvestris var. mongolica (Mongolia pine) and Larix principis-rupprechtii (larch) in a forest-steppe ...

The tendency of trees to grow taller with increasing water availability is common knowledge. Yet a robust, universal relationship between the spatial distribution of water availability and forest canopy height (H) is lacking. Here, we created a global water availability map by calculating an annual budget as the difference between precipitation (P) and potential evapotranspiration (PET) at a 1-...

Landsat images have been widely used for assessing forest characteristics and dynamics. Recently, signifi cant progress has been made towards indepth exploration of the rich Landsat archive kept by the U.S. Geological Survey to improve our under standing of forest disturbance and recovery processes. In this study, we used Landsat images to map forest disturbances at biennial intervals from 1984...

[1] Insights into how terrestrial ecosystems affect the Earth’s response to changes in climate and rising atmospheric CO2 levels rely heavily on the predictions of terrestrial biosphere models (TBMs). These models contain detailed mechanistic representations of biological processes affecting terrestrial ecosystems; however, their ability to simultaneously predict field-based measurements of ter...

MCCUNE, B., and T. F. H. ALLEN. 1985. Forest dynamics in the Bitterroot Canyons, Montana. Can. J. Bot. 63: 377-383. Both shade-tolerant and shade-intolerant tree species may dominate young stands in canyon-bottom forests of the Bitterroot Range. Subsequent dynamics depend on growth characteristics of the colonizing species. Thus, much of the compositional variation arises at stand establishment...

Forest dynamics encompass changes in stand structure, species composition, and species interactions with disturbance and environment over a range of spatial and temporal scales. For convenience, spatial scale is defined as individual tree, neighborhood, stand, and landscape. Whether a given canopy-leveling disturbance will initiate a sequence of development in structure with little change in co...

Although disturbances such as fire and native insects can contribute to natural dynamics of forest health, exceptional droughts, directly and in combination with other disturbance factors, are pushing some temperate forests beyond thresholds of sustainability. Interactions from increasing temperatures, drought, native insects and pathogens, and uncharacteristically severe wildfire are resulting...