Will Black Oaks Survive Climate Change in the Midwest?

tree
Black oaks may face many threats from climate change in the coming years. Photo: Willow, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.5)

The survival of some species of oaks, among them black oak, have been threatened as forested areas in North America are cleared for agriculture, urban development, and other forms of development.  It is a major goal of many forest managers to maintain current populations of oak (Quercus spp.) for timber, wildlife, and conservation biology. Currently, black oak is distributed throughout …

Cost-Benefit Approach to Urban Forests: A Western Analysis

 

Urban tree programs have expenses for planting, maintenance, even sidewalk repair. Yet the benefits of urban trees in five western cities analyzed outweighed the costs by ratios of 1.37 to 3.09.

For the analysis, samples of 30 to 70 randomly selected trees from each of the most abundant species were surveyed in five cities: Fort Collins, Colorado; Cheyenne, Wyoming; Bismarck, North Dakota; Berkeley, California; and Glendale, Arizona. All of these cities were surveyed by the U.S. Forest Service during the …