woodlands – Climate, Forests and Woodlands

May 16, 2019May 16, 2019

Will Black Oaks Survive Climate Change in the Midwest?

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 …

May 16, 2019May 16, 2019

Planting Trees to Regenerate a Forest

Renewing a forest—to replace harvested trees or those that died from insects, disease, fire, old age, or extreme weather events—is key to sustainable forestry. Foresters refer to the process of establishing new tree seedlings as “regeneration.” They also refer to the seedlings established in the forest as “regeneration.”

Aspen regeneration two months after clear-cutting in a site in Cass County, Minnesota. Photo: Eli Sagor, Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0).

Regeneration can be accomplished through two basic approaches: (1) natural regeneration, which …

May 16, 2019May 16, 2019

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 …