Duke Ecologist Says Logging Is Creating 'Mahogany Deserts'
... live up to 600 or more years. High in the forest canopy -- the only layer of the jungle to regularly experiencewind -- mahogany seed pods resembling wood-covered avocados extend uprightfrom the trees' branches. After ripening, the pods' outer shells crack openand fall off to reveal seed clusters that look...NCAR Scientist Models Earth's Climate and Vegetation Patterns At Last Glacial Peak
...ccupied based on competition for light (related to canopy cover) and disturbances such as tree fall and lightning-sparked fire. The result was a global picture of vegetation 21,000 years ago. The model shows fragile, treeless tundra covering most of Europe. Desert spread into the northern Rocky Mountains. A...Oaks' Defenses Help Gypsy Moth Caterpillar Fend Off Virus
...more than just annoying. Besides damaging the leaf canopy of northeasternforests, these voracious eaters cost the hard woods industry millions ofdollars. Luckily, from an economic point of view, gypsy moths usually do not eatconiferous trees, which are the basis of the multimillion dollar pulp paperindustry...CTC Visualizations Help Ecologists See The Forest And The Trees
...ges thatincluded such details as sapling trees and canopy geometry. "This work is part of our broader program to understand how muchdetail at the level of individuals is needed to understand the macroscopicdynamics of ecosystems," says Levin, Director of the Princeton EnvironmentalInstitute. "The forest gr...Biogenic Emissions Higher Than Expected Over African Savanna
...f Congo gave researchers access to the rain forest canopy and the layer of air above it. The team also used satellite data to map fire distribution. During one 24-hour period, fires were burning over 25,000 square kilometers (15,500 square miles). EXPRESSO results will next be used to evaluate and im...Ameriflux Network Will Track CO2 Transfer In Forests
... various levels on the tower from above the forest canopy to groundlevel. Beginning in July 1998, scientists at the Biological Station will begincollecting data from the instruments and recording the data on a computersystem. "The Biological Station was selected for the network because it is located onthe ......hern Costa Rica. S.globulifera is a shade-tolerant canopy tree with bright red flowers that arepollinated primarily by hummingbirds. Bats disperse the seeds by eating fruitsand then passing seeds on through guano at their resting sites. Like many areasin the tropics, the study area consisted of an area of f...Salamanders May Reveal Best Way To Manage Forests
...generationalternatives (from the least to the most canopy disturbance): unmanipulatedcontrol, or no disturb...ne insalamander abundance within the first year of canopy opening, Haas says.However, retaining a partial canopy did not help to retain salamanderpopulations....New Edition Of Ecological Monographs Is Now Available
...n the desert floor, a microclimate below the shrub canopy iscreated. These tiny reserves are the homes for many soil microorganisms that areessential in maintaining soil health. Scientists have observed that the areasoutside of these shrubs are more exposed to wind and rain which make theseplaces unsuitable...Amphibian Revival: Build It And They Will Come
...enter is away frompollution sources and the forest canopy protects the amphibians from the sun'sultraviolet radiation. "We think that similar conditions that we have at Tyson can be found on aworldwide basis, and procedures such as ours can be adopted successfullyelsewhere," Sexton says....USGS fire research in the southeast
... hot or intense, and sothey did not climb into the canopy and kill the pines." A study led by Dr. Ken Outcalt, a research ecologist with the U.S. ForestService, found that natural stands that had been burned a few months previous tothe fires sustained less damage than those in which fuels had a longer ...Clemson's Baruch Forest Science Institute tracks forests' recovery from hurricane damage
...ops broken off by Hugo havere-formed crowns so the canopy has returned. We've also seen a ten-foldincrease in the number of new trees filling in open spaces." Called "advance regeneration," these new trees are coming from seedsdropped into open spaces left when older trees were felled by the hurric...USGS studies wildfire ecology in the western United States
...gebrush ecosystems, creating openings in the shrub canopy and constraining the density of woody plants much the same as in forests. But an understory of native bunch grasses, which grow in isolated patches, tends to limit the intensity of blazes in these systems and prevent them from spreading over a wide a...Biodiversity yields dividends, finds pan-European research
...ent cycling, soil nitrate leaching, decomposition, canopy architecture, competition and population biology of species involved. The experimental manipulation of plant species diversity significantly changed the dynamics of those ecosystem processes. It affects ecosystem functioning and population dynamics....Seeds suffer in rainforest fragments
...ter and drier, and have more light penetrating the canopy to the forest floor, than continuous forests do. Those aren't the conditions that rainforest plants are adapted to, and these new results suggest that the seeds simply can't survive." What's more, Bruna said, other research has suggested that plants ...El Niño triggers tropical forest reproduction
...d Dipterocarpaca---the main family of rain forest canopy trees in Indonesian Borneo. Field research covere...oduction." According to Curran, masting gives canopy trees an important survival advantage. In a typical six-week masting period, her research team col...RX for Hawaii's dry forests: no cows and lots of hard work
...is not nearly enough for the islands' dry forests: canopy trees failed to regenerate even in an ungrazed pre... Cabin and his colleagues compared regeneration of canopy trees in the Kaupulehu Dry Forest Preserve, which has not been grazed for 40 years, to an adjacent a...Amazon rainforest field research facility opens for ecological, global change studies
... 150-foot (45-meter) walk-up tower into the forest canopy and a 210-foot (65-meter) instrumented tower that reaches above the canopy. Another field station in the national forest with similar instruments will monitor the forest in its undisturbed state and after it is logged next year so scientists can stud...Conservation under the shade coffee canopy: ant-bird interactions in Panama croplands
...s, she says, point to the importance of protecting canopy shade trees in these coffee plantations. And while some species may be able to use the shade coffee areas, some sensitive forest species still need forests in order to survive. The research team also suggests that the areas of shade grown coffee wo...Organgutan numbers plummeting worldwide; species may vanish in ten years, study says
...ood source for orangutans - as well as the loss of canopy trees they use for travel. The rampant illegal logging that inevitably follows selective cutting in Leuser and other areas, has caused densities to drop as much as 90 percent. Many areas are subsequently turned into massive agricultural estates, an...