Lichen Response to the Environment and Forest Structure in the Western Cascades of Oregon PDF Download
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Author: Erin P. Martin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Lichen communities
Languages : en
Pages : 338
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Book Description
Lichens are an important part of the biota in western Oregon forests, where they perform valuable ecological roles and contribute significantly to biodiversity. Lichens in western Oregon are threatened by a number of factors including air pollution and land use practices. If we wish to maintain the persistence of lichens in future landscapes it is critical that we understand the responses of lichen communities and individual lichen species to the environment and forest structure. This dissertation explores factors that are related to differences in lichen community composition and the distributions of individual lichen species in the western Cascades of Oregon, using a large landscape scale data set. I sought to relate major gradients in lichen community composition to environmental factors, and describe differences in lichen communities with respect to forest age (Chapter 2). I found three major gradients in lichen communities at a landscape scale in the western Oregon Cascades. These gradients were related to climate as expressed by elevation and annual temperature, air quality, north-south position, the richness of epiphytic macrolichens, and forest age. I developed a rarity score, which can be used to identify hotspots of rare species diversity at a landscape scale (Chapter 3). I then built descriptive models of this rarity score to identify abiotic and biotic factors associated with the occurrence of rarity hotspots. I found that models of rarity score that used explanatory variables based on lichen community composition performed better than models that used explanatory variables based solely on environmental factors. I narrowed my focus to the level of individual species responses to the environment and forest structure by developing habitat models for 11 lichen species in the western Cascades (Chapter 4). We selected these species because they performed important ecological roles, were rare across the landscape and associated with old growth forests, or because their distributions were poorly understood. These models can be used to increase the efficiency of landscape level surveys for rare species, predict the response of these species to forest management practices, and understand factors associated with the distributions of these lichens.
Author: Erin P. Martin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Lichen communities
Languages : en
Pages : 338
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Book Description
Lichens are an important part of the biota in western Oregon forests, where they perform valuable ecological roles and contribute significantly to biodiversity. Lichens in western Oregon are threatened by a number of factors including air pollution and land use practices. If we wish to maintain the persistence of lichens in future landscapes it is critical that we understand the responses of lichen communities and individual lichen species to the environment and forest structure. This dissertation explores factors that are related to differences in lichen community composition and the distributions of individual lichen species in the western Cascades of Oregon, using a large landscape scale data set. I sought to relate major gradients in lichen community composition to environmental factors, and describe differences in lichen communities with respect to forest age (Chapter 2). I found three major gradients in lichen communities at a landscape scale in the western Oregon Cascades. These gradients were related to climate as expressed by elevation and annual temperature, air quality, north-south position, the richness of epiphytic macrolichens, and forest age. I developed a rarity score, which can be used to identify hotspots of rare species diversity at a landscape scale (Chapter 3). I then built descriptive models of this rarity score to identify abiotic and biotic factors associated with the occurrence of rarity hotspots. I found that models of rarity score that used explanatory variables based on lichen community composition performed better than models that used explanatory variables based solely on environmental factors. I narrowed my focus to the level of individual species responses to the environment and forest structure by developing habitat models for 11 lichen species in the western Cascades (Chapter 4). We selected these species because they performed important ecological roles, were rare across the landscape and associated with old growth forests, or because their distributions were poorly understood. These models can be used to increase the efficiency of landscape level surveys for rare species, predict the response of these species to forest management practices, and understand factors associated with the distributions of these lichens.
Author: Sarah Jovan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Air
Languages : en
Pages : 128
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Book Description
Lichens are highly valued ecological indicators known for their sensitivity to a wide variety of environmental stressors like air quality and climate change. This report summarizes baseline results from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Lichen Community Indicator covering the first full cycle of data collection (1998-2001, 2003) for Washington, Oregon, and California. During this period, FIA conducted 972 surveys of epiphytic macrolichen communities for monitoring both spatial and long-term temporal trends in forest health. Major research findings are presented with emphasis on lichen biodiversity as well as bioindication of air quality and climate. Considerable effort is devoted to mapping geographic patterns and defining lichen indicator species suitable for estimating air quality and climate.
Author: Eric B. Peterson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Forest ecology
Languages : en
Pages : 280
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Book Description
The diverse lichen flora of the Pacific Northwest is being impacted by population growth and by forest management practices. Accumulating information about our lichen flora will improve our conservation strategies. This dissertation first collects information to improve our understanding of how lichen communities vary among forests of differing structure, and across the western Oregon landscape. It then proposes a method to predict species occurrence in unsampled sites by utilizing the information on forest characters and environmental gradients at sampled sites. Macrolichen communities sampled in coniferous forests revealed that old-growth stands (>200 yrs old) harbored communities that differed from those in young forests (50-110 yrs old). Even more atypical communities occurred in macrolichen hotspots, which were primarily in riparian zones. Many macrolichen species were associated with these hotspots, including numerous nitrogen-fixing cyanolichens. Macrolichen species associated with old-growth forested plots included the nitrogen-fixing lichen Lobaria oregana and several forage-providing alectorioid lichens. The presence of remnant old trees apparently increased the occurrence of old-growth associates in young stands. The calicioids, a group of microlichens investigated only in the Cascades, had a strong association with old growth forest and remnant trees. Diversity of calicioids may also be increased by legacy structures such as old snags and wolf trees. These structures increase continuity between current and previous stands. Macrolichen communities varied between the Coast and Cascade Mountain Ranges, following climatic gradients, particularly annual precipitation. Successional patterns in macrolichen communities appeared to differ between the mountain ranges. The modeling method proposed for using habitat associations to predict occurrence has several advantages over common modeling methods, such as regression. The method is simple, avoids parametric assumptions, provides easy updating of models as additional sites are sampled, and automatically accounts for interactions among predictor variables. It can be linked with GIS data and software to map estimated probability of occurrence across landscapes. The data on calicioids from the Cascades, supplemented with additional stand inventories, were used to test and demonstrate the modeling method.
Author: Kaleigh Spickerman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Botanical specimens
Languages : en
Pages : 136
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Book Description
Functional traits of vascular plants have been an important component of ecological studies for a number of years; however, in more recent times vascular plant ecologists have begun to formalize a set of key traits and universal system of trait measurement. Many recent studies hypothesize global generality of trait patterns, which would allow for comparison among ecosystems and biomes and provide a foundation for general rules and theories, the so-called "Holy Grail" of ecology. However, the majority of these studies focus on functional trait patterns of vascular plants, with a minority examining the patterns of cryptograms such as lichens. Lichens are an important component of many ecosystems due to their contributions to biodiversity and their key ecosystem services, such as contributions to mineral and hydrological cycles and ecosystem food webs. Lichens are also of special interest because of their reliance on atmospheric deposition for nutrients and water, which makes them particularly sensitive to air pollution. Therefore, they are often used as bioindicators of air pollution, climate change, and general ecosystem health. This thesis examines the functional trait patterns of lichens in two contrasting regions with fundamentally different kinds of data. To better understand the patterns of lichen functional traits, we examined reproductive, morphological, and chemical trait variation along precipitation and temperature gradients in Oregon. Specifically, we measured traits of 102 macrolichen species collected from 166 USDA Forest Service program for Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) plots. These plots were located in a more-or-less continuous swath across Oregon between 43°W and 45°W. Plots were grouped into seven regions (the Oregon Coast, Coast Range, Willamette Valley, Western Cascades, High Cascades, Eastern Cascades, and Eastern Oregon). Using multivariate analysis techniques we found strong linear and nonlinear trait patterns along precipitation and temperature gradients, and were able to characterize the seven main regions of Oregon by the relative abundance of lichen traits. The literature on what lichen traits are most common in which habitats is sparse and anecdotal; understanding trait-habitat patterns could have management implications due to lichen importance as bioindicators and animal forage. Understanding how key traits are distributed among habitats could provide insight into potential air pollution impacts on certain habitats, animal movement among habitats, etc. To examine trait-habitat patterns, we measured the reproductive, morphological, and chemical traits of 429 lichen species collected haphazardly (without a formal sampling framework) from ten distinct habitats within Katmai National Park in southwest Alaska as part of a taxonomic inventory. Using multivariate analysis techniques we grouped habitats based on the expression of lichen traits and described the relative abundance of each trait in different habitats. The second goal of this study was to examine the potential usefulness of herbarium collections in ecological studies of this type. Herbarium specimens are a large potential resource that is generally unused in ecological studies due to concerns over potential bias and noise introduced by variation in collection methods. However, recent work has suggested that herbarium specimens may yield more useful results than previously thought and could be a valid resource for ecological studies. The data for our study were collected in a haphazard manner for a floristic inventory, similar to the collection methods used for many herbarium specimens. The patterns that we observed indicates that herbarium specimens may be a good resource for future research.
Author: D. L. Henshaw
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Forests and forestry
Languages : en
Pages : 100
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Book Description
Author: Michael Simpson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cascade Range
Languages : en
Pages : 612
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Author: Janine Rice (M.)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Forest dynamics
Languages : en
Pages : 442
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Book Description
Montane meadows comprise a small area of the predominantly forested landscape of the Oregon Cascade Range. Tree encroachment in the last century in these areas has threatened a loss of biodiversity and habitat. Climate change in the coming century may accelerate tree encroachment into meadows, and exacerbate biodiversity loss. Multiple environmental factors of topography, biotic interactions, climate, and disturbance, whose interactions and impacts are unclear, influence forest encroachment into meadows. This dissertation examines these complex interactions and factors in two montane meadow ecosystems at Lookout (44° 22'N, 122° 13'W) of the Western Cascade Range and Bunchgrass (44° 17'N, 121° 57'W) of the High Cascade Range of Oregon. A change detection analysis quantifies how topographic factors and proximity to edge were related to tree encroachment into the two montane meadows of the Cascade Range of Oregon. Areas that have experienced tree encroachment were identified and partitioned by distance to forest edge, aspect, and slope class using historical air photo interpretation over 54 years from 1946, 1967, and 2000 at Lookout and Bunchgrass meadows in the western Cascades of Oregon. Meadow area decreased by more than 1% per year, with a net decrease of 60%, and a net loss of 22 ha at Lookout Meadow and 28 ha at Bunchgrass Meadow from 1946 to 2000. From 72% (Lookout) to 77% (Bunchgrass) of meadow area within 5 m of a forest edge became forest by 2000. Twothirds to three-quarters of meadow area on south and west aspects at both sites converted to forest from 1946 to 2000. Two-thirds of meadow conversion to forest from 1946 to 2000 occurred on slopes 6° at Bunchgrass Meadow, but meadow conversion to forest was more evenly distributed among slope classes at Lookout Meadow. Restoration efforts may need to focus on westerly or southerly aspects in areas
Author: Kent Donald Howe
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Lichens
Languages : en
Pages : 262
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Author: Nathan Jeremy Poage
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Forests and forestry
Languages : en
Pages : 230
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Author: Elena Stephany Becerril Salas
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 61
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Disturbances resulting from natural forces and human intervention -- such as the creation of artificial boundaries, has led to the importance in understanding the best approaches necessary for sustaining critical ecosystem functions and forest structure health. The 1994 Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) offers an example of federal policies that consider the promotion of sustainable timber harvesting, new forest management approaches, and the protection of late successional, old growth habitats. In this study, I use airborne lidar data to develop a comprehensive high-fidelity census of forest structure patterns across a 530,817-hectare region in the NWFP allocated western Cascades of Oregon. To make sense of forest structural patterns and their arrangement across land-use allocation boundaries and ownership types, I addressed the following questions. (1) What forest structures exist across the study area and how do they correspond with commonly recognized forest development stages? (2) How are these structures distributed across ownership classes and federal administrative land use allocations? (3) 20+ years after the adoption of the NWFP, are the structurally complex forests the plan sought to protect and promote present, and if so, in what amounts and by what ownerships and administrative units? Results: (1) Six Structure classes were identified across the Western Cascades of Oregon. (2) Forest Structure classes were distributed among clusters of structurally simple and complex forest classes that created assemblages among private vs. public ownership type and Land use Allocations. (3) Hight Presence of structurally complex forest Classes were seen among NWFP Land Use Allocations.
