The Potential Effect of Pests on Forest Fire: Flammability of Mongolian Pine Bark with Resinosis on Boles

Wildfires and pests are natural disturbance agents in many forest ecosystems that often contribute to ecological succession, nutrient cycling, and forest species composition. Mongolian pine (Pinus sylvestris var. mongolica) is a coniferous species that plays an important role as an ecological barrier, and is widely spread in northern China. Its wood is loose; its branches, leaves, and cones contain a high level of resin and volatile oils that make the species highly flammable and the stands dominated by the species are very vulnerable to fire. Recently, resinosis on boles of Pinus sylvestris became an epidemic in China. To explore the potential effects of pests on fire, we compared the flammability of Mongolian pine barks with or without resinosis on boles using a cone calorimeter and several combustion analyses. We found that the barks from boles with resinosis had a greater oil content than the healthy trees. The study also indicated that the ignition times of the barks from boles with and without resinosis were 6.00 s (±1.73) and 22.67 s (±1.15), respectively, and that the heat release rate curves were parabolic, with peaks 225.19 and 75.27 kW/m2, respectively, for the two bark types. Additionally, because resinosis was on the low- to mid-bole of infested trees, the barks from boles with resinosis tended to be ignited much easier than those without resinosis. This clearly evidenced that pests could affect fire severity and behavior by increasing forest flammability. More information about the role that pests play in the different forest cover types is needed to increase our understanding of fire danger and to develop sound forest management policies.

THE IMPACT OF FOREST FIRE ON FOREST COVER TYPES IN MONGOLIA

The objective of this study was the impact of forest fire on forest cover types. This study has identified non-forest and forest area that has seven forest class are included with cedar, pine, larch, birch, birch-pine mixed, birch-larch mixed and cedar-larch mixed, additionally, remote sensing imagery is applied. In contrast, Landsat imagery has been used several classification approaches. Moreover, the current classification has developments in segmentation and object-oriented techniques offer the suitable analysis to classify satellite data. In the object-oriented classification approach, images cluster to homogenous area as forest types by suitable parameters in some level. The accuracy analysis revealed that overall accuracy showed a good accuracy of determination (86.33 percent in 2000 and 93.75 percent in 2011) with regard to identify of the forest cover and type. Furthermore, these results suggest that the Landsat TM and ETM+ data can reliable detect the forest type based upon the segmentation and object-oriented techniques. In generally, our study area is high-risky region to forest fires. It is higher influence to forest cover and tree species and other ecosystems. Overall, wildfire of impact results showed that 25239 ha of forests were changed to burnt area and 52603 ha forests were changed to grassland.

Landscape implications of managing forests for carbon sequestration

We explore the implications of managing forests for the dual purpose of sequestering carbon and producing timber, using a model of the forest sector that includes a Hartman-based representation of forest owners’ behaviour as well as heterogeneity in environmental conditions. We focus on France, where recent policies aim at increasing the carbon sink and where the diversity of forests makes an analysis of spatial dynamics relevant, and we use recent estimates of the shadow price of carbon consistent with the country’s climate commitments. Results suggest that forests may sequester up to 550 MtCO2eq by 2100, driven by changes in harvest levels and species choice, whilst rotation lengths increase overall. A spatial analysis reveals a high spatial variability for these trends, highlighting the importance of considering the local context. Changes in investment patterns affect the spatial distribution of forest cover types: by the end of the century, a majority of regions comprise a larger share of older, multiple-species and mixed-structure forests. Whilst such an evolution may present benefits in terms of biodiversity, ecosystem services provision and resilience, it raises questions regarding the adequacy of such developments with current forest policy, which also aims at increasing harvest levels. An overall mitigation strategy for the forest sector would likely include incentives to energy and material substitution in downstream industries, which we did not consider and may interact with sequestration incentives.

Using a Marginal Value Approach to Integrate Ecological and Economic Objectives across the Minnesota Landscape

Forest management situations are intrinsically challenging due to the nature of being an interconnected and multi-faceted problem. Integrating ecological, social, and economic objectives is one of the biggest hurdles for forest planners. Often, decisions made with the interest of producing a specific ecosystem service may affect the production of other forest ecosystem services. We present a forest management scheduling model that involves multiple ownerships and addresses the joint production of two ecosystem services: timber and upland hardwood old forest. We use a marginal value approach to evaluate old forest. We analyze the impacts of considering different management options, shapes and levels of marginal value functions for old forest, and potential benefits of rewarding the major forest land ownership groups to produce old forest. Results show the downward-sloping marginal value function as a compromise strategy and the benefits of applying it over approaches using either fixed values or targets for addressing ecosystem services. A decomposition model was useful for recognizing important stand-level detail. A broad landscape and multiple ownership approach helped identify interconnections between forest cover types and between landowner groups.

Monitoring Land Cover Changes in the Disaster-Prone Area: A Case Study of Cangkringan Sub-District, the Flanks of Mount Merapi, Indonesia

Volcanic eruption is one of the natural factors that affect land cover changes. This study aimed to monitor land cover changes using a remote sensing approach in Cangkringan Sub-district, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, one of the areas most vulnerable to Mount Merapi eruption. Three satellite images, dating from 2001, 2006 and 2011, were used as main data for land cover classification based on a supervised classification approach. The land cover detection analysis was undertaken by overlaying the classification results from those images. The results show that the dominant land cover class is annual crops, covering 40% of the study area, while the remaining 60% consists of forest cover types, dryland farming, paddy fields, settlements, and bare land. The forests were distributed in the north, and the annual crops in the middle of the study area, while the villages and the rice fields were generally located in the south. In the 2001–2011 period, forests were the most increased land cover type, while annual crops decreased the most, as a result of the eruption of Mount Merapi in 2010. Such data and information are important for the local government or related institutions to formulate Detailed Spatial Plans (RDTR) in the Disaster-Prone Areas (KRB).

Species assemblage of buprestid beetles in four hardwood cover types in Michigan

Information on species assemblages of metallic wood-boring beetles (Coleoptera: Buprestidae) in forested habitats in North America is relatively scarce, likely reflecting the difficulty of effectively trapping and accurately identifying species. We identified buprestid species captured on four baited traps placed in each of 12 sites representing four common forest cover types in five Michigan counties. Overstory vegetation was dominated by ash (Fraxinus spp.), maple (Acer spp.), oak (Quercus spp.), or poplar (Populus spp.) trees (three sites per cover type). A total of 1656 buprestids representing 28 species were captured on sticky purple prism traps baited with either cis-3-hexenol plus Manuka oil or 3R-hydroxyhexane-2-one plus ethanol from May to August 2014. Buprestid species richness ranged from 6 to 13 species per site. PERMANOVA results showed that buprestid species composition differed among forest cover types (P < 0.005). The invasive Agrilus sulcicollis Lacordaire and the native Chrysobothris femorata Olivier species group were significant indicators of oak sites, while Agrilus obsoletoguttatus Gory was a significant indicator of maple sites. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling showed that abundance of captured buprestids was influenced by availability of fresh snags and coarse woody debris. Our results indicate that trapping can provide an efficient means to assess assemblages of phloem- or wood-boring buprestids.