An evaluation of long term changes in clear-cuts and plantations in Mid-Missouri

Abstract only availableIdentifying future stand composition is important for several reasons including: aesthetics, wildlife benefits, timber value, and predicting potential changes. I studied the species composition in the over story and the regeneration layers between clear-cuts and unmanaged plantations. I determined when different species began to invade the plantations and the growth rates of the invading species. I sampled 3 clear-cuts (20-25yrs old) and 3 plantations (66- 68 yrs old) using 1/10th acre fixed area plots and recorded the species and DBH (diameter at breast height) for every tree greater than 2 inches DBH. In addition, I cored several trees in the plantations for growth rate measurements. For each site, a 1/500th acre regeneration plot was established to count and identify all saplings less than 2 inches DBH. The slope and aspect of each site was recorded. Basal area in the clear-cuts was higher than expected due to a few large trees that were remaining following the initial harvest. In two clear-cuts, sugar maple (Acer saccharum) was the most common species. The third clear-cut had a greater mixture of regenerating species, the steep slope of this site most likely contributed to this difference. In the plantations, the largest portion of the basal area was attributed to the plantation species. In all three plantations, the second greatest basal area value was attributed to slippery elm (Ulmus rubra). Despite the higher basal area of slippery elm the future dominant species will likely be various oak (Quercus) species, since these were widespread in the regeneration layer and have the ability to persist.NSF Undergraduate Mentoring in Environmental Biolog

Evaluating the relationship between leaf nitrogen concentration and chlorophyll content in five oak species [abstract]

Abstract only availableRelationships between total leaf nitrogen concentration and chlorophyll values of bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa), pin oak (Q. palustris), northern red oak (Q. rubra), shumard oak (Q. shumardii), and swamp white oak (Q. bicolor) were determined. These values were evaluated under both standard and inundated watering conditions. Each tree species was represented by seedlings raised from acorns collected from both upland and lowland sites with the exception of northern red oak, which was represented by seedlings from a single location. Chlorophyll readings were taken on a total of 135 individual seedlings for five consecutive weeks using Minolta SPAD-502 meter. A single leaf was repeatedly sampled on each seedling in each flooded and non-flooded (control) treatment over five replications in a greenhouse. The trees were flooded for 0, 3 and 5 weeks. A close correlation between chlorophyll content and leaf nitrogen over different stress levels is expected as the end result

Evaluating the relationship between leaf nitrogen concentration and Minolta SPAD-502 meter readings [abstract]

Abstract only availableOak trees are deciduous trees that can live for up to 200 years and face a variety of environmental stresses. Like all plants, oak trees need nutrients, which vary under different stress conditions. We study nitrogen as an essential element in the growth of plants. Most nitrogen is found in the chlorophyll molecules of a leaf, and we are interested in understanding how nitrogen concentration varies oak species with different responses to flooding. The objectives of this study are to: (1) Determine the relationship between leaf chlorophyll and leaf nitrogen concentration for five different species of oak tree (bur oak, pin oak, swamp white oak, northern red oak and shumard oak) and (2) asses how flood tolerance affects the above relationship. The relationship between total leaf nitrogen concentration and chlorophyll of bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa), pin oak (Q. palustris), northern red oak (Q. rubra), shumard oak (Q. shumardii), and swamp white oak (Q. bicolor) were determined. Each tree species was represented by seedlings raised from acorns collected from both upland and lowland sites with the exception of northern red oak, which was represented by seedlings from a single location. A SPAD-502 Meter (Minolta Corporation ltd., Osaka, Japan) was used to measure chlorophyll in a total of 135 individual seedlings for 5 consecutive weeks. A single leaf was repeatedly sampled on each seedling in each flooded and non-flooded (control) treatment over 5 replications in a greenhouse. The harvested leaves were then oven dried for 72 hours and nitrogen analysis was conducted in the lab by combusting the sample in an induction furnace and measuring the nitrogen via thermal conductivity. Preliminary results indicate a close correlation between chlorophyll and nitrogen content and differing effects of inundation on their relationship.NSF Undergraduate Mentoring in Environmental Biolog

Field Guide to a Hybrid Landscape

In Field Guide to a Hybrid Landscape Dana Fritz traces the evolution of the Bessey Ranger District and Nursery of the Nebraska National Forest and Grasslands. Fritz’s contemporary photographs of this unique ecosystem, with provocative environmental essays, maps, and historical photographs from the U.S. Forest Service archives, illuminate the complex environmental and natural history of the site, especially as it relates to built environments, land use, and climate change. The Nebraska National Forest at Halsey, as it is known colloquially, is the largest hand-planted forest in the Western Hemisphere, and formerly in the world. This hybrid landscape of a conifer forest overlaid onto a semiarid grassland just west of the one-hundredth meridian was an ambitious late nineteenth-century idea to create a timber industry, to reclaim a landscape considered disordered and unproductive, and to change the local climate in northcentral Nebraska. While the planners seemed not to appreciate the native grasslands that form the ecosystem of the Nebraska Sandhills, they did recognize the reliable water from the Dismal and Middle Loup Rivers that border the site. In 1902 the first federal nursery was established as part of the Dismal River Forest Reserve to produce seedlings for plains homesteads and the adjacent treeless tract of land. At that time tree planting was not used for carbon sequestration but to mitigate the wind and evaporation of moisture. The Bessey Nursery now produces replacement seedlings for burned and beetle-damaged forests in the Rocky Mountains and for the Nebraska Conservation Trees Program. This constructed landscape of row-crop trees that were protected from fire for decades, yet never commercially harvested for timber, provides a rich metaphor for current environmental predicaments. The late nineteenth-century effort to reclaim with trees what was called the Great American Desert has evolved to a focus on twenty-first-century conservation, grassland restoration, and reforestation, all of which work to sequester carbon, maintain natural ecosystem balance, and mitigate large-scale climate change. Field Guide to a Hybrid Landscape offers a visual and critical examination of this unique managed landscape, which has implications far beyond its borders. 144 pages 78 photographs, 2 illustrations, 9 maps This book is available from University of Nebraska Press: https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/bison-books/9781496227775

Editor's Introduction to Issue 3 of Artifacts

All Mizzou students have one important thing in common: they are writers. Thanks to the writing intensive courses across the University, students have the opportunity to experience different writing situations in every discipline. Mizzou students learn that different writing contexts demand different sets of strategies. Not only does the content change, but the way research and arguments are presented also change. The essays featured in Artifacts Issue 3 reflect the variety of writing that Mizzou students create every day. From technical reports to historical research to literary analysis, these essays are all snapshots of the Mizzou writer at work

Editors' Introduction to Issue 2 of Artifacts

The second issue of Artifacts features articles on a range of topics, from an historical narrative of Mizzou's medical school to a critical analysis of engineering failure during Hurricane Katrina. These texts reflect sophisticated research skills, including archival and discipline-specific research. Every piece in Issue 2 developed from assignments in undergraduate writing classes at The University of Missouri

Editor's Introduction : First year writing special issue

First-Year Composition at the University of Missouri--English 1000-- is characterized above all by its diversity. While broad guidelines and goals underwrite what a phalanx of instructors implement in nearly 200 sections each year, the freedom instructors possess to teach to their strengths and interests is a hallmark that, if the essays in this issue are any indication, is a boon to MU students

Distribution of Heterobasidion irregulare in Missouri pine-oak forests

We surveyed the Missouri Ozarks region for the pathogenic fungus Heterobasidion irregulare, a parasite that has gone largely disregarded within the region since the 1960s despite its potential to cause major problems for the restoration and management of shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata). Using spring surveys, we recovered the pathogen (as both spores and basidiomata) at 21 of 31 surveyed sites throughout the extent of the Ozarks region. Using a more intensive spore-trapping procedure, we also surveyed pure hardwood stands within the oak-pine matrix and pure hardwood forests outside the distribution of shortleaf pine. We detected some spores from pure hardwood stands that were relatively near overstory pines, but we detected no spores from pure hardwood forests at long distances (>100 m) from pines. We conducted a GIS-based analysis of pathogen presence and relative spore abundance relative to pine patch distance, pine patch size, and pine patch edge length within the surroundin

Fire History at the Southwestern Great Plains Margin, Capulin Volcano National Monument

This study documents historic fire events at Capulin Volcano National Monument over the last four centuries using dendrochronologically dated fire scars at two sites: the lower volcano lava flows (the Boca) and the adjacent canyon slopes (Morrow Ranch). The mean fire interval (MFI) was 12 years at the Boca site (before 1890) and 5.4 years (1600-1750) and 19.1 years (1751-1890) at the Morrow Ranch site. Data from the Boca and Morrow Ranch sites combined with the extremely pyrogenic landscape position of the volcano slopes indicate that the volcano slopes likely burned more frequently (e.g., MFI \u3c5 yr). Around 1750, the fire regime appeared to transition to longer fire intervals, greater temporal synchrony among fire-scarred trees, and a higher proportion of trees scarred in fire years. Temporal variability in the fire regime at Capulin Volcano may reflect changes in human populations, climate, and land use