Natural Areas Journal最新文献

{"title":"Comprehensive Assessment of White-Tailed Deer Browse in the Presence of Beech Bark Disease at a Great Lakes National Park","authors":"S. Sanders, Jessica Kirschbaum, Nicole L. Schafer, Julia S. Gehring","doi":"10.3375/22-11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3375/22-11","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In northern hardwood forests, white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) impact both tree regeneration and groundlayer composition, leading to a dominance of American beech (Fagus grandifolia), an unpalatable species, as well as a reduction of preferred groundlayer species. Deer become especially problematic in areas with beech bark disease, such as at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. We analyzed datasets from Sleeping Bear Dunes, collected in 2009 and 2018, to assess vegetation change in three management units: a mainland unit with a long history of deer occupancy, and two islands, one with high deer pressure and one with no known history of permanent deer presence. For each unit, we tested for change in species richness and mean coefficient of conservatism. We also examined the groundlayer, testing for change in indices of abundance and size of preferred and avoided species. Finally, we compared regeneration of palatable and unpalatable tree species. We found increased nonnative species richness, decreased number and abundance of preferred herbaceous species, as well as decreased height of a preferred species. We also detected increased sapling density of beech while that of palatable species declined. Our data provide further evidence of the impacts of white-tailed deer on the forest understory. Management goals should focus on maintaining deer densities at or below 5 deer km–2 in order to promote growth of the full suite of herbaceous species typical of the region and habitat and to allow adequate regeneration of the overstory.","PeriodicalId":49780,"journal":{"name":"Natural Areas Journal","volume":"43 1","pages":"62 - 71"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44685309","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Changing Seasons","authors":"Eric Menges","doi":"10.3375/0885-8608-43.1.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3375/0885-8608-43.1.3","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49780,"journal":{"name":"Natural Areas Journal","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135481667","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Re-Bisoning the West: Restoring an American Icon to the Landscape","authors":"D. J. Robertson","doi":"10.3375/0885-8608-43.1.87","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3375/0885-8608-43.1.87","url":null,"abstract":"On November 1, 2015, the first day of Native American Heritage Month as well as National Bison Day, 10 American bison (Bison bison) were released into a 1000-acre enclosure at Soapstone Prairie. Soapstone is a 22,000-acre shortgrass prairie natural area in north-central Colorado abutting the Wyoming state line owned and managed by the city of Fort Collins, Colorado. This release had a significance far exceeding the modest number of animals involved. The Soapstone animals are genetically pure bison; their genome is completely free of cattle genes. The bison are offspring of the herd inhabiting Yellowstone National Park, which is among the few herds with pure genes that survived the great slaughter of the 19th century. Perhaps most importantly, though, the Soapstone animals are free of brucellosis, a disease of cattle, bison, and elk that leads to spontaneous abortions during first and sometimes second pregnancies. The Soapstone bison are descendants of bison that were quarantined for 10 y in Yellowstone to ensure that they were disease-free. The animals were subsequently moved to a breeding facility at Colorado State University. There, the bison cows were either artificially inseminated with sperm that had been treated to kill any brucellosis bacteria, or they were produced by in vitro fertilization using cleansed eggs and sperm; the embryos were implanted in disease-free surrogate bison cows. The original herd at Soapstone has grown during the years since reintroduction. Bison now wander 2600 acres at Soapstone and the adjacent Red Mountain Open Space. Since 2020, Soapstone bison offspring have been transferred to tribal nations, national wildlife refuges, and private preserves in Colorado and Montana. The Soapstone story exemplifies all the issues involving bison reintroduction, and author Kurt Repanshek explores each facet thoroughly in Re-Bisoning the West. The book gets off to a slow and uneven start. A rambling prologue introduces the status of American bison, recent paleontological evidence of the species’ ancestry in North America, and bison’s importance to Native Americans. The prologue is followed by a description of the Great Plains landscape that formed the critical core habitat for the largest herds (though the species ranged from Florida to Alaska). Then, Repanshek pivots to examine the difficulties associated with reintroducing bison to tribal nations, especially those in Montana. Montana state officials staunchly defend the rights of cattle producers and are reluctant to allow the introduction of bison for fear of spreading brucellosis even though elk, an extremely important and lucrative game species, are far more likely to spread the disease than are bison. A thorough examination of the brucellosis issue would have been appropriate here, but Repanshek postpones such a discussion for several chapters. Repanshek finally finds his footing in the third chapter entitled ‘‘The Great Slaughter’’ and carries the momentum and focus forwar","PeriodicalId":49780,"journal":{"name":"Natural Areas Journal","volume":"43 1","pages":"87 - 88"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45702182","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Overtourism: Lessons for a Better Future","authors":"J. Heinen","doi":"10.3375/0885-8608-43.1.89","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3375/0885-8608-43.1.89","url":null,"abstract":"This important and timely book presents a total of 28 essays neatly divided into seven chapters and subchapters. Many were written before the COVID pandemic, which temporarily solved many problems illuminated throughout but created others including economic hardship for the millions globally who depend to various degrees on tourism. It’s a huge industry and, until COVID, was the fastest growing globally. As of 2022, tourism is again growing. Chapter 1 stands alone and well outlines the scope and magnitude of issues brought about by tourism from causes to consequences. It gives a good overview of what’s to come, but Chapter 2 (‘‘Historic Cities’’) is where details emerge. It’s divided into four subchapters that cover places as disparate as Charleston, South Carolina; Barcelona, Spain; and Edinburgh, Scotland. Specifics vary, but generalities are similar; most urban destinations are seasonally visited, so crowding during that period greatly increases travel costs, traffic, rents, overcrowding, etc. Such periods also bring a greater need for everything from garbage collection to police presence. Some of the most egregious cases are cities affected by the cruise industry (e.g., Venice, Italy), which brings huge numbers of people for short visits from which collecting revenues becomes difficult, yet their presence causes huge direct costs. While the entire volume is relevant for readers of the Natural Areas Journal, the next three chapters may prove the most important. Chapter 3 (‘‘National Parks and Protected Areas’’) consists of four subchapters discussing issues throughout the American and Brazilian park systems, with additional entries on Banff (Canada) and the Serengeti (Tanzania). While myriad crises are outlined throughout, glimmers of hope are provided by attempts in all cases to solve problems via proactive mechanisms. Increasing entry fees, encouraging visits during other times of year, and making other potential destinations known to tourists all have been tried to varying degrees, but one can’t help but wonder whether it’s too little, too late in some cases. When several dozen vehicles, each packed with six or eight people, are all staring at one lone cheetah, when is enough too much? Much of the wealth of tourism in too many places is trickle down, yet community-based approaches incorporating multiple incentives to local residents are now in place in many countries, creating more glimmers of hope. The World Heritage Sites, both natural and cultural, discussed in Chapter 4 are perhaps the most important given that they instill pride in citizens and act as magnets for mass tourism because of their fame. Some, such as Mt. Everest (Nepal) and Machu Picchu (Peru), are also high in elevation and fragile from several standpoints. That their governments have greatly raised fees shows their importance but even with greater revenues, the Nepalese authorities have difficult times removing all the garbage, human waste and, yes, human bodies from the ","PeriodicalId":49780,"journal":{"name":"Natural Areas Journal","volume":"43 1","pages":"89 - 90"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44918335","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Habitat Crediting Programs for Conserving At-Risk Species","authors":"Pricila Iranah, Kristin P. Davis, Drew E. Bennett, E. Fleishman, Julie A. Heinrichs, Liba Pejchar","doi":"10.3375/21-54","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3375/21-54","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Conservation across jurisdictional boundaries can help achieve recovery goals for species at risk, provide funding for conservation actions by private landowners, and reduce regulatory burdens. Habitat crediting programs, a type of offsite mitigation, are a relatively new form of cross-boundary conservation. To better understand the current status of these programs and their perceived strengths and shortcomings for species conservation, credit providers (e.g., private landowners), and credit purchasers (e.g., federal agencies), we surveyed the literature and online resources, and engaged with a small group of professionals who have been closely involved with habitat crediting programs. From these resources and interactions, we identified nine habitat crediting programs in the United States. Those engaged in these programs suggest that the programs may provide regulatory relief, a positive return on investment for participants, and benefits to species conservation in some contexts. However, economic and institutional challenges include up-front costs of participation and divergent preferences for short-term or permanent contracts. Furthermore, programs tend to measure ecological success by monitoring habitat amount and condition rather than species' abundance, survival, and reproduction. As such, monitoring is not always sufficiently rigorous to assess ecological outcomes and account for environmental change. We suggest that habitat crediting programs hold promise for meeting multiple objectives for at-risk species, landowners, and developers, but their potential often is hampered by high transaction costs and a lack of the ecological information needed to evaluate success.","PeriodicalId":49780,"journal":{"name":"Natural Areas Journal","volume":"42 1","pages":"319 - 325"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-10-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41426669","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"At the Very End of the Road","authors":"D. J. Robertson","doi":"10.3375/0885-8608-42.4.332","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3375/0885-8608-42.4.332","url":null,"abstract":"Imagine that you are standing on a coastal lowland, but set back from the shoreline so that your view encompasses the meadows, salt marshes, reed beds, and mudflats between you and the open ocean. It is a misty morning; the light is low and diffuse, as if you are viewing the scene through diaphanous curtains. As you gaze toward the sea, the dense, swirling fog parts momentarily affording—just for a few seconds—a crystal clear vision of some object in the landscape: a wind-blasted tree, a cow grazing, a sandpiper probing for worms at the wrack line. Your mind registers the image in exquisite detail, and then the fog closes in and the object disappears from sight again, leaving only a mental image that gradually fades as another object emerges from the shifting clouds to grab your attention. Such is the experience, both literally and figuratively, of reading Phillip Edwards’s At the Very End of the Road, a book that is at once masterful and maddening. The observations recounted here occur on a foggy British seacoast with flashes of brilliant wildlife sightings, but the sightings are presented in such an endless flurry they befog the reader’s consciousness. Frustrated by the depauperate natural landscape near densely populated Cambridge, Edwards sought and found a new home at the very end of a paved road on England’s western coast. For 19 years, Edwards wandered the fields, hedgerows, salt marshes, and strands surrounding his new place, documenting his sightings in extraordinary detail. In his book, he presents observations characteristic of each month to immerse his readers in the nature of the place over the course of a year. Edwards provides few explicit details about the location of his home, mostly to prevent casual visitors from overwhelming the area. His observations take place on a spit of land bordered on one side by the mouth of a river, and on the other side by the open ocean. Off the tip of the peninsula lies an island. However, Edwards’s description of the location is so spare that his references to low hills and moors visible on the far horizon at odd compass coordinates were difficult to reconcile with the vague image of the spit I had envisioned from his introduction. In an attempt to resolve these seeming inconsistencies and form a firmer mental orientation to the locale, I consulted a British road atlas and identified the likely spit and associated island. A further bit of internet sleuthing confirmed that the marshes and mudflats surrounding the estuary are important shorebird habitat protected in a National Nature Reserve. In fact, in his epilogue, Edwards concedes, ‘‘Some of [my readers] may come to see this place; it will not be hard to identify, and confirmation will be easy.’’ The physiography of the spit is low and flat, and the region is generally well-watered. As a result, the productive land has been divided into 12 agricultural fields that are grazed by cattle or sheep, or are mowed for hay. Seawalls in various states of","PeriodicalId":49780,"journal":{"name":"Natural Areas Journal","volume":"42 1","pages":"332 - 333"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-10-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46089419","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Major River Floodplain Forest Restoration: A Case Study in Western Massachusetts","authors":"Julie A. Richburg, Genevieve Pugesek","doi":"10.3375/22-19","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3375/22-19","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Although efforts to restore floodplain forests are becoming more popular in the northeastern United States, best management practices are not well defined. In this study, we demonstrate the success of a planting effort in western Massachusetts to increase the extent of a floodplain forest along the Housatonic River. Over 1700 floodplain-adapted tree saplings were planted in an old field and in two hayfields at Bartholomew's Cobble, a property located in Sheffield, Massachusetts, and individually tagged to follow their growth and survival. Planted trees had relatively high rates of survival over a 6 y period, especially the two most commonly planted tree species: silver maple (Acer saccharinum, 42.5% survival) and boxelder (Acer negundo, 71.7%), although plantings were more successful in the old field compared to the two hayfields. Tree dbh after 6 y differed across fields for silver maples and boxelders with those planted within the old meadow significantly larger than those planted into hayfields (silver maple dbh 9.8 cm old field vs. 6.5–6.6 cm hayfields; boxelder dbh 10.4 cm old field vs. 4.4–6.6 cm hayfields). By documenting which floodplain-adapted tree species were successful in establishing under which conditions, our observational study provides valuable insights for future restoration efforts.","PeriodicalId":49780,"journal":{"name":"Natural Areas Journal","volume":"42 1","pages":"326 - 331"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-10-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42710361","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Changes in Nesting Habitat Availability for Piping Plovers at the John E. Williams Preserve, North Dakota, 1992–2021","authors":"M. Ryan, Brian G. Root, Christopher T. Rota, Gena-Marie Ryan, Martin J. Bergee, J. Millspaugh","doi":"10.3375/21-44","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3375/21-44","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Habitat loss is a major threat to the conservation of endangered species. We measured changes in piping plover (Charadrius melodus) nesting habitat at five alkali wetlands in The Nature Conservancy's John E. Williams Preserve, McLean county, North Dakota, from 1992 to 2021. This site has supported nesting by federally threatened piping plovers for decades. We measured the amount of non-vegetated (open) shoreline, required nesting habitat for plovers, from photo plots at 34 sites historically occupied by plovers distributed across the five wetlands. Twenty-six of 34 plots had significant negative trends (95% credible intervals not including zero) in nesting area availability. Nesting habitat increased significantly at one plot. Seven other plots had no detectable trends (i.e., the 95% credible intervals included zero). Mean percent annual change was –1.2% (±0.17 SE) and estimated total loss of nesting habitat within plots was ∼42%. To assess whether plover nesting habitat might have been created at areas outside of our plots, we compared total open shoreline habitat over all five wetlands in 1992 to that in 2017. We detected a ∼42% decline in total open shoreline area. Although measurement methods differed between 1992 and 2017, we found no evidence that nesting habitat was created at non–photo plot areas. In the absence of habitat restoration and management the decline in piping plover nesting habitat is likely to continue. Climate change projections for North Dakota indicate increased annual rainfall, higher CO2 levels, and longer growing seasons, all factors likely to promote vegetative growth at alkali wetlands like those we studied.","PeriodicalId":49780,"journal":{"name":"Natural Areas Journal","volume":"42 1","pages":"278 - 283"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-10-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47559044","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Troubling the Water: A Dying Lake and a Vanishing World in Cambodia","authors":"D. J. Robertson","doi":"10.3375/0885-8608-42.4.338","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3375/0885-8608-42.4.338","url":null,"abstract":"In 1871, Lieutenant Marcel Brossard de Corbigny, A French naval officer, set off from Phnom Penh toward Bangkok with a Cambodian mission to Siam. Brossard de Corbigny marveled at a huge lake that the convoy passed, the Tonle Sap. As related by author Abby Seiff, Brossard de Corbigny and other visitors to the region described the Tonle Sap as a great lake in a cloudless sky, and a freshwater sea so abundant that its bounty of fish could be scooped out by hand. They noted the dense jungle lining the shores with some of the trees submerged to their tops during the rainy season. They also remarked on the herds of wild elephants inhabiting the forest. Today, the wild elephants are long gone. The jungles have been decimated by commercial overharvesting, subsistence wood gathering, and wildfires brought on by climate change. And the famed fishery, at one time one of the most productive freshwater fisheries in the world, is all but depleted. Troubling the Water is an account of the effect of the depleted fishery on the desperately poor people who depend on the Tonle Sap for their livelihood. Tonle Sap Lake hydrologically is part of the Mekong River delta. The delta topography is low and flat, and the river basin naturally experiences alternating dry and wet seasons. Under low flow conditions, Tonle Sap Lake and the short river that drains its waters southward are tributary to the Mekong. However, during the rainy season, the Tonle Sap River reverses flow, bringing nutrient-rich water and, even more importantly, fish, into the lake. During the largest floods, the lake expands sixfold, inundating the adjacent jungle to the tops of the trees, allowing fish to feed on terrestrial resources, and adding sediment and nutrients that enrich the forests and rice paddies. Nearly 200 fish species inhabit the lake, making it a global biodiversity hotspot. A human fishing culture based on the flooding cycle developed and matured over centuries. People began living in floating villages on the lake and took advantage of the incredible productivity that provided a dependable source of income and protein. Beginning in the 1990s, however, anthropogenic activity in the Mekong watershed began to doom the lake fishery. Only a quarter of the Mekong River’s basin lies in China, but the river’s upper tributaries flow through deep gorges that are ideal for hydroelectric generation. Numerous dams now dampen flood cycles. Even in the Mekong’s lower basin with its low topographic relief, desperate southeast Asian nations are impounding the river with dams—some of which are four miles long—to generate hydroelectricity. These dams further reduce high flows, trap rich sediment, and block fish passage. The annual reversal of flow into Tonle Sap Lake has all but ceased, and the legendary fishery has collapsed. Seiff, a journalist who lived and reported for years in Cambodia, focuses her book on the disrupted lives of the poor, rural people who have depended on the lake’s resources all th","PeriodicalId":49780,"journal":{"name":"Natural Areas Journal","volume":"42 1","pages":"338 - 339"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-10-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46664669","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Carbon Offsets Up in Smoke","authors":"Eric Menges","doi":"10.3375/0885-8608-42.4.267","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3375/0885-8608-42.4.267","url":null,"abstract":"The carbon cycles that you probably learned about in school look quite complicated, don’t they? Lots of boxes and arrows flying in different directions. But, in reality, the carbon cycle, as it occurs out in the real world, is actually more complex than one would infer from looking at the flow chart. For example, the ocean has played an important role in slowing down climate change by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, about 1⁄4 of excess carbon dioxide during the past few centuries. In the past, some people have assumed that this buffering capacity would prevent serious effects of anthropogenic carbon. However, as the ocean has absorbed carbon, it has become more acidic. This increased acidity may have detrimental effects on coral reefs and on organisms like bivalves that build shells based on calcium carbonate. The ability of ocean waters to absorb excess greenhouse gasses also decreases with acidity, meaning that this buffer is likely to be less important in buffering carbon dioxide as atmospheric carbon dioxide continues to increase. Other simplistic assumptions made about carbon dynamics have also been shown to be, well, too simplistic. Greenhouse and chamber studies of plant growth under increasing carbon dioxide have been used to assume that photosynthesis and primary productivity would increase, acting to buffer carbon dioxide concentrations. However, in real ecosystems, most plants are not limited by carbon concentrations in the air. Rather, water availability often limits plant growth. Global changes wrought by increasing carbon dioxide are increasing the length and severity of droughts in many parts of the world, with devastating effects to humans and other biota. Most ecologists now realize that increasing carbon will not be buffered by faster plant growth. It has always been politically difficult to directly limit industrial carbon emissions, even when the technology exists. Shifting to a carrot (rather than a stick) approach has led to the trading of carbon credits. Carbon credits allow companies to offset carbon dioxide emissions by fostering forest growth through conservation and replanting. You can also offset your carbon dioxide produced by travel by paying for trees to be planted. These new forests will presumably capture atmospheric carbon in accreting biomass. However, this scheme is vulnerable to loss of biomass to ecological disturbances. (It also has the potential for encouraging mismanagement of areas that are naturally dominated by shrubs and grasses.) However, this idea has hit a few potholes out in real landscapes. A recent study by the nonprofit CarbonPlan found that wildfires in California and elsewhere in the American West have depleted about 95% of the carbon credits in forestry projects. Such projects assume that trees will continue growing for 100 years. Instead, fires have affected forests far sooner. Future wildfires are likely to completely deplete current carbon credits, according to the study. Inde","PeriodicalId":49780,"journal":{"name":"Natural Areas Journal","volume":"42 1","pages":"267 - 267"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-10-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46130248","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}