Post-fire restoration and sustainable management of California's forests
I am participating in a research fellowship through the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, hosted by the USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station. I am leveraging new and previously-collected data from long-term experimental plots to evaluate the benefits and trade-offs of competing vegetation control and fertilization for reforestation success under climate change. I also explored the influence of tree-species diversity on mixed-conifer forest resistance and resilience.
Figure from Wood et al. (in review) shows results of best-fit model comparisons used to test how FVS prediction accuracy is affected by site index, plantation age, and treatment for the Western Sierra Nevada (WS) variant. Error response (calculated as FVS bare-ground predictions for each response variable divided by the Garden of Eden measured stand value). Y-axis values > 1 indicate overpredictions and values < 1 indicate underprediction. Columns are split by management treatment: control (C), fertilizer (F), herbicide (H), or herbicide + fertilizer (HF). Rows are split by response variable: basal area (BA), quadratic mean diameter (QMD), and top height (TopHt). Stand age (10 and 20 years) is differentiated by both color and line type.
Publications
- Looney CE, Stewart JAE, Wood KEA. 2023. Mixed-provenance plantings and climatic transfer-distance affect the early growth of knobcone-monterey hybrid pine, a fire-resilient alternative for reforestation. New Forests. PDF
- Looney CE, Long JW, Fettig CJ, Fried JS, Wood KEA, Audley JP. 2023. Functional diversity affects tree vigor, growth, and mortality in mixed-conifer/hardwood forests in California, U.S.A, in the absence of fire. Forest Ecology and Management. PDF
Tree seedling plant-soil feedbacks are mediated by mycorrhizal type and functional traits
I completed my dissertation at Michigan State University, receiving a dual-Ph.D. from the Department of Forestry and the Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior. My dissertation focused on providing a more mechanistic understanding of seedling recruitment patterns in the context of plant-soil feedbacks, mycorrhizal type of juvenile and adult trees culturing the soil, defense/recovery functional traits, and light availability.
The seedling recruitment phase is a major demographic bottleneck and is critical for future forest community dynamics. Plant-soil feedbacks (PSFs) are often considered to be key drivers of seedling recruitment. PSFs are a continuous feedback loop in which adults modify properties of the soil beneath their crown, thereby influencing the ability of seedlings to grow and survive in that soil. Mechanisms underlying the strength and direction of PSFs include soil-borne microbes, seedling functional traits that confer defense against or recovery from microbes, and matching/mismatching of mycorrhizal type between juvenile and adult trees. Additionally, the strength and direction of PSFs may shift with light availability, which can modify both microbial abundance and functional traits. In this dissertation, I investigated the role each of these mechanisms and their interactions on tree seedlings PSFs.
Figure from Wood et al. 2023 Frontiers in Ecology and Management shows percent seedling survival for three Acer species as a function of (A) phenolic content (nmol Gallic acid equivalents per mg dry extract) and (B) percent dry mass NSC (%). Each point represents a mean of trait values at a harvest time (3 or 6 weeks) and survival for seedlings in the 3 weeks after harvest. Percent seedling survival increased as amounts of phenolic content and nonstructural carbohydrates increased.
Publications
- Wood KEA, Kobe RK, McCarthy-Neumann S. 2023. Tree seedling shade tolerance arises from interactions with microbes and is mediated by functional traits. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. PDF
- Wood KEA, Kobe RK, Ibáñez I, McCarthy-Neumann S. 2023. Tree seedling functional traits mediate plant-soil feedback survival responses across a gradient of light availability. Plos One. PDF
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Prior research emails: [email protected], [email protected] (find my current contact information on the About Me page)