National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) orthophotography is a potentially useful data source for land cover classification in the United States due to its nationwide and generally cloud-free coverage, low cost to the public, frequent update interval, and high spatial resolution. Nevertheless…
‘Food sovereignty’ must necessarily encompass ‘seed sovereignty’. Corporate appropriation of plant genetic resources, development of transgenic crops and the global imposition of intellectual property rights are now widely recognized as serious constraints on the free exchange of seeds and the…
Pack and saddle stock, including, but not limited to domesticated horses, mules, and burros, are used to support commercial, private and administrative activities in the Sierra Nevada. The use of pack stock has become a contentious and litigious issue for land management agencies in the region…
Conservation planners and land managers are often confronted with scale-associated challenges when assessing the relationship between land management objectives and species conservation. Conservation of individual species typically involves site-level analyses of habitat, whereas land management…
The area of land occupied by exurban residential development is significant and has been increasing over the past several decades in the United States. Considerable attention has been drawn to the measurement of regional-scale patterns of land-cover change and assessment of its environmental and…
Policymakers seek ways to encourage fuel reduction among private forest landowners to augment similar efforts on federal and state lands. Motivating landowners to contribute to landscape-level wildfire protection requires an understanding of factors that underlie landowner behaviour regarding…
Woody feedstocks will play an important role in meeting the total demand for biomass to generate electricity and produce ethanol in the United States. We analyzed 186 different scenarios (31 rotation ages (10 to 40 years in annual time steps); two types of forest management (intensive and…
AIM: The geographical expansion of white‐winged doves (Zenaida asiatica) in North America has attracted the attention of biologists and sportsmen because of their recreational and aesthetic value; however, data on factors driving the spatial spread of this species are lacking. We examined…
Rare species of plants are especially vulnerable to extinction when populations are few, have small numbers of individuals, and are fragmented. Such conditions lead to a reduction in gene flow and genetic diversity, and encourage inbreeding depression. We conducted a study of the reproductive…
Despite the global trend in urbanization, little is known about patterns of biodiversity or provisioning of ecosystem services in urban areas. Bee communities and the pollination services they provide are important in cities, both for small-scale urban agriculture and native gardens. To better…
Recent food crises have highlighted the need to better understand the between-year variability of agricultural production. Although increasing future production seems necessary, the globalization of commodity markets suggests that the food system would also benefit from enhanced supplies…
In many environmental and conservation policy contexts, gaps are observed between policy objectives and implementation outcomes. Carbon farming policies are designed to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, but policy success depends on the participation of land managers and their adoption of…