Moderating night radiative cooling reduces frost damage to Metrosideros polymorpha seedlings used for forest restoration in Hawaii
- Author:
-
Scowcroft, Paul G., Meinzer, Frederick C., Goldstein, Guillermo, Melcher, Peter J., Jeffrey, Jack
- Title:
- Moderating night radiative cooling reduces frost damage to Metrosideros polymorpha seedlings used for forest restoration in Hawaii
- Periodical:
- Restoration Ecology
- Year:
- 2000
- Volume:
- 8
- Pages:
- 161-169
- Subject:
-
Acacia koa
El Nino
Reforestation
Frost damage
Nurse tree
- Summary:
- An essential step for the long-term survival of several endangered forest birds in Hawaii is the restoration of the mixed-species native forests of high elevation rangelands. The birds for which this is crucial are the akiapolaau (Hemignathus monroi), the Hawaiian creeper (Oreomystis mana), and the akepa (Loxops coccineus). However, due to more than 100 years of human encroachment due to the logging, burning, and grazing, thousands of hectares have been destroyed of the koa (Acacia koa), ohia (Metrosideros polymorpha), and the mamane (A. koa-Sophora chrysophylla) forests. This has resulted in the conversion of these forests to savannah. As a result, the loss of habitat above this area as well as the pressure of avian disease below this habitat has squeezed endangered and common forest birds into a narrow band of relatively intact forest habitat. However, widening this band by converting grassland back to forest would potentially mitigate the adverse effects of global warming. This study was done in an effort to determine the effect that weather and temperature has on the koa forests that are located above the 1700 meter elevation with regard to tissue and seedling damage and how these effects might prevent the reforestation of the koa trees and other plants.
- Label:
- Botany - Ohia
- URL:
- http://treesearch.fs.fed.us/pubs/38334
- Collection:
- Periodicals