Invasibility of fire-managed ecosystems to the Chinese tallow tree (Triadica sebifera) in the lower Gulf Coastal Plain, USA: Mechanisms and key factors at the landscape level

Fan, Zhaofei; Yang, Shiyu; Cheng, Nannan; Liu, Xia; Song, Aiyun; Dong, Linshui

doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2020.118539

Cited by 6 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Chinese tallow (Triadica sebifera), a nonnative tree, is likely to fill empty niche space. This aggressive invader is problematic throughout the Gulf Coastal Plain from Texas to Florida [72]. The tree has a wide means of dispersal, being primarily distributed through frugivory via avian populations.…”

Section: Future Of Chenier Forestsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Loss of Relict Oak Forests along Coastal Louisiana: A Multiyear Analysis Using Google Earth Engine

Thakore

Raut

Bhattacharjee

2022

Forests

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Coastal forests along the southeastern Gulf of Mexico are known to be diminishing at an alarming rate. The live-oak dominant chenier forests of southeast Louisiana are amongst those exhibiting the steepest declines. The remnant stands have experienced numerous hurricanes and intense storm events in recent years, calling into question the current status and immediate future of this imperiled natural resource. Despite their noted ecological and physiographic importance, there is a lack within national geographic data repositories of accurate representations of forest loss and wetland extent for this region. Supervised machine learning algorithms in the Google Earth Engine were used to classify and process high-resolution National Agricultural Image Product (NAIP) datasets to create accurate (>90%) tree cover maps of the Louisiana Chenier Plains in Cameron and Vermilion Parishes. Data from three different years (2003, 2007, and 2019) were used to map 2302 km2 along the southwestern coast of Louisiana. According to the analyses, there was a 35.73% loss of forest cover in this region between 2003 and 2019. A majority of the land-use change was from tree cover to saltmarsh, with losses in pastoral land also documented. We found variable rates of loss with respect to elevation. Forest cover losses corresponded strongly to rises in mean sea level. These findings deliver a baseline understanding of the rate of forest loss in this region, highlighting the reduction and potentially the eventual extirpation of this imperiled ecosystem.

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Section: Future Of Chenier Forestsmentioning

confidence: 99%