Revisiting Forest Effects on Winter Air Temperature and Wind Speed—New Open Data and Transfer Functions

Klein, Michael D.; Garvelmann, Jakob; Förster, Kristian

doi:10.3390/atmos12060710

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…We recorded higher air speeds and greater turbulence in the early successional habitat compared to the later one, possibly reflecting the lower levels of standing biomass. This pattern is expected for habitats with greater levels of anthropogenic disturbance that have caused vegetative loss (Raynor, 1971;Muller-Schwarze, 2006;Klein et al, 2021). Such results have potentially important implications.…”

Section: Intraforest Variationmentioning

confidence: 85%

Aeroscapes and the Sensory Ecology of Olfaction in a Tropical Dry Forest

et al. 2022

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Aeroscapes—dynamic patterns of air speed and direction—form a critical component of landscape ecology by shaping numerous animal behaviors, including movement, foraging, and social and/or reproductive interactions. Aeroecology is particularly critical for sensory ecology: air is the medium through which many sensory signals and cues propagate, inherently linking sensory perception to variables such as air speed and turbulence. Yet, aeroscapes are seldom explicitly considered in studies of sensory ecology and evolution. A key first step towards this goal is to describe the aeroscapes of habitats. Here, we quantify the variation in air movement in two successional stages (early and late) of a tropical dry forest in Costa Rica. We recorded air speeds every 10 seconds at five different heights simultaneously. Average air speeds and turbulence increased with height above the ground, generally peaked midday, and were higher overall at the early successional forest site. These patterns of lower air speed and turbulence at ground level and overnight have important implications for olfactory foraging niches, as chemotaxis is most reliable when air movement is low and steady. We discuss our results in the context of possible selective pressures and observed variation in the foraging ecology, behaviors, and associated morphologies of resident vertebrates, with a focus on mammals. However, these data also have relevance to researchers studying socioecology, invertebrate biology, plant evolution, community ecology and more. Further investigation into how animals use different forest types, canopy heights and partition activities across different times of day will further inform our understanding of how landscape and sensory ecology are interrelated. Finally, we emphasize the timeliness of monitoring aeroecology as global wind patterns shift with climate change and human disturbance alters forest structure, which may have important downstream consequences for biological conservation.

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Section: Intraforest Variationmentioning

confidence: 85%

Aeroscapes and the Sensory Ecology of Olfaction in a Tropical Dry Forest

et al. 2022

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“…Lower wind speeds in dense stands have been shown to greatly reduce both wind penetration and the efficiency of ventilation, which results in higher winter temperatures (Chen et al, 1995;Klein et al, 2021). In the Control, the abundance of small and intermediate trees in the understory, as well as the lower height to live crown (Table 1), caused wind speeds to be lower than in areas that were harvested.…”

Section: Below-canopy Meteorology: Windmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soil moisture and micrometeorological differences across reference and thinned stands during extremes of precipitation, southern Cascade Range

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Gaffney

et al. 2022

Front. For. Glob. Change

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Modern forest management generally relies on thinning treatments to reduce fuels and mitigate the threat of catastrophic wildfire. They have also been proposed as a tool to augment downstream flows by reducing evapotranspiration. Warming climates are causing many forests to transition from snow-dominated to rain-dominated precipitation regimes—in which water stores are depleted earlier in the summer. However, there are relatively few studies of these systems that directly measure the hydrologic impacts of such treatments during and following snow-free winters. This work compares the below-canopy meteorological and subsurface hydrologic differences between two thinning prescriptions and an unaltered Control during periods of extreme drought and near-record precipitation (with little snow). The field site was within a coniferous forest in the rain-snow transition zone of the southern Cascades, near the Sierra Nevada Range of California. Both thinning-prescriptions had a modest and predictable impact on below-canopy meteorology, which included their causing lower nighttime minimum temperatures in the critical summer months and higher wind speeds. Relative to the Control, both treatments affected soil moisture storage by delaying its annual decline and increasing its minimum value by the end of the season. The onset of soil moisture depletion was strongly tied to the magnitude of winter precipitation. In dry years, it began much earlier within the dense Control stand than in the treated ones, and, without snow, soil moisture was not replenished in the late spring. During high precipitation years, the storage capacity was topped off for all three stands, which resulted in similar timing of moisture decline across them, later in the season. The two thinning prescriptions increased stores through the height of summer (in wet and drought years). Finally, the basal area increment (BAI) of the remaining trees rose in both, suggesting they used the excess moisture to support rapid growth.

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