No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

I evaluated effects of 5 treatments for pine plantation establishment on breeding and wintering birds and small mammals during years one through 5 post-treatment in the Lower Coastal Plain of Mississippi. I modeled relationships between 8 vegetation variables and avian abundance to identify influential habitat components in pine plantations. At the landscape scale, I compared avian abundance of regionally important species with land class variables in the Coastal Plain of Georgia. In pine plantations, species richness, total abundance, and 2 conservation bird metrics generally decreased with increasing intensity of stand establishment. Thus, this study suggests that increasing standmestablishment intensity can reduce avian habitat quality in Coastal Plain pine plantations. Presence of residual trees retained after timber harvest was the most influential variable related to avian abundance, and tree retention may reduce the negative impacts of intensive stand establishment on avian communities. There were minimal treatment effects on common small mammals of young pine plantations. For the Coastal Plain landscape, a mixture ofn area and edge variables were influential in avian models for 10 species, although area or edge each were important for 2 species. Hardwood forests were important vegetation types for all but one modeled species. Assessment of habitat conditions that affect avifauna and small mammals on managed timber production lands can assist natural resource managers with integration of timber production and conservation of biological diversity.

The response of loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) to fertilization and weed control at stand establishment, using various formulations of conventional and controlled release N fertilizers was evaluated in a greenhouse study and at two field trials in the Virginia Piedmont, in 2002 and 2003. The greenhouse study evaluated five fertilizer treatments; 1) check with no fertilizer; 2) granular ammonium nitrate (10-10-10 + micro-nutrients) applied to the soil surface; 3) granular methylene urea (40-0-0) applied to the soil surface; 4) methylene urea (20-10-5) in tablet form applied in the planting hole; and 5) isobutylidenediurea (IBDU) (9-9-4) in tablet form applied in the planting hole. Equal amounts of N and P were applied. Fertilization significantly increased seedling root collar diameter and volume at the end of the first growing season in the greenhouse study. Differences in diameter and volume were still significantly different late in the second growing season, however at the last measurement the differences were no longer significant. An analysis of transformed growth curves for 2003 indicated that the ammonium nitrate treated seedlings had a significantly steeper slope than all other treatments. In field trials, at an old-field site and a cut-over site, the same fertilizer products were tested, except granular diammonium phosphate (18-46-0) was used substituted for the ammonium nitrate. Higher rates of N and P were used in the field trials. Complete weed control increased seedling volume by over 700 % after two growing seasons at the reforested old-field site, however fertilizer effects were not significant. At the reforested cut-over site an interaction between weed control and fertilizer treatments was observed. The MU and DAP granular, and the IBDU tablet treatments each had significantly greater seedling volume than the check and the other tablet controlled release fertilizer. IBDU tablets appear to have high fertilizer efficiency, due to the slow release nature and are safe to place in close proximity to the seedling root system. / Master of Science