News & Announcements

Oak Ridge Lab Confirms Blight Resistance of American Chestnut

Posted on Tuesday, January 13th, 2015 by aadmin

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), working collaboratively with scientists funded by The American Chestnut Foundation, have helped confirm that addition of a wheat gene increases the blight resistance of American chestnut trees. The ORNL team, in collaboration with foundation researchers led by Drs. William Powell and Chuck Maynard of ESF, used gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to analyze chestnuts from transgenic American chestnut trees-trees that were transformed with a wheat gene to increase resistance to blight. Results also showed that the transgenic chestnuts had similar metabolite concentrations to a panel of non-transgenic nuts, suggesting that
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AMJV States Receive Part of $226 Million in Reclamation Funding

Posted on Tuesday, January 13th, 2015 by aadmin

The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) today announced the availability of the Fiscal Year 2015 Abandoned Mine Land (AML) Reclamation fund grants, which will provide more than $226 million to states and tribes to reclaim abandoned coal mines. States within the AMJV who will recieve a portion of this funding include Alabama, Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Pennyslvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. The AML grants are funded in part by a fee collected on all coal produced in the United States, and enable 28 eligible states and tribes to help eliminate dangerous conditions and pollution caused by past coal mining. “Reclaiming the land
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Posted on Tuesday, January 13th, 2015

Pitting insect against insect, the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission released predator beetles last month on the Sandy Mush Game Land to combat the devastating effects of the hemlock woolly adelgid on hemlock trees. Staff released 50 of the small black beetles — a natural predator of the adelgid — as part of the Hemlock Restoration Initiative, a cooperative effort launched by the N.C. Dept. of Agriculture and Consumer Services in March 2014 designed to restore North Carolina’s hemlock trees to long-term health. The hemlock woolly adelgid is a tiny, aphid-like insect that derives its name from the covering of wool-like wax
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Posted on Tuesday, January 6th, 2015

Cutting-Edge Satellite Research: The GoogleEarth® maps below show the migratory locations of American woodcock outfitted with satellite transmitters (PTTs) as part of cutting-edge research conducted by the USGS Arkansas Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, USGS Minnesota Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, and the USFWS. These solar-powered PTTs are small enough to fit on a woodcock’s back during migration and powerful enough to transmit multiple locations to the ARGOS satellite network. Other cooperators providing assistance and funding are the Ruffed Grouse Society and American Woodcock Society (RGS and AWS), Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, The Glassen Foundation, Michigan Department of
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National Bird Network Workshop – January 20-23, South Padre Island, Texas

Posted on Monday, January 5th, 2015 by aadmin

This Workshop is bringing together key personnel from the bird conservation community to discuss needs for promoting more effective collaboration and integration of activities among the three networks – Joint Ventures (JV), Bird Conservation Plan Partnerships (BCPP), and the North American Bird Conservation Initiative (NABCI). The Workshop is structured for engagement, facilitated discussion, and problem solving in order to: Clarify roles and expectations of JVs, BCPPs and NABCI Identify opportunities to avoid redundancy, enhance communication and collaboration, and better achieve bird conservation outcomes Identify the greatest needs and capacity gaps limiting more effective all-bird conservation Share and promote tools, resources,
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Posted on Monday, January 5th, 2015

The future of fire and forests in the changing, complex social and ecological setting of the Central Appalachians was the theme of this year’s Central Appalachians Fire Learning Network meeting. More than 80 participants from 14 different agencies and organizations attended the workshop in Warm Springs, VA on November 5-6. Presentations during the meeting touched on this theme and included updates from the Consortium of Appalachian Fire Managers and Scientists, a summary of the recent synthesis of the Fire-Oak Literature of Eastern North America, lessons learned from the national Fire Learning Network, and an analysis of the effects of prescribed
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