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Similar to many freshwater ecosystems, the Laurentian Great Lakes of North America have undergone numerous anthropogenic stressors resulting in considerable loss of biodiversity and habitat. Among Great Lakes fishes, the coregonine sub-family has endured the most extensive declines, including extinction of several species (Coregonus johannae, C. alpenae, and C. kiyi orientalis) and at least 10 instances of local extirpations of other species (C. nigripinnis, C. reighardi, C. zenithicus, C. hoyi, and C. artedi) across all 5 lakes, much of which occurred prior to the 1960s owing to overfishing, interactions with non-indigenous species, and habitat loss. Despite these declines, no federal-, provincial-, or state-mandated actions were ever implemented to conserve coregonine diversity, potentially because so much of the coregonine declines occurred prior to the enactment of federal conservation legislation. Possible explanations for inaction since enactment of that legislation include insufficient data on biological vulnerability or threats, unresolved taxonomy, and limited support from the fishery management agencies and their stakeholders prior to the 2000s. In recent decades, however, several fishery management agencies have undertaken efforts to re-introduce coregonine diversity. These efforts helped lead to development of a science-based framework to restore coregonines that was universally endorsed by fishery managers representing eight U.S. states, four U.S. tribal organizations, and the province of ON, Canada, in May 2018. The basin-wide framework is based on principles of conservation biology and adaptive management. We describe details of its key steps, including planning, restoring, and evaluating, while also describing recent implementation efforts to develop methods, improve available resources, and enhance coordination across the basin. Although our paper describes a regional effort to restore native coregonines, our adaptive-management approach could be used by other multi-agency stakeholders seeking to conserve or restore native fishes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest plantations play an increasingly important role in meeting global demand for wood. They usually have higher yield than naturally regenerated forests. Thus, plantations can support economically viable wood production, enable forest conservation elsewere, help mitigate climate change by contributing to carbon sequestration and increase forest resilience and resistance to biotic and abiotic stressors. If yield of plantations is not as high as anticipated, then their use could generate important sustainability issues. There are still major gaps in our understanding of the factors that influence yield, even with respect to black spruce, white spruce, and jack pine, three of the most commonly planted tree species in northeastern North America. Our objective was to evaluate the yield of forest plantations of these species over a 416 000 km2 region that was representative of northeastern North American forests. Contrary to our prediction, realized yield of operational plantations was consistently lower than anticipated. Site index and competition both played a significant role in determining the yield of plantations. In the context of uncertain realized yield of operational plantations, we emphasize the necessity of relying on adaptive management to determine harvest levels that are compatible with sustainable management objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Canadian Journal of Plant Science is the property of Canadian Science Publishing and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)