The Overstory

Tri-Annual publication of Forest-Centric news produced by the Forest School at the Yale School of the Environment

YSE Forest-Related Faculty Publications: Spring 2026

May 14, 2026

Buchkowski, R. W., Polussa, A., & Bradford, M. A. (2026). Designing National Forest Inventories for Accurate Estimation of Soil Carbon Change. Global Change Biology, 32(4), e70868.

Doughty, C. L., Ying, Q., Ward, E., Delaria, E., Wolfe, G. M., Malone, S. L., … & Poulter, B. (2026). Compounded effects on wetland greenhouse gas fluxes from climate change and water management along a saline to freshwater gradient. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 123(8), e2513685123.

Du, Q., Nunez, N. H., Comita, L. S., & Zhu, Y. (2026). Seedling survival response to neighborhood density associated with mycorrhizal type and soil nutrients availability in a warm temperate forest. Oikos, e11608.

Garcia, A., & Sanford, L. (2026). On the potential for strategic behavior in jurisdictional REDD+. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 123(14), e2531612123.

Harrison Day, B. L., McCarthy, C., Brodribb, T. J., Carins-Murphy, M., & Brodersen, C. R. (2026). Cortex death precedes stele failure in soybean fine roots during drought but does not prevent plant rehydration. Plant Physiology, kiag132.

Hlavka, M., Duguid, M., & Ashton, M. (2026). Testing the validity of a chronosequence: Breeding bird diversity and abundance in regenerating oak-hardwood shelterwoods. Forest Ecology and Management, 606, 123536.

HuancaNunez, N., Browne, L., Hülsmann, L., Dent, D. H., Rüger, N., & Comita, L. S. (2026). Integrated demographic strategies are more strongly associated with variation in conspecific density dependence than single traits in tropical tree seedlings. Journal of Ecology, 114(2), e70262.

Malone, S. L., Schoettle, A. W., Burns, K. S., Kearns, H. S., Stewart, J. E., Newcomb, M., & Cleaver, C. M. (2026). Future climate will not save high-elevation white pines. Communications Earth & Environment.

Maracahipes, L., Brando, P. M., Silvério, D. V., Maracahipes-Santos, L., Silveiro, A. C., Verona, L., … & Oliveira, R. S. (2026). Forest recovery pathways after fire, drought, and windstorms in southeastern Amazonia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 123(17), e2532833123.

Martin, M. P., Kuebbing, S., Duguid, M., Hardy, N., & Ashton, M. S. (2026). The Caatinga never went missing: a reply to Zappi et al.(2025). Restoration Ecology, 34(1), e70228.

McKenzie, C., Ortega, J., Comita, L., & Spicer, M. E. (2026). Vertical distribution and transplanted survival of epiphytes in a Neotropical premontane cloud forest. Plant Ecology & Diversity, 1-14.

Montagnini, F. (2026). La necesidad de incentivos financieros para fomentar los sistemas agroforestales como islas de biodiversidad en paisajes degradados. Revista de Ciencias Ambientales, 60(1).

Oliveira, J. B., Dáttilo, W., Oliveira, H. F., Brando, P. M., de Araújo, W. S., Pires, M. M., & Paolucci, L. N. (2026). Fire and edge disturbances in the Amazon rainforest: impacts on animal–fruit and seed interactions. Oecologia, 208(4), 46.

Peters, J. D., Connette, G. M., Lee, X., Griscom, B. W., & Ashton, M. S. (2026). Eastern North American Liana Distributions Reveal Conservation and Climate Mitigation Potential. Diversity and Distributions, 32(4), e70188.

Polussa, A., Oldfield, E. E., Runge, T., Evans, E., Liu, S. S., Forbes, E., … & Bradford, M. A. (2026). Toward causal designs to quantify management-driven soil carbon change at multi-field scales. agriRxiv, (2026), 20260167252.

Sanford, L., & Carlson, E. (2026). Electoral Cycles and Distributive Politics: Evidence from Deforestation. Available at SSRN 6573298.

Sheban, K. C., Burr, N. S., Plattner, A. K., Duguid, M. C., McAlvay, A. C., & Bradford, M. A. (2026). Protecting wild populations and working landscapes: the case for transitioning to size-based criteria for federal regulation of American ginseng. agriRxiv, (2026), 20260149189.

Sullivan, M. K., Browne, L., Bissiemou, P. A. M., Niangadouma, R., Abernethy, K., Queenborough, S. A., & Comita, L. S. (2026). Timber and trails: Low‐intensity selective logging and elephant trails shape seedling dynamics in an Afrotropical forest. Ecological Applications, 36(1), e70180.

Sun, Y., Chen, S., Chen, S., Qiu, C., Liu, L., Oh, Y., Malone, S.L., … & Jia, X. (2026, August). X-MethaneWet: A Cross-scale Global Wetland Methane Emission Benchmark Dataset for Advancing Science Discovery with AI. In Proceedings of the 32nd ACM SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining V. 1 (pp. 2782-2793).

Surendra, A., Lakmali, H. M., Madhubhani, H. S., Jayathilaka, H. C., Shantha, K. U., Ashton, M. S., … & Comita, L. S. (2026). Feedbacks in a mixed mycorrhizal rainforest in Sri Lanka are more stabilizing in the field than in the shadehouse. Plant and Soil, 1-12.

Surendra, A., Madhubhani, H. S., Lakmali, H. M., Shantha, K. U., Jayathilaka, H. C., Gunasoma, B. W., … Ashton, M. S., … & Comita, L. S. (2026). Neighbourhood effects on tree seedlings differ by mycorrhizal symbiont type in a mixed dipterocarp forest. Journal of Vegetation Science, 37(1), e70116.

Warren, D. R., Loeb, H. M., Logan, B. A., & Duguid, M. C. (2026). Historical art as a source of insight for studies of environmental change. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, e70046.

Watts, J. D., Ordway, E., Malone, S. L., Zhu, Q., Palmer, P. I., Patel-Tupper, D., … & Vargas, R. (2026). A global methane observation system to track climate feedbacks for verifiable climate impact. Science, 391(6792), 1324-1327.

Weissflog, A., Browne, L., Dent, D. H., Rüger, N., & Comita, L. S. (2026). Demographic groups do not explain variation in tropical seedling performance with secondary forest age. Forest Ecology and Management, 613, 123773.

Zhang, H., Zhu, Y., Wang, X., & Queenborough, S. A. (2026). Soil mediates the impact of functional traits on tree growth and survival across life stages in a temperate forest. Oikos, e11964.

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