This paper compares carbon (C) and nutrient contents in soils (Alfisols derived from andesite), forest floor and vegetation in a former fire (1960) and an adjacent forest in the Sagehen Watershed in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California.

In 2002, the Biscuit Wildfire burned a portion of the previously established, replicated conifer unthinned and thinned experimental units of the Siskiyou Long-Term Ecosystem Productivity (LTEP) experiment, southwest Oregon. Charcoal C in pre and post-fire O horizon and mineral soil was quantified by physical separation and a peroxide-acid digestion method.

The risk of bark beetle outbreaks is widely predicted to increase because of a warming climate that accelerates temperature-driven beetle population growth and drought stress that impairs host tree defenses.

Fire is one of the most important natural disturbance processes in the western United States and ecosystems differ markedly with respect to their ecological and evolutionary relationships with fire.

In areas where fire regimes and forest structure have been dramatically altered, there is increasing concern that contemporary fires have the potential to set forests on a positive feedback trajectory with successive reburns, one in which extensive stand-replacing fire could promote more stand-replacing fire.

Whether ignited by lightning or by Native Americans, fire once shaped many North American ecosystems.

Repeated perturbations, both biotic and abiotic, can lead to fundamental changes in the nature of ecosystems, including changes in state. Sagebrush steppe communities provide important habitat for wildlife and grazing for livestock. Fire is an integral part of these systems, but there is concern that increased ignition frequencies and invasive species are fundamentally altering them.

Herbicides are the primary method used to control exotic, invasive plants. This study evaluated restoration efforts applied to grasslands dominated by an invasive plant, sulfur cinquefoil, 6 yr after treatments. Of the five herbicides we evaluated, picloram continued to provide the best control of sulfur cinquefoil over 6 yr.

In forests, high-severity burn patches — wherein most or all of the trees are killed by fire — often occur within a mosaic of low- and moderate-severity effects.

The current conditions of many seasonally dry forests in the western and southern United States, especially those that once experienced low- to moderate-intensity fire regimes, leave them uncharacteristically susceptible to high-severity wildfire.