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Research Database

Displaying 101 - 104 of 104

Synthesis of Knowledge on the Effects of Fire and Thinning Treatments on Understory Vegetation in U.S. Dry Forests

Year: 2009
The results of this synthesis illustrate several important lessons. First, current forest structure is the result of decades of fire-suppression activities, and so restoration will require multiple treatments to bring forests to within the range of historic variation. Second, while the treatments discussed in this document generally increased native plant responses, the same treatments also increased exotic plant response. Therefore, to avoid spread of exotic plant species, it is important to consider the context of the treatment area, (e.g., nearby roads, wildland urban interface, previous…
Fire Effects and Fire Ecology, Fuels and Fuel Treatments
extension publications and factsheets, synthesis, disturbance, invasive species
Publication Type: Report

The Ecological Importance of Severe Wildfires: Some Like it Hot

Year: 2008
Many scientists and forest land managers concur that past fire suppression, grazing, and timber harvesting practices have created unnatural and unhealthy conditions in the dry, ponderosa pine forests of the western United States. Specifically, such forests are said to carry higher fuel loads and experience fires that are more severe than those that occurred historically. It remains unclear, however, how far these generalizations can be extrapolated in time and space, and how well they apply to the more mesic ponderosa pine systems and to other forest systems within the western United States.…
Fish and Wildlife Habitat, Mixed-Conifer Management
fire regimes, fire severity, wildlife
Publication Type: Journal Article

Postfire woodpecker foraging in salvage-logged and unlogged forests of the Sierra Nevada

Year: 2008
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. Although there have been several studies of postfire salvage-logging effects on bird species, there have been few studies of effects on bird species associated with high-severity patches in forests that have otherwise burned at lower severities. From 2004 to 2006, we investigated the foraging presence or absence of three woodpecker species, the Black-backed (Picoides arcticus), Hairy (P. villosus), and White-headed (P. albolarvatus)…
Fish and Wildlife Habitat
post-fire, wildlife, fire severity, salvage logging
Publication Type: Journal Article

Burned landscapes of southwestern Oregon: what's in it for Northern Spotted Owls?

Year: 2008
Northern spotted owls are known to spend time in areas burned by wildfire, but there has been little scientific investigation of how and why they use these landscapes. A trio of wildfires in southwestern Oregon during the summers of 2001 and 2002 burned through dozens of documented spotted owl territories, providing a rare opportunity to study many important aspects of how these raptors respond to wildfire in dry forest ecosystems. For this project researchers used radio telemetry and demographic surveys to investigate habitat selection, home range size, occupancy, productivity and survival…
Fish and Wildlife Habitat, Fuels and Fuel Treatments
jfsp fire science briefs and digests, wildlife, post-fire
Publication Type: Report