Research Database
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5
California Spotted Owl, Songbird, and Small Mammal Responses to Landscape Fuel Treatments
Year: 2014
A principal challenge of federal forest management has been maintaining and improving habitat for sensitive species in forests adapted to frequent, low- to moderate-intensity fire regimes that have become increasingly vulnerable to uncharacteristically severe wildfires. To enhance forest resilience, a coordinated landscape fuel network was installed in the northern Sierra Nevada, which reduced the potential for hazardous fire, despite constraints for wildlife protection that limited the extent and intensity of treatments. Small mammal and songbird communities were largely unaffected by this…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Climate change vulnerability and adaptation in the North Cascades region, Washington
Year: 2014
The North Cascadia Adaptation Partnership (NCAP) is a science-management partnership consisting of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service Mount Baker-Snoqualmie and Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forests and Pacific Northwest Research Station; North Cascades National Park Complex; Mount Rainier National Park; and University of Washington Climate Impacts Group. These organizations worked with numerous stakeholders over 2 years to identify climate change issues relevant to resource management in the North Cascades and to find solutions that will facilitate the transition of the diverse…
Publication Type: Report
Assessing the Compatibility of Fuel Treatments, Wildfire Risk, and Conservation of Northern Spotted Owl Habitats and Populations in the Eastern Cascades: A Multi-Scale Analysis
Year: 2014
National Forests in the dry forest provinces on the east‐side of the Oregon and Washington Cascades have been managed under the guidelines of local Forest Plans and the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP), both of which specify large areas of late‐successional reserves (LSRs). In contrast, the recently‐released USDI Fish and Wildlife Service Revised Recovery Plan (RRP) for the Northern Spotted Owl (NSO) calls for development of dynamic and shifting mosaics in the dry forests, and retention of LSRs in moist forests of eastern Cascades of Oregon and Washington, to address NSO habitat and wildfire…
Publication Type: Report
Fire severity and tree regeneration following bark beetle outbreaks: the role of outbreak stage and burning conditions
Year: 2014
The degree to which recent bark beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) outbreaks may influence fire severity and postfire tree regeneration is of heightened interest to resource managers throughout western North America, but empirical data on actual fire effects are lacking. Outcomes may depend on burning conditions (i.e., weather during fire), outbreak severity, or intervals between outbreaks and subsequent fire. We studied recent fires that burned through green-attack/red-stage (outbreaks <3 years before fire) and gray-stage (outbreaks 3–15 years before fire) subalpine forests dominated by…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Clearcutting and high severity wildfire have comparable effects on growth of direct-seeded interior Douglas-fir
Year: 2014
The degree to which harvesting can achieve comparable beneficial effects to wildfire on seedling establishment is a key factor in understanding regeneration dynamics in dry interior forest ecosystems. We compared the capacity of harvesting versus wildfire to support establishment of directly-seeded interior Douglas-fir over a three-year period in the interior Douglas-fir biogeoclimatic zone of British Columbia. The mixed-severity McLure Fire of August 2003 affected over 26,000 hectares in the central British Columbia, Canada. Within the fire-affected area, we assessed growth performance in…
Publication Type: Journal Article