Research Database
Displaying 161 - 180 of 182
Wildfire severity mediates fluxes of plant material and terrestrial invertebrates to mountain streams
Year: 2012
Wildfire effects upon riparian plant community structure, composition, and distribution may strongly influence the dynamic relationships between riparian vegetation and stream ecosystems. However, few studies have examined the influence of fire on these processes. To that end, we compared the quantity and composition of allochthonous inputs of plant material and terrestrial invertebrates among stream tributaries characterized by various degrees of burn severity 5 years post-fire in the Frank Church Wilderness of central Idaho, USA. The magnitude of inputs of coniferous leaf litter to unburned…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Evidence of Enhanced Freezing Damage in Treeline Plants During Six Years of CO 2 Enrichment and Soil Warming
Year: 2012
Climate change and elevated atmospheric CO 2 levels could increase the vulnerability of plants to freezing. We analyzed tissue damage resulting from naturally occurring freezing events in plants from a longterm in situ CO 2 enrichment (+ 200 ppm, 2001-2009) and soil warming (+ 4°C since 2007) experiment at treeline in the Swiss Alps (Stillberg, Davos). Summer freezing events caused damage in several abundant subalpine and alpine plant species in four out of six years between 2005 and 2010. Most freezing damage occurred when temperatures dropped below -1.5°C two to three weeks after snow melt…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Fire Effects on the Spatial Patterning of Soil Properties in Sagebrush Steppe, USA: A Meta-Analysis
Year: 2012
Understanding effects of changes in ecological disturbance regimes on soil properties, and capacity of soil properties to resist disturbance, is important for assessing ecological condition. In this meta-analysis, we examined the resilience of surface soil properties and their spatial patterning to disturbance by fire in sagebrush steppe of North America – a biome currently experiencing increases in wildfire due to climate change. We reviewed 39 studies that reported on soil properties for sagebrush steppe with distinct microsite (undershrub and interspace) patterning that was or was not…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Carbon Dynamics of Forests in Washington, USA: 21st Century Projections Based on Climate-Driven Changes in Fire Regimes
Year: 2012
During the 21st century, climate-driven changes in fire regimes will be a key agent of change in forests of the U.S. Pacific Northwest (PNW). Understanding the response of forest carbon (C) dynamics to increases in fire will help quantify limits on the contribution of forest C storage to climate change mitigation and prioritize forest types for monitoring C storage and fire management to minimize C loss. In this study, we used projections of 21st century area burned to explore the consequences of changes in fire regimes on C dynamics in forests of Washington State. We used a novel empirical…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Fluvial Response to Abrupt Global Warming at the Palaeocene/Eocene Boundary
Year: 2012
Climate strongly affects the production of sediment from mountain catchments as well as its transport and deposition within adjacent sedimentary basins. However, identifying climatic influences on basin stratigraphy is complicated by nonlinearities, feedback loops, lag times, buffering and convergence among processes within the sediment routeing system. The Palaeocene/Eocene thermal maximum (PETM) arguably represents the most abrupt and dramatic instance of global warming in the Cenozoic era and has been proposed to be a geologic analogue for anthropogenic climate change. Here we evaluate the…
Publication Type: Journal Article
After the Fire is Out
Year: 2011
Even before firefighters have left a burn site, a second wave of specialists is deployed. Their task: to assess the burn site; determine the level of risk to life, property, and ecological resources; and determine quickly the most effective postfire treatments for emergency stabilization and initial rehabilitation of the site. For the past 13 years, the Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP) has funded research on this critical phase of work, which often goes unnoticed after the fire is out. With support from the JFSP, scientists have made great strides in improving the tools available to assess…
Publication Type: Report
Nontribal community recovery from wildfire five years later: The case of the Rodeo-Chediski fire
Year: 2011
Recent literature suggests that natural disasters such as wildfires often have the short-term effect of ‘‘bringing people together’’ while also under some circumstances generating social conflict at the local level. Conflict has been documented particularly when social relations are disembedded by nonlocal entities and there is a perceived loss of local agency. There is less agreement about longer term impacts. We present results of a re-study of a set of communities affected by the largest wildfire in Arizona history. The re-study uses structuration theory to suggest that while local…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Vegetation recovery after fire in the Klamath-Siskiyou region, southern Oregon
Year: 2011
This overview is intended to facilitate decisions regarding forest regeneration in the Klamath-Siskiyou Ecoregion. It summarizes the results of several scientific investigations that took place in the ecoregion. Some of the research occurred in areas without post-fire management, and other research occurred in moderately or intensively managed areas. Some of the research also occurred immediately after a wildfire, and other work occurred several decades later.
Publication Type: Report
Woodpecker Habitat After the Fire
Year: 2011
Public land managers are asked to minimize fuel levels after fires, including using techniques such as salvage logging. They are also responsible for maintaining suitable wildlife habitat, especially for species of concern to state and federal agencies. An area where these responsibilities could conflict is in the use of salvage logging in burned-over areas that also represent good habitat for certain wildlife such as woodpeckers. Controversy over this conflict has led to litigation. Public land management agencies need consistent design criteria to maintain suitable habitats for these birds…
Publication Type: Report
Effectiveness of post-fire seeding at the Fitzner-Eberhardt Arid Land Ecology Reserve, Washington
Year: 2011
In August 2007, the Milepost 17 and Wautoma fires burned a combined total of 77,349 acres (31,302 hectares) of the Fitzner-Eberhardt Arid Land Ecology Reserve (ALE), part of the Hanford Reach National Monument administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Mid-Columbia National Wildlife Refuge. In 2008, the USFWS implemented a series of seeding and herbicide treatments to mitigate potential negative consequences of these fires, including mortality of native vegetation, invasion of Bromus tectorum (cheatgrass), and soil erosion. Treatments included combinations of seeding (drill…
Publication Type: Report
Short- and Long-term Effects of Fire on Carbon in US Dry Temperate Forest Systems
Year: 2011
Forests sequester carbon from the atmosphere, and in so doing can mitigate the effects of climate change. Fire is a natural disturbance process in many forest systems that releases carbon back to the atmosphere. In dry temperate forests, fires historically burned with greater frequency and lower severity than they do today. Frequent fires consumed fuels on the forest floor and maintained open stand structures. Fire suppression has resulted in increased understory fuel loads and tree density; a change in structure that has caused a shift from low- to high-severity fires. More severe fires,…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Prescribed fires as ecological surrogates for wildfires: A stream and riparian perspective
Year: 2010
Forest managers use prescribed fire to reduce wildfire risk and to provide resource benefits, yet little information is available on whether prescribed fires can function as ecological surrogates for wildfire in fire-prone landscapes. Information on impacts and benefits of this management tool on stream and riparian ecosystems is particularly lacking. We used a beyond-BACI (Before, After, Control, Impact) design to investigate the effects of a prescribed fire on a stream ecosystem and compared these findings to similar data collected after wildfire. For 3 years after prescribed fire treatment…
Publication Type: Journal Article
The fire pulse: wildfire stimulates flux of aquatic prey to terrestrial habitats driving increase in riparian consumers
Year: 2010
We investigated the midterm effects of wildfire (in this case, five years after the fire) of varying severity on periphyton, benthic invertebrates, emerging adult aquatic insects, spiders, and bats by comparing unburned sites with those exposed to low severity (riparian vegetation burned but canopy intact) and high severity (canopy completely removed) wildfire. We observed no difference in periphyton chlorophyll a or ash-free dry mass among different burn categories but did observe significantly greater biomass of benthic invertebrates in both high severity burned and unburned reaches versus…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Fuelwood Characteristics of Northwestern Conifers and Hardwoods (Updated)
Year: 2010
This report is an update of the original publication by Oregon State University in 1987 (Resource Bulletin 60). According to agreements, researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station and the Juneau Economic Development Council worked with Oregon State University to update this reference concerning wood energy properties. The fuelwood characteristics were reformatted and presented in tabular form, and a literature review was conducted to check for additional information published since 1987. This report provides fuelwood values for 34…
Publication Type: Report
Response of antelope bitterbrush to repeated prescribed burning in Central Oregon ponderosa pine forests
Year: 2009
Antelope bitterbrush is a dominant shrub in many interior ponderosa pine forests in the western United States. How it responds to prescribed fire is not well understood, yet is of considerable concern to wildlife and fire managers alike given its importance as a browse species and as a ladder fuel in these fire-prone forests. We quantified bitterbrush cover, density, and biomass in response to repeated burning in thinned ponderosa pine forests. Low- to moderate-intensity spring burning killed the majority of bitterbrush plants on replicate plots. Moderately rapid recovery of bitterbrush…
Publication Type: Journal Article
The Forest, the Fire and the Fungi: Studying the Effects of Prescribed Burning on Mycorrhizal Fungi in Crater Lake National Park
Year: 2009
A first-of-its-kind study, conducted in a forest of old-growth ponderosa pine and white fir in Oregon’s Crater Lake National Park, explored the relationships among seasonal prescribed burning, an array of soil attributes, and mycorrhizal fungal fruiting patterns. This three-fold approach not only made the study unique, but also enabled researchers to separate the effects of fire treatment from the effects of soil attributes on fungal fruiting patterns. The study’s site encompassed three different prescribed burn treatments—applied in the early spring, late spring, and fall of 2002—as well as…
Publication Type: Report
Has Fire Suppression Increased the Amount of Carbon Stored in Western US Forests?
Year: 2008
Active 20th century fire suppression in western US forests, and a resulting increase in stem density, is thought to account for a significant fraction of the NorthAmerican carbon sink. We compared California forest inventories from the 1930s with inventories from the 1990s to quantify changes in aboveground biomass. Stem density in mid-montane conifer forests increased by 34%, while live aboveground carbon stocks decreased by 26%. Increased stem density reflected an increase in the number of small trees and a net loss of large trees. Large trees contain a disproportionate amount of carbon,…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Four centuries of soil carbon and nitrogen change after stand-replacing fire in a forest landscape in the western Cascade range of Oregon
Year: 2008
Episodic stand-replacing wildfire is a significant disturbance in mesic and moist Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco) forests of the Pacific Northwest. We studied 24 forest stands with known fire histories in the western Cascade Range in Oregon to evaluate long-term impacts of stand-replacing wildfire on carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) pools and dynamics within the forest floor (FF, Oe and Oa horizons) and the mineral soil (0–10 cm). Twelve of our stands burned approximately 150 years ago (“young”), and the other 12 burned approximately 550 years ago (“old”). Forest floor mean C…
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…
Publication Type: Report
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)…
Publication Type: Journal Article