All ecosystems are dynamic, changing due to growth, succession and disturbances. Modeling large landscapes in the United States requires the collective knowledge of experienced and knowledgeable vegetation and fire experts.
California chaparral is a hugely diverse plant community with many endemic species. Because of its fire activity and fire-proneness, chaparral is often removed from areas where people live in order to risk to lives and property. Beyond the direct consequences to wildlife of this vegetation removal, little is known about how wildlife species respond to different management techniques.
The Lucky Peak Nursery, managed by the USDA Forest Service in Boise, ID, has been producing dryland shrubs for almost sixty years for restoration plantings on public lands throughout the Great Basin. The clients provide the seed for the production of the one-year seedlings.
LANDFIRE has more than 1,000 state-and-transition models and descriptions for ecosystems (called Biophysical Settings or BpS). These models and descriptions are used in research, national vegetation mapping and assessment, and on-the-ground management. A new phase is underway as LANDFIRE deepens and broadens the science and applicability of these models and descriptions.
A number of recent studies in the Southwest region have documented abrupt transitions of conifer-dominated forests to shrubfields following high-severity fire. Little is known about the long-term ecosystem dynamics of these stands, including their successional trajectories and interactions with fire.
Please join Ryan Haugo, Senior Forest Ecologist with The Nature Conservancy & Paul Hessburg, Research Landscape Ecologist with the USDA Forest Service for a joint webinar on Restoring fire-prone Inland Pacific landscapes: Seven core principles / Applying principles of landscape restoration within the eastern Cascades.
Fire can change the quality of habitat for many taxonomic groups, including butterflies. The abundance of nectar-producing plants, and the volume and concentration of the nectar in those plants, peaks in the initial years following a fire.
Beginning in the 1960s the U.S. experienced a revolution in fire policy, science, and practice. The contours of that reformation on a national scale are becoming sharper with time. But America is also a confederation of regions, of which three - Florida, California, and the Northern Rockies - are most relevant.