Research Database
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6
Effectiveness of fuel treatments for mitigating wildfire risk and sequestering forest carbon: A case study in the Lake Tahoe Basin
Year: 2014
Fuel-reduction treatments are used extensively to reduce wildfire risk and restore forest diversity and function. In the near future, increasing regulation of carbon (C) emissions may force forest managers to balance the use of fuel treatments for reducing wildfire risk against an alternative goal of C sequestration. The objective of this study was to evaluate how long-term fuel treatments mitigate wildfires and affect forest C. For the Lake Tahoe Basin in the central Sierra Nevada, USA, fuel treatment efficiency was explored with a landscape-scale simulation model, LANDIS-II, using five fuel…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Dry forest resilience varies under simulated climate-management scenarios in a central Oregon, USA landscape
Year: 2014
Determining appropriate actions to create or maintain landscapes resilient to climate change is challenging because of uncertainty associated with potential effects of climate change and their interactions with land management. We used a set of climate informed state-and-transition models to explore the effects of management and natural disturbances on vegetation composition and structure under different future climates. Models were run for dry forests of central Oregon under a fire suppression scenario (i.e., no management other than the continued suppression of wildfires) and an active…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Beyond reducing fire hazard: fuel treatment impacts on overstory tree survival
Year: 2014
Fuel treatment implementation in dry forest types throughout the western United States is likely to increase in pace and scale in response to increasing incidence of large wildfires. While it is clear that properly implemented fuel treatments are effective at reducing hazardous fire potential, there are ancillary ecological effects that can impact forest resilience either positively or negatively depending on the specific elements examined, as well as treatment type, timing, and intensity. In this study, we use overstory tree growth responses, measured seven years after the most common fuel…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Vegetation Recovery in Slash-Pile Scars Following Conifer Removal in a Grassland-Restoration Experiment
Year: 2014
A principal challenge to restoring tree-invaded grasslands is the removal of woody biomass. Burning of slash piles to reduce woody residues from forest restoration practices generates intense, prolonged heating, with adverse effects on soils and vegetation. In this study, we examined vegetation responses to pile burning following tree removal from conifer-invaded grasslands of the Oregon Cascades. We quantified the longevity and magnitude of fire effects by comparing ground conditions and the cover and richness of plant species in burn-scar centers (higher-intensity fire) and edges (lower-…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Songbird response to wildfire in mixed-conifer forest in south-western Oregon
Year: 2014
We used 1 year of pre-fire and 4 years of post-fire data to quantify changes in the occurrence of birds at burned and unburned sites in a southern Oregon watershed after a 2500-ha wildfire. Our objectives were to identify bird species that increased or decreased as a result of this mixed-severity fire. Of the 27 species we investigated, we found evidence for fire-induced changes in the proportion of sites occupied by 13 species. Of these, most (8 species) were species that occurred at fewer sites after the fire than before. These changes were consistent with changes in vegetation composition…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Is fire exclusion in mountain big sagebrush communities prudent? Soil nutrient, plant diversity and arthropod response to burning
Year: 2014
Fire has largely been excluded from many mountain big sagebrush communities. Managers are reluctant to reintroduce fire, especially in communities without significant conifer encroachment, because of the decline in sagebrush-associated wildlife. Given this management direction, a better understanding of fire exclusion and burning effects is needed. We compared burned to unburned plots at six sites in Oregon. Soil nutrient availability generally increased with burning. Plant diversity increased with burning in the first post-burn year, but decreased by the third post-burn year. Burning altered…
Publication Type: Journal Article