Research Database
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Prescribed fire regimes subtly alter ponderosa pine forest plant community structure
Year: 2019
Prescribed fire is an active management tool used to address wildfire hazard and ecological concerns associated with fire exclusion and suppression over the past century. Despite widespread application in the United States, there is considerable inconsistency and lack of information regarding the extent to which specific outcomes are achieved and under what prescribed fire regimes, particularly in regard to ecological goals related to plant community structure. We quantify differences and patterns in plant functional group abundance, species richness and diversity, and other key forest…
Publication Type: Journal Article
The emergence of network governance in U.S. National Forest Administration: Causal factors and propositions for future research
Year: 2019
Since its establishment in the early twentieth century, the U.S. Forest Service has periodically evolved its approach to decision-making and management for the millions of hectares of national forest under its authority. Starting in the 1990s, a complex governance regime emerged in which non-Forest Service entities—such as state and other federal agencies, non-governmental organizations, public utilities, rural communities, and others—contribute resources and legitimacy to processes that include decision-making, project funding and implementation, monitoring, and changes to management rules…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Examining post-fire vegetation recovery with Landsat time series analysis in three western North American forest types
Year: 2019
Background: Few studies have examined post-fire vegetation recovery in temperate forest ecosystems with Landsat time series analysis. We analyzed time series of Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR) derived from LandTrendr spectral-temporal segmentation fitting to examine post-fire NBR recovery for several wildfires that occurred in three different coniferous forest types in western North America during the years 2000 to 2007. We summarized NBR recovery trends, and investigated the influence of burn severity, post-fire climate, and topography on post-fire vegetation recovery via random forest (RF)…
Publication Type: Journal Article