Research and Publications
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Restoration of annual grass-invaded rangelands is often a management priority. Pre-emergent herbicides are an effective restoration tool to reduce annual grasses but can negatively impact seeded vegetation. Hence, seeding is often delayed until herbicide activity has abated. With indaziflam, a pre-emergent with longer soil activity, seeding may need to be delayed for several years. It would be advantageous if seeded species could establish while indaziflam controls annual grasses, as competition with annual grasses would be limited, and forage production and vegetation cover of the soil surface would recover sooner. Seeding deeper in the soil may allow seeded species to largely avoid herbicide activity, but seeded species may struggle to emerge from greater seeding depths. We investigated seeding squirreltail and crested wheatgrass at 1-, 3-, 5-, and 7-cm seeding depths just prior to a fall indaziflam application at two sites in 2 yr. Seeding at ∼1-cm is the recommended practice for both bunchgrasses. Seedling density in late June was greater at the 3 and 5 cm seeding depths and likely greater at the 7 cm depths than at the 1-cm depth. Seedling height was greater at the 3-, 5-, and 7-cm depths than at the 1-cm depth. Seedling density and height did not vary among the 3-, 5-, and 7-cm depths. This suggests that indaziflam largely did not penetrate below the first centimeter or two of the soil the growing season after application. Seeding at depths of 3–7 cm is likely a viable strategy for allowing some seeded species to establish while indaziflam controls annual grasses. Additional evaluations across a gradient of soil and site characteristics, with different plant species and functional groups, and other pre-emergent herbicides are needed to refine this restoration strategy and identify its benefits and limitations.
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The goal of restoration actions in these communities is to control the annual grasses and promote co-occurring perennial vegetation. Indaziflam and imazapic, applied as pre-emergent herbicides, have both been used for this purpose. Indaziflam often has less than desired control in the first year but can control annual grasses for multiple years. In contrast, imazapic has effective control in the first year, but control is short-lived. Land managers have recently started tank-mixing these two herbicides to potentially alleviate their individual shortcomings and theoretically achieve more effective, long-term annual grass control. However, little is known about the effectiveness of aerially applying these herbicides together, particularly compared with just applying indaziflam, and the effects on co-occurring perennial vegetation. We investigated the effects of applying indaziflam individually and in combination with imazapic at three sites (two in Oregon and one in Washington). Applying indaziflam and imazapic in tandem provided better control of annual vegetation and promoted perennial vegetation, although site differences influenced treatment effects. Applying indaziflam individually controlled annual vegetation but did not generally generate a response from perennial vegetation. Tank-mixing indaziflam and imazapic improved first-year control compared with only applying indaziflam, but control was still better in the second year after treatment, suggesting that a greater rate of imazapic than used in this study may be needed to achieve better first-year control. The results of this study suggest that applying indaziflam and imazapic in tandem may be an effective strategy for controlling invasive annual grasses and promoting co-occurring perennial vegetation.
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Behavioral responses to wildfire by sage-grouse are more flexible than has been described, and sage-grouse demonstrated resilience by rapidly adapting space use to avoid short-term consequences of catastrophic fire when high-quality habitat remained adjacent to the burn and within their seasonal range. Our results imply behavioral and fitness consequences of fire are context-dependent and likely impacted by attributes of the fire and surrounding landscape after disturbance. Furthermore, among-study differences in behavioral and fitness outcomes of sage-grouse after fire supported underappreciated predictions from both fire ecology and site fidelity theory, and suggest conditions where behavioral flexibility should be expressed, and fidelity relaxed, based on severity of disturbance, landscape context, and species mobility.
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Fire retardants have known toxicological outcomes on aquatic organisms when introduced into flowing freshwater systems and have been evaluated in USFS Environmental Impact Statements; however, affects on still-water aquatic environments such as ponds and wetlands are poorly understood. This fact sheet reviews the impacts of a commonly-used fire retardant on aquatic macroinvertebrates.
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Increasing watershed disturbance regimes, such as from wildfire, are a growing concern for natural resource managers. However, the influence of watershed disturbances on event-scale rainfall–runoff patterns has proved challenging to disentangle from other hydrologic controls. To better isolate watershed disturbance effects, this study evaluates the influence of several time-varying hydrologic controls on event-scale rainfall–runoff patterns, including water year type, seasonality, and antecedent precipitation. To accomplish this, we developed the Rainfall–Runoff Event Detection and Identification (RREDI) toolkit, an automated time-series event separation and attribution algorithm that overcomes several limitations of existing techniques. The RREDI toolkit was used to generate a dataset of 5042 rainfall–runoff events from nine western US watersheds. By analyzing this large dataset, water year type and season were identified as significant controls on rainfall–runoff patterns, whereas antecedent moisture was pinpointed as a limited control. Specific effects of wildfire disturbance on runoff response were then demonstrated for two burned watersheds by first grouping rainfall–runoff events based on identified hydrologic controls, such as wet versus dry water year types. The role of water year type and season should be considered in future hydrologic analysis to better isolate the increasing and changing effects of wildfires on streamflow. The RREDI toolkit could be readily applied to investigate the influence of other hydrologic controls and watershed disturbances on rainfall–runoff patterns.
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Section I – Describes components of an overall framework for sagebrush conservation. With individual chapters that provide a manager’s guide to inform landscapes conservation prioritization, approaches to increasing capacity across scales, monitoring and adaptive management constructs, and alternative approaches to develop partnerships and coordinate conservation actions at various scales.
Section II – Contains chapters that describe strategies and actions to address individual threats or to restore degraded sagebrush communities. Each includes a brief introductory narrative establishing the rationale and contextual basis for the strategic themes.
Section III – Highlights 15 case studies that were selected for possible best management practices and provides focused examples of successful collaborative conservation programs from across the West.
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In this article, we focus on a conceptual approach to developing, delivering, and applying ecological forecasts for restoration. We illustrate the potential of this approach by adapting existing ecological models to build an initial version of a decision support tool that delivers a species-specific ecological forecast for big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) establishment. Integrating ecological forecasts into plans for restoration seeding presents opportunities to anticipate and account for environmental variability.
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To reduce the risk of wildfire, it’s important to understand where fuel treatments are most likely to succeed. Recent research by Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS) scientists and their collaborators provides insights for prioritizing fuel treatments in sagebrush country. The group first developed four spatial layers to characterize sagebrush and pinyon-juniper landscapes: (1) indicators of ecological resilience to disturbance and resistance to invasion, (2) sagebrush associations, (3) persistent pinyon-juniper woodlands, and (4) pinyon-juniper expansion phases. The new indicators of resilience and resistance are dynamic because they are based on climate and soil moisture availability and allow assessment of potential treatment effects in a rapidly changing environment.
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The goal of this document is to summarize recent review articles that synthesize the state of wildland fire smoke communication research. We provide a summary of primary themes and then list key findings by article. Please note that each review article encompasses multiple studies, and here we focus on the themes shared across the articles. The review articles and the studies they cover offer abundant additional information, nuance, and detail for those seeking a deeper understanding of the available research.
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We conducted a within-subject observational study with 25 wildland firefighters from the British Columbia Wildfire Service, Canada. Data were collected remotely during the 2021 and 2022 fire seasons. Wrist-worn actigraphy and the psychomotor vigilance task served as objective, mobile measures of sleep and cognitive function, respectively. Web-based surveys were used to collect shift information and subjective cognitive function. Linear mixed effects modeling was used to control for inter-individual differences and explore the influence of participant-factors. Average sleep duration on fire suppression days was 6.7 h (s.d. 66 min), while average shift duration was 13.8 h (s.d. 108 min). Poor sleep and longer shift durations were both associated with reduced cognitive function across all metrics (P < 0.01; P < 0.001).
Firefighters are often exposed to poor sleep and long shifts, which are both associated with impaired cognitive function.