Research and Publications
View article.
Based on nearly 25 years of experience at NASA, the University of Georgia, and The Weather Channel, Marshall Shepherd offers nine tips for communicating science to non-scientists.
- Know your audience
- Don’t use jargon
- Get to the point
- Use analogies and metaphors
- Give 3 key points
- You are the expert
- Use social media
- Take your message beyond the journals
- Relate to your audience
View fact sheet.
Numerous agencies, organizations, and collaboratives conduct activities related to wildland fire. Understanding all of their different roles and objectives can be confusing. This fact sheet provides brief descriptions of some of the most common wildland fire initiatives, programs, networks, and other efforts taking place around the country.
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This study found that insects generally reduced the severity of subsequent wildfires. Specific effects varied with insect type and timing, but both insects decreased the abundance of live vegetation susceptible to wildfire at multiple time lags. By dampening subsequent burn severity, native insects could buffer rather than exacerbate fire regime changes expected due to land use and climate change. In light of these findings, the researchers recommend a precautionary approach when designing and implementing forest management policies intended to reduce wildfire hazard and increase resilience to global change.
View synthesis.
This short synthesis highlights findings of the national Fire and Fire Surrogates Study, which conducted an integrated network of experiments at 13 sites across the United States, many of which took place on National Forest lands. Results suggest that more species increased in number than decreased. For example, researchers reported that populations of western bluebirds (Sialia mexicana) increased following prescribed fire; whereas mountain chickadees (Poecile gambeli) decreased in response to thinning treatments. The positive and negative responses of deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus), gray-collared chipmunks (Tamias cinereicollis) and least chipmunks (T. minimus) varied among the sites; but the overall biomass of small mammals increased in response to the fire treatments. Researchers also found that small mammals’ responses were related to fire uniformity: the more heterogeneous the post-fire landscape, the greater the proportion of positive responses.
View brief.
This brief was developed to help guide collaborative landscape planning efforts, through use of a framework of seven core principles and their implications for management of fire-prone interior forest landscapes.
Key findings included:
- Historically, forests were spatially heterogeneous at multiple scales as a result of interactions among succession, disturbance, and other processes.
- Planning and management are needed at fine to broad scales to restore the key characteristics of resilience.
- Landscapes must be viewed as socio-ecological systems that provide services to people within the limited capacities of ecosystems.
- Development of landscape-level prescriptions is the foundation of restoration planning.
View article.
This study found that prescribed fires conducted under favorable conditions (2011) induced potentially positive bighorn responses including high survival and increased use of treated areas. Fires during drought conditions were more widespread with little vegetative response (2012) and coincided with increased bighorn mortality in spring 2013.
View paper.
This Association for Fire Ecology position paper is an organization-wide initiative with two objectives: to determine the prevalence of these two issues throughout the profession, including management, education, and research; and to provide a set of principles and actions that are strongly recommended for implementation in order to foster organizational cultures of respect, equity, and parity.
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This KQED Science article indicates that since 1600, the way humans have used land in the Sierra has had more effect on fire behavior than climate change. Valerie Trouet, associate professor of dendrochronology at the University of Arizona and lead coauthor of a study about humans and fire, suggests that land managers and owners can affect fire behavior through activities that make forests more resilient.
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In this study, researchers concluded that variability in tree regeneration after disturbance can dampen and delay future disturbance by breaking spatiotemporal synchrony on the landscape. This highlights the importance of fostering landscape variability in the context of ecosystem management given changing disturbance regimes.
View abstracts.
Abstracts of recent publications on climate change and land management in the West. Prepared by Louisa Evers, Science and Climate Change Coordinator, Bureau of Land Management, Oregon-Washington State Office.