Research and Publications
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This study evaluated management decision making as representatives from government agencies and conservation nongovernmental organizations, ranchers, and interdisciplinary researchers worked within the Collaborative Adaptive Rangeland Management (CAMP) experiment to 1) prioritize desired ecosystem services; 2) determine objectives; 3) set stocking rates, criteria for livestock movement among pastures, and vegetation treatments; and 4) select monitoring techniques that would inform decision making. For this paper, we analyzed meeting transcripts, interviews, and focus group data related to stakeholder group decision making. We find two key lessons from the CARM project. First, the CAM process makes visible, but does not reconcile differences between, stakeholder experiences and ways of knowing about complex rangeland systems. Second, social learning in CAM is contingent on the development of trust among stakeholder and researcher groups. We suggest future CAM efforts should 1) make direct efforts to share and acknowledge managers’ different rangeland management experiences, epistemologies, and knowledge and 2) involve long-term research commitment in time and funding to social, as well as experimental, processes that promote trust building among stakeholders and researchers over time.
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Abstracts of Recent Papers on Range Management in the West. Prepared by Charlie Clements, Rangeland Scientist, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Reno, NV.
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This working paper describes how Air Resource Advisors use smoke modeling and monitoring tools to build a toolkit for fire managers and to improve public communication.
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This study found that live fuel, on average, was the most important factor driving high-severity fire among ecoregions (average relative influence = 53.1%) and was the most important factor in 14 of 19 ecoregions. Fire weather was the second most important factor among ecoregions (average relative influence = 22.9%) and was the most important factor in five ecoregions. Climate (13.7%) and topography (10.3%) were less influential. The study also predicted the probability of high-severity fire, were a fire to occur, using recent (2016) satellite imagery to characterize live fuel for a subset of ecoregions in which the model skill was deemed acceptable (n = 13). These ‘wall-to-wall’ gridded ecoregional maps provide relevant and up-to-date information for scientists and managers who are tasked with managing fuel and wildland fire.
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All three ungulate species had significant and similar effects on aspen regeneration success, but when adjusted for differences in estimated forage intake (animal unit months), differential impacts became apparent (deer > elk > cattle). We estimated that 4 cattle per camera−1 day−1 and 2.5 deer or elk per camera−1 day−1 was sufficient to reach the critical recruitment threshold of 60% removal of apical meristems. We conclude that ungulates species differentially influence aspen regeneration and recruitment, and that ungulate browsing above 30% meristem removal impairs aspen recruitment with recruitment failure occurring above 60% meristem loss.
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This study shows that previously unnoted declines in summer precipitation from 1979 to 2016 across 31–45% of the forested areas in the western United States are strongly associated with burned area variations. The number of wetting rain days (WRD; days with precipitation ≥2.54 mm) during the fire season partially regulated the temperature and subsequent vapor pressure deficit (VPD) previously implicated as a primary driver of annual wildfire area burned.
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This study was conducted in conjunction with the Sagebrush Steppe Treatment Evaluation Project (SageSTEP) and was designed to determine the impact of vegetation treatments on fuel variables two years post treatment in sagebrush steppe with an expanding juniper or pinyon −juniper woodland component. Ten locations that characterize common sagebrush steppe sites with an expanding woodland component in the Intermountain West were chosen for analysis. These woodland sites, covering a gradient of juniper development phases, were treated with mechanical (cut and leave) and prescribed fire treatments.
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Data on plant cover and density was collected on 67 sites in a 209,000 ha study area that varied in fire and post-fire rehabilitation history along gradients in elevation, soil texture, and precipitation. Multiple linear regression indicated significant inverse relationships between B. tectorum and both P. secunda and A. cristatum, but P. secunda had suppressed B. tectorum cover and density better than A. cristatum. A nonparametric multiple regression analyzing the effect of 86 abiotic and biotic independent variables indicated that elevation, mid to late season native perennial bunchgrasses, and the number of post-fire rehabilitation treatments (for B. tectorum cover) or time since most recent rehabilitation (for B. tectorum density) explained the most variation in Bromus tectorum suppression across the landscape.
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This represents the first phase of a project investigating policies that limit managers’ ability to conduct prescribed fire on US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands in the 11 Western states. The goals for this phase of our work were to understand the extent to which various policies are limiting prescribed fire programs, strategies to maintain and increase prescribed fire activities, and opportunities for improving policies or policy implementation. To understand the diversity of challenges faced and strategies in use across the West, we conducted a legal analysis of the laws and policies that affect prescribed fire programs on Forest Service and BLM lands (available online at http://ewp.uoregon.edu/publications/working) and approximately 60 interviews with land managers, air regulators, state agency partners, and several NGO partners.
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Through a series of examples spanning at least four research disciplines and three ranges of spatial scale, we illustrate that by precisely defining parameters in a way that holds across scales and relaxing one steady-state simplification, we begin to capture the inherent variability that has largely eluded the fire behavior community. Through exploring examples of “deep interdependence,” we make the case that fire behavior science is well equipped to launch forward into more complex lines of inquiry.