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This study monitored the habitat-use patterns of 71 radio-marked sage-grouse inhabiting an area affected by wildfire in the Virginia Mountains of northwestern Nevada during 2009–2011 to determine the effect of micro-habitat attributes on reproductive success. Sage-grouse selected micro-sites with greater shrub canopy cover and less cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) cover than random sites. Total shrub canopy, including sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) and other shrub species, at small spatial scales (0.8 ha and 3.1 ha) was the single contributing selection factor to higher nest survival. These results indicate that reducing the risk of wildfire to maintain important sagebrush habitats could be emphasized in sage-grouse conservation strategies in Nevada. Managers may seek to mitigate the influx of annual grass invasion by preserving large intact sagebrush-dominated stands with a mixture of other shrub species. For this area of Nevada, the results suggest that ≥40% total shrub canopy cover in sage-grouse nesting areas could yield improved reproductive success.
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This paper highlights greater sage-grouse egg depredation observations obtained opportunistically from three common raven nests located in Idaho and Nevada where depredated greater sage-grouse eggs were found at or in the immediate vicinity of the nest site, including the caching of eggs in nearby rock crevices. Nests were opportunistically monitored by counting and removing depredated eggs and shell fragments from the nest sites during each visit to determine the extent to which the common raven pairs preyed on greater sage-grouse eggs. These observations may represent the first evidence that breeding, territorial pairs of common ravens cache greater sage-grouse eggs and are capable of depredating multiple greater sage-grouse nests.
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This study evaluated how divergence from historic (pre-Euroamerican settlement) fire frequencies due to a century of fire suppression influences rates of high-severity fire in five forest types in California. With some variation, results suggest that fires in forest types characterized by fuel-limited fire regimes (e.g., yellow pine and mixed conifer forest) tend to burn with greater proportions of high-severity fire as either time since last fire or the mean modern fire return interval (FRI) increases.
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In this news article, work by Ann Kennedy, scientist at Washington State, Susan Meyer, USFS research ecologist, and others is highlighted. Their work includes sorting through some 20,000 strains of naturally occurring soil bacteria to discover two that single out cheatgrass.
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This study proposes using the principles of risk analysis to provide land management agencies, first responders, and affected communities who face the inevitability of wildfires the ability to reduce the potential for loss. Overcoming perceptions of wildland urban interface fire disasters as a wildfire control problem rather than a home ignition problem, determined by home ignition conditions, will reduce home loss.
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This Science article reports on a growing body of research challenging the widespread notion that beetle-killed forests are more vulnerable to more severe fires than those that have escaped infestation. The findings are highlighting the complex causes of western wildfires and raising new questions about the efficacy of some fire prevention policies, such as plans to remove beetle-killed trees from vast swaths of forest.
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In the op-ed piece, Two Wildfires Everyone Should be Talking About, Wally Covingtion director of the Ecological Restoration Institute and professor of forest ecology at Northern Arizona University, suggests that by acting quickly and at larger scales, forest health can be restored and resiliency be built so that forests are better prepared for whatever changes may occur in the future.
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This study analysed the role of defensible space by mapping and measuring a suite of pre-fire variables for 1000 destroyed and 1000 surviving structures for all fires where homes burned from 2001 to 2010 in San Diego County, CA, USA. Structures were more likely to survive a fire with defensible space immediately adjacent to them. The most effective treatment distance varied between 5 and 20 m (16–58 ft) from the structure, but distances larger than 30 m (100 ft) did not provide additional protection, even for structures located on steep slopes. The most effective actions were reducing woody cover up to 40% immediately adjacent to structures and ensuring that vegetation does not overhang or touch the structure.
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This study summarizes data from extensive monitoring (2003-12) of sage-grouse populations within the Bi-State DPS. Data regarding lek attendance, movement, and survival of sage-grouse across multiple life stages were documented. A hierarchical integrated population modeling (IPM) approach was used to derive demographic parameters, which allows for the integration of multiple data sources to inform population growth rates and population vital rates.
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Results of this case study suggest that if applications and conditions of this study can be mimicked, livestock producers and natural resource managers can likely use fall prescribed fire in the mesic sagebrush steppe to affect cattle resource-use patterns for 5 years postfire.