Fact Sheet / Brief
View brief.
This study examines the differences in community level exposures to smoke from both wildfire and prescribed fire.
View brief.
Strategically placed landscape area fuel treatments in the Sierra Nevada were put to the test in this study when the American Fire burned through previously treated areas. Both fire effects and initial post-fire conifer regeneration were investigated.
View brief.
Large-scale encroached conifer removal is an increasingly widespread practice that benefits rangeland productivity and restores habitat quality for sagegrouse and other sagebrush-dependent wildlife. Recent studies show that after encroached conifers are removed, sage-grouse occupancy, nest survival, and brood success are greatly improved. Studies also show that sagebrush songbirds recolonize rapidly following encroached conifer removal.
Access research brief.
To revegetate disturbed desert lands, practitioners often reestablish fertile islands as a first step in restoring native plants and associated fauna on disturbed desert sites. This research brief discusses the pros and cons of this approach considering native and non-native species.
Access brief.
The Pacific Northwest Region of the Forest Service’s “Eastside Restoration Strategy” aimed to improve forest health conditions by accelerating the pace and scale of restoration on national forests in eastern Oregon and Washington. As part of this effort, the Regional Office created a dedicated interdisciplinary Blue Mountains Restoration Strategy Team (ID Team) to conduct landscape-level planning across four national forests and innovate strategies to more effectively reach planning decisions. We conducted interviews with 25 key informants, observed meetings, analyzed documents, and worked with an advisory group to understand transferrable insights from the project.
Access brief.
The WUI is often synonymous with fire risk to buildings, but this research suggests that this is not the case in all fire-prone states. While fire outreach was often present near areas where buildings are destroyed by wildfire, many communities are established after major fires.
View brief.
Discussions of successes, struggles, and failures with partner-specific tools are vital to the successful implementation of “translational ecology” a formal term for biological conservation partnerships.
View research brief.
We have been studying the WUI in the U.S. for more than 10 years, looking at where WUI areas were once located, where they are now, and where we expect them to be in the coming decades. Our new data set provides the first high-resolution data on WUI change from 1990 to 2010, revealing how housing growth and wildland vegetation have combined over time. We developed new algorithms that converted the decennial Census standalone data into a consistent dataset on housing growth across the conterminous U.S.
View research brief.
A study comparing insect communities in grazed, rested, and idled pastures in Montana found that the types of insects that provide a critical food source for sage grouse chicks and other shrub- and grassland-dependent birds were 13 percent more prevalent on managed versus idled rangelands.
View research brief.
Key findings of this research were:
- Burned low-elevation sagebrush sites can be seeded with mixes of native grasses, forbs and shrubs using rangeland drills adapted for seeding large and small seeds in separate rows.
- Seeding technique, timing of seed application, and seeding rate are important considerations when seeding Wyoming big sagebrush.
- The best techniques for establishing Wyoming big sagebrush are seeding at high rates via a drill in late fall.
- Success of seeding treatments on semiarid sites is ultimately dependent on weather conditions and competitive pressure from invasive weeds, and it may be best to delay treatments until conditions are predicted to be favorable, depending on the feasibility of weed control at the site.