Webinar
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Greater sage-grouse have declined since the mid-1960s, and grazing is the most extensive land use within sage-grouse habitat. The webinar presents progress on a 10-year project designed to document the effects of cattle grazing on: 1) demographic traits of greater sage-grouse; 2) sage-grouse habitat characteristics, 3) insect abundance (important prey for sage-grouse chicks), and 4) abundance of all other bird species. The research team is working at five study sites in Idaho where they randomly assign BLM pastures to one of four grazing treatments that include spring-only grazing, spring and fall grazing, and no grazing. The research team includes Courtney Conway (Idaho Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit), Karen Launchbaugh (University of Idaho), David Musil (Idaho Department of Fish and Game), Andrew Meyers (University of Idaho), Paul Makela (Bureau of Land Management), and Shane Roberts (Idaho Department of Fish and Game).
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The Conservation Biology Institute, the Great Basin LCC, Oregon State University, and EcoAdapt hosted a workshop to present a series of decision support tools for land managers in the PNW. You can access the tools discussed at the workshop, from this webpage.
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Cheatgrass and medusahead invasions pose a serious threat to Great Basin ecosystems. Managers and scientists are hopeful that strains of the bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens will be able to selectively inhibit root growth of annual weeds in more complex rangeland ecosystems. These weed-suppressive bacteria (WSB) are now commercially available in many states and have been applied on tens of thousands of acres across the Great Basin, yet results are variable and largely unpublished, indicating that much remains to be understood about when, where and why WSB are or are not effective. This webinar features six speakers: Matt Germino, USGS and Great Basin LCC; David Pyke, USGS; Richard Lee, BLM; Mike Gregg, USFWS; Jane Mangold, Montana State University, and Brynne Lazarus, USGS.
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Three speakers from three different federal agencies discuss implementation opportunities and challenges from a national, regional and local perspective. Examples will relate to strategy goals (producing and providing needed seed, conducting research, expanding tools for land managers and communications).
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This learning series responds to Section 7.b.iii, Action Item #5 within the Fuels section of the 2015 Integrated Rangeland Fire Management Strategy, which calls for a comprehensive knowledge transfer program to enhance the fuels management program’s role in sagebrush-steppe management. The Strategy is intended to improve the efficiency and efficacy of actions to address rangeland fire, to better prevent and suppress rangeland fire, and improve efforts to restore fire-impacted landscapes.
The learning modules synthesize the state of the science for six management topics:
- Background and origins of the conservation problems facing the sagebrush steppe and greater sage-grouse
- Understanding and applying the concepts of resistance and resilience
- Management of sagebrush ecosystems experiencing conifer encroachment
- Management of sagebrush ecosystems at risk of or invaded by invasive annual grasses
- Restoration of sagebrush steppe ecosystems
- Issues specific to the eastern range of greater sage-grouse
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Becoming a fire-adapted community that can live with wildfire is envisioned as a continuous, iterative process of adaptation. Miranda Mockrin, a research scientist with the Forest Service combined national and case study research to examine how experience with wildfire alters the built environment and community- and government-level wildfire mitigation, planning, and regulations. Research suggests that adaptation to wildfire through WUI regulations depends on multiple factors, including past experience with fire and the geographic extent and scale of the fire event relative to the local community and its government. While communities did not often pursue changes in WUI regulations, experience with wildfire was frequently cited as the impetus for other adaptive responses, such as improving emergency response or fire suppression, and expanding education and interaction with homeowners, such as Firewise programs or government support for fuel mitigation on private lands.
The LANDFIRE Program strives to produce consistent fire behavior fuel model grids for the U.S. These models are relevant for predicting fire behavior, including spread and intensity, during average conditions; however, they often fall short during drought or seasonably dry conditions.
To address the need for that information, LANDFIRE developed a seasonal product named the Modeling Dynamic-Fuels with an Index System (MoD-FIS). These provisional products have been released for the Southwest and Great Basin regions, and are ready for testing and review by those who use LANDFIRE data. In this webinar, Charley Martin and Tobin Smail offer a MoD-FIS primer, explain how the products can be used in these regions, and solicit users’ input and review.
This webinar was co-hosted by LANDFIRE and members of the Joint Fire Science Program: Great Basin Fire Science, Southwest Fire Science, and Northern Rockies Fire Science. Content addresses challenges that managers of large landscapes deal with in these regions.
This webinar describes:
- The long-term (17-26 year) post-fire accumulation in fuel loads and resultant potential fire behavior where historical prefire and immediate postfire data exists in Wyoming and Basin big sagebrush communities.
- Fuel loads accumulation and structure along a time-since-fire. chronosequence in Wyoming, mountain, and low sagebrush ecosystems
- The fuels and reburn potential in once and twice burned Basin big sagebrush plant communities.
- Plant community change 17 years post fire in Wyoming big sagebrush ecosystems.
Presented by: Lisa Ellsworth, Oregon State University.
This webinar presents an overview of how to understand what weeds are and are not included in weed testing for seed that is sold in industry or increased under contract, and presents tools to help determine what weeds are actually present in seed procured by the end-user. A seed ordering guidance paper will also be made available. Presented by Steve Popovich, Emergency Stabilization and Rehabilitation National Program Lead, BLM, Washington D.C.
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Bruce Wylie and Stephen Boyte, USGS, discuss their recent research mapping herbaceous annual cover in the Great Basin. This webinar was hosted by the Great Basin LCC.