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View our 10-year highlights in this Story Map.
For a decade, the Great Basin Fire Science Exchange (GBFSE) has supported fire, fuels, and restoration research and outreach in the region. We accelerate awareness, adoption, and implementation of fire science by providing a forum for managers, scientists, policy makers, and the public to interact and share. As one of 15 regional fire science exchanges sponsored by the Joint Fire Science Program, we organize and disseminate current research, make connections, and support long-term relationships between practitioners, managers, and researchers to improve the health of Great Basin ecosystems. From climate to communication, we’ve tackled the toughest issues facing managers and stakeholders in a stressed and changing environment. On our 10-year anniversary, we review our accomplishments and look to future challenges.
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In developing this report, a cross-functional group of stakeholders and subject matter experts (SMEs) from across the nation convened to identify 33 challenges within 13 key WUI issues and develop recommendations to address each challenge. In total, 112 recommendations are presented. These recommendations address challenges in firefighter health and safety, public health and safety, evacuations, forest and rangeland health and resiliency, climate change, community planning and resiliency, infrastructure and utilities, communication strategy and engagement operations, socioeconomic impacts, recovery, emerging technology, data use and modeling, and risk management in wildland fire. The recommendations should be pursued together, forming a system of strategies that require urgent, sustained and actionable implementations. These recommendations are not quick fixes, but solutions for the long term. Leadership on and commitment to the implementation of these recommendations results in a safer America.
This open access book synthesizes leading-edge science and management information about forest and rangeland soils of the United States. It offers ways to better understand changing conditions and their impacts on soils, and explores directions that positively affect the future of forest and rangeland soil health. This book outlines soil processes and identifies the research needed to manage forest and rangeland soils in the United States. Chapters give an overview of the state of forest and rangeland soils research in the Nation, including multi-decadal programs (chapter 1), then summarizes various human-caused and natural impacts and their effects on soil carbon, hydrology, biogeochemistry, and biological diversity (chapters 2-5). Other chapters look at the effects of changing conditions on forest soils in wetland and urban settings (chapters 6-7). Impacts include: climate change, severe wildfires, invasive species, pests and diseases, pollution, and land use change. Chapter 8 considers approaches to maintaining or regaining forest and rangeland soil health in the face of these varied impacts. Mapping, monitoring, and data sharing are discussed in chapter 9 as ways to leverage scientific and human resources to address soil health at scales from the landscape to the individual parcel (monitoring networks, data sharing Web sites, and educational soils-centered programs are tabulated in appendix B). Chapter 10 highlights opportunities for deepening our understanding of soils and for sustaining long-term ecosystem health and appendix C summarizes research needs. Nine regional summaries (appendix A) offer a more detailed look at forest and rangeland soils in the United States and its Affiliates.
Meta-analyses indicated that while P–J reduction caused significant positive overall effects on all shrub and herbaceous components (including invasive cheatgrass [Bromus tectorum] and exotic annual forbs), responses were contingent on treatment- and plant community-type combinations. Restoration seedings also had strong positive effects on understory vegetation by augmenting changes in perennial grass and perennial forb components, which similarly varied by plant community type. Collectively, our results identified specific situations where broad-scale efforts to reverse woodland encroachment substantially met short-term management goals of restoring valuable ecosystem services and where P–J reduction disposed certain plant community types to ecological risks, such as increasing the probability of native species displacement and stimulating an annual grass-fire cycle. Resource managers should carefully weigh these benefits and risks and incorporate additional, appropriate treatments and/or conservation measures for the unique preconditions of a given plant community in order to minimize exotic species responses and/or enhance desirable outcomes.
Restoration and rehabilitation are globally implemented to improve ecosystem condition but often without tracking treatment expenditures relative to ecological outcomes. We evaluated the cost‐effectiveness of widely conducted woody plant and herbaceous invasive plant removals and seeding treatments in drylands of the western United States from 2004 to 2018 to determine how land managers can optimize efforts. Woody plant cover decreased at a similar rate per dollar spent regardless of vegetation removal type, and the dominant invasive species was reduced by herbicide application. Relatively inexpensive herbicide application also had a large positive effect on seeded perennial grass cover that was enhanced by additional cost; while expensive woody mastication treatments had little effect regardless of additional cost. High seed cost was driven by including a large proportion of native species in seed mixes, and combined with high seeding cost, promoted a short‐term (2–3 yr) gain in perennial forb cover and species richness. In contrast, seeding and seed mix cost had no bearing on seeded perennial grass cover, in part, because relatively cheap nonnative seeded species rapidly increased in cover. Our results suggest the differential benefits of commonly implemented treatments aimed at reducing wildfire risk, improving wildlife habitat and forage, and reducing erosion. Given the growing need and cost of restoration and rehabilitation, we raise the importance of specifying treatment budgets and objectives, coupled with effectiveness monitoring, to improve future outcomes.
Woodland encroachment is a global issue linked to diminished ecosystem services, prompting the need for restoration efforts. However, restoration outcomes can be highly variable, making it difficult to interpret the ecological benefits and risks associated with woodland-reduction treatments within semiarid ecosystems. We addressed this uncertainty by assessing the magnitude and direction of vegetation change over a 15-year period at 129 sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) sites following pinyon (Pinus spp.) and juniper (Juniperus spp.) (P–J) reduction. Pretreatment vegetation indicated strong negative relationships between P–J cover and the abundance of understory plants (i.e., perennial grass and sagebrush cover) in most situations and all three components differed significantly among planned treatment types. Thus, to avoid confounding pretreatment vegetation and treatment type, we quantified overall treatment effects and tested whether distinct response patterns would be present among three dominant plant community types that vary in edaphic properties and occur within distinct temperature/precipitation regimes using meta-analysis (effect size = lnRR = ln[posttreatment cover/pretreatment cover]). We also quantified how restoration seedings contributed to overall changes in key understory vegetation components. Meta-analyses indicated that while P–J reduction caused significant positive overall effects on all shrub and herbaceous components (including invasive cheatgrass [Bromus tectorum] and exotic annual forbs), responses were contingent on treatment- and plant community-type combinations. Restoration seedings also had strong positive effects on understory vegetation by augmenting changes in perennial grass and perennial forb components, which similarly varied by plant community type. Collectively, our results identified specific situations where broad-scale efforts to reverse woodland encroachment substantially met short-term management goals of restoring valuable ecosystem services and where P–J reduction disposed certain plant community types to ecological risks, such as increasing the probability of native species displacement and stimulating an annual grass-fire cycle. Resource managers should carefully weigh these benefits and risks and incorporate additional, appropriate treatments and/or conservation measures for the unique preconditions of a given plant community in order to minimize exotic species responses and/or enhance desirable outcomes.
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Research organizations like Rocky Mountain Research Station may be able to institutionalize co-production by adjusting the way they incentivize and evaluate researchers, increasing investment in science delivery and scientific personnel overall, and supplying long-term funding to support time-intensive collaborations. These sorts of structural changes could help transform the culture of fire science so that coproduction is valued alongside more conventional scientific activities and products.
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Water-holding soil amendments such as super-absorbent polymer (SAP) may improve native species establishment in restoration but may also interact with precipitation or invasive species such as Bromus tectorum L. to influence revegetation outcomes.We implemented an experiment at two sites in Colorado, U.S.A., in which we investigated the interactions of drought (66% reduction of ambient rainfall), B. tectorum seed addition (BRTE, 465 seeds/m2), and SAP soil amendment (25 g/m2) on initial plant establishment and 3-year aboveground and belowground biomass and allocation. At one site, SAP resulted in higher native seeded species establishment but only with ambient precipitation. However, by the third year, we detected no SAP effects on native seeded species biomass. Treatments interacted to influence aboveground and belowground biomass and allocation differently. At one site, a SAP × precipitation interaction resulted in lower belowground biomass in plots with SAP and drought (61.7±7.3 g/m2) than plots with drought alone (91.6±18.1 g/m2). At the other site, a SAP × BRTE interaction resulted in higher belowground biomass in plots with SAP and BRTE (56.6±11.2 g/m2) than BRTE alone (35.0±3.7 g/m2). These patternswere not reflected in aboveground biomass. SAP should be used with caution in aridland restoration because initial positive effects may not translate to long-term benefits, SAP may uniquely influence aboveground versus belowground biomass, and SAP can interact with environmental variables to impact developing plant communities in positive and negative ways.
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To better understand how research organizations enable and constrain co-production, this study examined seven co-produced wildland fire projects associated with the US Department of Agriculture Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS), through in-depth interviews with scientists, managers and community members. Results provide insights into how organizational structures and cultures influence the co-production of fire science. Research organizations like RMRS may be able to institutionalize co-production by adjusting the way they incentivize and evaluate researchers, increasing investment in science delivery and scientific personnel overall, and supplying long-term funding to support time-intensive collaborations. These sorts of structural changes could help transform the culture of fire science so that coproduction is valued alongside more conventional scientific activities and products.
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This study used the Fuel and Fire Tool fire behavior modeling program to test whether treatments impacted potential fire behavior. Prescribed fire initially removed 49% of the total fuel load and 75% of shrubs, and fuel loads remained reduced through Year 10. Mowing shifted fuels from the shrub canopy to the ground surface but did not change the total fuel amount. Prescribed fire and mowing increased herbaceous fuel by the second posttreatment year and that trend persisted through Year 10. Tebuthiuron treatments were ineffective at altering fuel loads. Imazapic suppressed herbaceous vegetation by 30% in Years 2 and 3 following treatment. The modified fuel beds in fire and mow treatments resulted in modeled flame lengths that were significantly lower than untreated control plots for the duration of the study, with shorter term reductions in reaction intensity and rate of spread. Understanding fuel treatment effectiveness will allow natural resource managers to evaluate trade-offs between protecting wildlife habitat and reducing the potential for high-intensity wildfire.