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This study assessed causal relationships between conifer encroachment and sagebrush restoration (conifer removal and seeding native plants) on small mammal communities over 11 yr using a Before-After-Control–Impact design. Sagebrush habitat supported an additional small mammal species, twice the biomass, and nearly three times higher densities than conifer-encroached habitat. Sagebrush restoration increased shrub cover, decreased tree cover, and density but failed to increase native herbaceous plant density. Restoration caused a large increase in the non-native, invasive annual cheatgrass. Counter to prediction, small mammal diversity did not increase in response to sagebrush restoration, but restoration maintained small mammal density in the face of ongoing conifer encroachment. Piñon mice, woodland specialists with highest densities in conifer-encroached habitat, were negatively affected by sagebrush restoration. Increasing cheatgrass due to sagebrush restoration may not negatively impact small mammal diversity, provided cheatgrass density and cover do not progress to a monoculture and native vegetation is maintained. The consequences of conifer encroachment, a long-term, slow-acting impact, far outweigh the impacts of sagebrush restoration, a short-term, high-intensity impact, on small mammal diversity. Given the ecological importance of small mammals, maintenance of small mammal density is a desirable outcome for sagebrush restoration.
Visit RangeSAT website
RangeSAT uses satellite data to generate maps and graphs of vegetation across pastures, ranches, and allotments. Using the record of Landsat data going back to 1984, the interface lets users easily view maps of vegetation amounts across their ranch or management area, at a single point in time or averaged across a month or a season. Vegetation amounts can also be displayed as graphs, allowing users to compare current vegetation amounts to past time periods. Climate variables (precipitation, potential evapotranspiration) can also be viewed alongside graphs of vegetation throughout a growing season.
RangeSAT is an ongoing project being developed at the University of Idaho, in partnership with The Nature Conservancy, Oregon Ranchers, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and the Northwest Climate Hub.
Workshop website.
About the Workshop: Since 1975, the Natural Hazards Center has hosted the Annual Natural Hazards Research and Applications Workshop in Colorado. Today the Workshop brings together federal, state, and local mitigation and emergency management officials and planning professionals; representatives of nonprofit, private sector, and humanitarian organizations; hazards and disaster researchers; and others dedicated to alleviating the impacts of disasters. You can read more about the Workshop and its history on the Center’s website.
Workshop Information: Information about this year’s theme and opportunities to contribute can be found under the Workshop Info tab above. You can also browse our past Workshops to see previous programs, speakers, and other materials.
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View synthesis.
This synthesis reviewed existing scientific knowledge on the following questions:
- What is the public’s understanding of fire’s role in the ecosystem?
- Who are trusted sources of information about fire?
- What are the public’s views of fuels reduction methods, and how do those views vary depending on citizens’ location in the wildland-urban interface or elsewhere?
- What is the public’s understanding of smoke effects on human health, and what shapes the public’s tolerance for smoke?
- What are homeowners’ views of their responsibilities for home and property protection and mitigation, e.g., defensible space measures?
- What role does human health and safety play in the public’s perceptions of fire and fire management?
- What are the public’s views on the role and importance of costs in wildfire incident response decisions?
- To the extent that information is available, how do findings differ among ethnic and cultural groups, and across regions of the country?
Webinar recording.
Description: A recent collaboration by ~90 tree-ring and fire-scar scientists has resulted in the publication of the newly compiled North American Tree-Ring Fire-Scar Network* (NAFSN), which contains 2,562 sites, > 37,000 fire-scarred trees, and covers large parts of North America. In this publication, authors investigate the NAFSN in terms of geography, sample depth, vegetation, topography, climate, and human land use.
In this webinar presenters will present major findings from the publication, demonstrate data accessibility, highlight management applications, and discuss future steps planned for the NAFSN.
Presenter: Ellis Margolis, Research Ecologist, USGS Fort Collins Science Center and Dr. Christopher Guiterman, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) University of Colorado at Boulder, and NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)
View brief.
The Fireshed Registry is a geospatial dashboard for land managers and decision makers to view and map a vast array of data related to wildfire transmission, past, present, and future management, and past and predicted wildfires. The Registry covers the full continental U.S and includes 192 million hectares of forest land. Fireshed delineations within the tool are not limited by administrative, jurisdictional, or other anthropogenic boundaries.
In this webinar, Jerry Tagestad, Sr. Research Scientist with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, presents an overview of tools to aid rangeland managers in deriving information from the abundant geospatial data available today. Particular emphasis was placed on a recently developed pre-season fire risk model that could be adapted for the Great Basin.
Webinar recording.
Description: Changing disturbance regimes and climate can overcome forest ecosystem resilience. Following high-severity fire, forest recovery may be compromised by lack of tree seed sources, warmer and drier postfire climate, or short-interval reburning. A potential outcome of the loss of resilience is the conversion of the prefire forest to a different forest type or nonforest vegetation. Conversion implies major, extensive, and enduring changes in dominant species, life forms, or functions, with impacts on ecosystem services. The webinar will synthesize a growing body of evidence of fire-driven conversion and our understanding of its causes across western North America. Increasing forest vulnerability to changing fire activity and climate compels shifts in management approaches, and we propose key themes for applied research coproduced by scientists and managers to support decision-making in an era when the prefire forest may not return.
Presenters: Jonathan Coop, Western Colorado University; Sean Parks, US Forest Service; Camille Stevens-Rumann, Colorado State University
In this webinar, Derek Tilley, Agronomist and Manager, USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) Aberdeen Plant Materials Center, ID, discusses the NRCS’s role in developing native plant material for federal land.
Access the tool.
PopEquus is open-source and uses peer-reviewed information to model expected outcomes for a given population of wild horses and the cost associated with that outcome. The model can project, for example, what the population size of a given wild horse herd will be after 10 years using a fertility-control vaccine to prevent pregnancy in a proportion of mares, as well as the expected cost. BLM managers can use this information to compare different possible management strategies.