Fire Ecology & Effects
This webinar, presented by Jim McIver, Research Ecologist at Oregon State University, is a compilation of some of the more important short-term results of SageSTEP experiments through the third year after treatment. The results come from evaluations made at 18 study sites, measuring ecosystem response to prescribed fire, clearcutting, tree shredding, mowing, and herbicides.
A multidisciplinary team of agency and university researchers presented assessments of current connectivity of riparian vegetation and wildlife habitat including sage-grouse and projections of connectivity for multiple species of animals and plants under different scenarios of environmental change.
Workshop presentations in pdf format:
Great Basin Fire Science Delivery Project– Eugénie MontBlanc
Great Basin Research and Management Partnership – Jeanne Chambers
Great Basin Landscape Conservation Cooperative – Mike Pellant
Great Basin Environmental Program website – Bob Alverts
Connectivity for greater sage-grouse – Steve Knick
Projecting Current and Future Connectivity– Erica Fleishman
Connectivity Analysis Toolkit – Carlos Carroll
Data Basin – Tosha Comendant
This workshop was a collaborative effort of the Great Basin Fire Science Exchange and the Great Basin Connectivity Working Group.
Erik Beever, USGS, presented this webinar to the Great Basin LCC on his results on pika distribution and climate change using historical surveys, more-systematic and more-comprehensive recent surveys, and a diversity of technological and modeling advances. The information will help tackle numerous questions at the interface of how Great Basin systems work and how Basin resources may be managed and conserved, amidst contemporary climate change and other influences.
View report.
This study showed higher levels of resilience to fire than is typically discussed in the sagebrush steppe, in part because the studied ecosystems were in good condition before the fire, but also because the longer post-fire monitoring time (17 years) may be more appropriate to capture patterns of succession in these ecosystems.
Access tool.
FOFEM (a First Order Fire Effects Model) is a computer program for predicting tree mortality, fuel consumption, smoke production, and soil heating caused by prescribed fire or wildfire.
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This study investigated the effects of mastication and hand-thinning treatments in piñon-juniper (PJ) woodlands on ecological processes including fire, and on a wide range of species, particularly vulnerable PJ obligate birds. Treatments drove major, persistent ecological shifts relative to controls. Tree cover and canopy fuels were reduced; concomitantly, down woody surface fuels, forb, and grass cover increased. Treatments exhibited rapid, large, and persistent increases in the frequency, richness, and cover of 20 non-native plant species including cheatgrass. Treatments substantially reduced the occupancy of piñon-juniper specialist and conifer obligate bird species.
Access LandCarbon website.
The USGS has developed and released a website for data distribution and visualization.
View article.
This study compared spring and fall prescribed fires at three sites (native-dominated, Bromus tectorum-dominated, and Juniperus occidentalis-dominated). There were higher plant survival rates following fall fires and native-dominated sites than in spring burns or where exotics dominated. These results show that burn season and prefire condition are important considerations when evaluating management alternatives in Artemisia tridentata ssp. vaseyana ecosystems.
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This project examines the weather and climate factors related to known megafires and very large wildfires that have occurred across the contiguous United States and projects the likelihood of megafires occurring during the 2046-2065 mid-century time period. A variety of statistical techniques and spatial scales were used in the analysis. The report ranks regions of future higher likelihood very large fire locations based on overall probability. In addition, the potential for large-scale smoke impact effects from very large fires was examined. This included the overall potential for smoke emissions, as well as the potential for downwind transport to various kinds of sensitive receptors. Combining future very large fire projections with site specific Smoke Impact Potentials allows for the ranking of locations based on the potential for large scale smoke impacts from very large fires.
View abstracts.
These abstracts summarize rangeland management topics in the West.