Fire Ecology & Effects
In this webinar, Steve Knick, USGS Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, shares his research on changes within bird communities living in ecotone regions where land management treatments have been conducted to reduce woodland expansion into sagebrush habitats.
In this webinar, Richard Miller, Fire Ecologist, Oregon State University, presents a synthesis of information on fire effects on vegetation and soils in the Great Basin including responses and site characteristics. See also the fire effects synthesis.
In this webinar, Jason Williams, Hydrologist, USDA-ARS Northwest Watershed Research Center, presents his latest research findings on hydrologic response to fuels treatments on woodland encroached sagebrush steppe. This research is part of the Sagebrush Steppe Treatment Evaluation Project.
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.
View report.
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.