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Ecosystem

Displaying 3141 - 3160 of 6068 results

Exotic plant invasions present a global threat to natural ecosystems, yet the efficacy of management efforts in mitigating invader impacts remains unclear. A rapidly emerging problem is that of secondary invasion — an increase in abundance of non-…
Author(s): Dean E. Pearson, Yvette K. Ortega, Justin B. Runyon, Jack L. Butler
Year Published:

Prior work shows western US forest wildfire activity increased abruptly in the mid-1980s. Large forest wildfires and areas burned in them have continued to increase over recent decades, with most of the increase in lightning-ignited fires. Northern…
Author(s): Anthony L. Westerling
Year Published:

Insect outbreaks are major disturbances that affect a land area similar to that of forest fires across North America. The recent mountain pine bark beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) outbreak and its associated blue stain fungi (Grosmannia clavigera)…
Author(s): David E. Reed, Brent E. Ewers, Elise G. Pendall, John M. Frank, Robert Kelly
Year Published:

The 2000 Valley Complex wildfire burned in steep montane forests with ash cap soils in western Montana, USA. The effects of high soil burn severity on forest soil hydrologic function were examined using rainfall simulations (100mmh-1 for 1 h) on 0.5…
Author(s): Peter R. Robichaud, Joseph W. Wagenbrenner, Frederick B. Pierson, Kenneth E. Spaeth, Louise E. Ashmun, Corey A. Moffet
Year Published:

Determining how ecological filters (e.g., climate, soils, biotic interactions) influence where species succeed in heterogeneous landscapes is challenging for long-lived species (e.g., trees), because filters can vary over space and change slowly…
Author(s): Winslow D. Hansen, William H. Romme, Aisha Ba, Monica G. Turner
Year Published:

There are few places in western North America, and increasingly in the northern regions of Canada and Alaska, where wildfire and its effects are unfamiliar sights. Last year, wildfires burned more than 800,000 hectares of National Forest lands; the…
Author(s): Peter H. Singleton, Victoria A. Saab, William M. Block, Brian Logan, Craig Thompson
Year Published:

We performed our work for this report under the authority of the Comptroller General to conduct evaluations to assist Congress with its oversight responsibilities. Our objectives were to (1) update our risk management framework to more fully include…
Author(s):
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Current phylogenetic evidence shows that fire began shaping the evolution of land plants 125 Ma, although the fossil charcoal record indicates that fire has a much longer history (>350 Ma). Serotiny (on-plant seed storage) is generally accepted…
Author(s): Tianhua He, Claire M. Belcher, Byron B. Lamont, Sim L. Lim
Year Published:

Wildfire is a global phenomenon that plays a vital role in regulating and maintaining many natural and human-influenced ecosystems but that also poses considerable risks to human populations and infrastructure. Fire managers are charged with…
Author(s): Christopher D. O'Connor, Matthew P. Thompson, Francisco Rodriguez y Silva
Year Published:

Abundance, size, and spatial distribution of standing dead trees (snags), are key indicators of forest biodiversity and ecosystem health. These metrics represent critical habitat components for various wildlife species of conservation concern,…
Author(s): Angeles Casas, Mariano Garcia, Rodney B. Siegel, Alexander Koltunov, Carlos Ramirez, Susan L. Ustin
Year Published:

There is a widespread view among land managers and others that the protected status of many forestlands in the western United States corresponds with higher fire severity levels due to historical restrictions on logging that contribute to greater…
Author(s): Curtis M. Bradley, Chad T. Hanson, Dominick A. DellaSala
Year Published:

Effect of moisture content and heat flux type on ignition of foliage from 10 live fuels was examined over the course of a year using two apparatuses: a flat-flame burner coupled with a radiant panel and a Forced Ignition and flame Spread Test (FIST…
Author(s): David R. Weise, Thomas H. Fletcher, Shankar M. Mahalingam, Sara S. McAllister, Babak Shotorban, William Matt Jolly
Year Published:

Prescribed fire is a primary tool used to restore western forests following more than a century of fire exclusion, reducing fire hazard by removing dead and live fuels (small trees and shrubs).  It is commonly assumed that the reduced forest…
Author(s): Phillip J. van Mantgem, Anthony C. Caprio, Nathan L. Stevenson, Adrian J. Das
Year Published:

The dangers and costs associated with wildfires are rising and predicted to escalate rapidly in decades to come, primarily because of continued home development on fire-prone lands and the effects of climate change. Those interested in reducing…
Author(s): Ray Rasker
Year Published:

The complexity of impacts resulting from extreme precipitation events varies with the spatial extent of precipitation extremes. Characteristics of precipitation extremes, defined by the top 5% of 3-day accumulated precipitation, including their…
Author(s): Lauren E. Parker, John T. Abatzoglou
Year Published:

This expanded narrative adds to and builds on the Twisp River Status Report. It was written by a 25-member interagency team who visited the incident site, interviewed participants, reviewed official documents, and used this information to recreate…
Author(s): United States Department of Agriculture
Year Published:

Determining the degree of risk that wildfires pose to homes, where across the landscape the risk originates, and who can best mitigate risk are integral elements of effective co-management of wildfire risk. Developing assessments and tools to help…
Author(s): Joe H. Scott, Matthew P. Thompson, Julie W. Gilbertson-Day
Year Published:

Humans have a profound effect on fire regimes by increasing the frequency of ignitions. Although ignition is an integral component of understanding and predicting fire, to date fire models have not been able to isolate the ignition location, leading…
Author(s): Emily J. Fusco, John T. Abatzoglou, Jennifer Balch, John T. Finn, Bethany A. Bradley
Year Published:

Current projections of future climate change foretell potentially transformative ecological changes that threaten communities globally. Using two case studies from the United States Intermountain West, this article highlights the ways in which a…
Author(s): Daniel Murphy, Carina Wyborn, Laurie Yung, Daniel R. Williams, Cory Cleveland, Lisa A. Eby, Solomon Z. Dobrowski, Erin Towler
Year Published:

Dynamics of dead wood, a key component of forest structure, are not well described for mixed-severity fire regimes with widely varying fire intervals. A prominent form of such variation is when two stand-replacing fires occur in rapid succession,…
Author(s): Daniel C. Donato, Joseph B. Fontaine, John L. Campbell
Year Published: