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The risk of bark beetle outbreaks is widely predicted to increase because of a warming climate that accelerates temperature-driven beetle population growth and drought stress that impairs host tree defenses. However, few if any studies have…
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Freshwater ecosystems are warming globally from the direct effects of climate change on air temperature and hydrology and the indirect effects on near-stream vegetation. In fire-prone landscapes, vegetative change may be especially rapid and cause…
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The Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y) was established over 20 years ago as an experiment in large landscape conservation. Initially, Y2Y emerged as a response to large scale habitat fragmentation by advancing ecological connectivity…
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Land managers of the northern Rocky Mountains and south-central U.S. are challenged with numerous social and ecological changes, many of which are linked to climate change. The work presented here focuses on two important research gaps: 1) managers…
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Climate projections for the next 20-50 years forecast higher temperatures and variable precipitation for many landscapes in the western United States. Climate changes may cause or contribute to threshold shifts, or tipping points, where relatively…
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The Western Mountain Initiative (WMI), a consortium of research groups in the Western United States, focuses on understanding and predicting responses-especially sensitivities, thresholds, resistance, and resilience-of mountain ecosystems to…
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The state of knowledge about climatic effects on forests of the Northwest region was recently summarized in a peer reviewed assessment of these effects in Washington (Littell et al. 2009, 2010) and a white paper on climatic effects on Oregon…
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This report is a scientific assessment of the current condition and likely future condition of forest resources in the United States relative to climatic variability and change. It serves as the U.S. Forest Service forest sector technical report for…
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Climate change, forests, fire, water, and fish: building resilient landscapes, streams, and managers
Fire will play an important role in shaping forest and stream ecosystems as the climate changes. Historic observations show increased dryness accompanying more widespread fire and forest die-off. These events punctuate gradual changes to ecosystems…
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Climate changes are projected to profoundly influence vegetation patterns and community compositions, either directly through increased species mortality and shifts in species distributions, or indirectly through disturbance dynamics such as…
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This paper synthesizes existing information about the disturbance ecology of high-elevation five-needle pine ecosystems, describing disturbances regimes, how they are changing or are expected to change, and the implications for ecosystem persistence…
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Climate change and bark beetles of the western United States and Canada: direct and indirect effects
Climatic changes are predicted to significantly affect the frequency and severity of disturbances that shape forest ecosystems. We provide a synthesis of climate change effects on native bark beetles, important mortality agents of conifers in…
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Fuel treatments alter conditions in forested stands at the time of the treatment and subsequently. Fuel treatments reduce on-site carbon and also change the fire potential and expected outcome of future wildfires, including their carbon emissions.…
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As the size and severity of fires in the western U.S. continue to increase, it has become ever more important to understand carbon dynamics in response to fire. Many subalpine forests experience stand-replacing wildfires, and these fires and…
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Quantifying the historical range and variability of landscape composition and structure using simulation modeling is becoming an important means of assessing current landscape condition and prioritizing landscapes for ecosystem restoration. However…
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Charcoal represents a super-passive form of carbon (C) that is generated during fire events and is one of the few legacies of fire recorded in the soil profile; however, the importance of this material as a form of C storage has received only…
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We characterised the remarkable heterogeneity following the large, severe fires of 1988 in Yellowstone National Park (YNP), in the northern Rocky Mountains, Wyoming, USA, by focussing on spatial variation in post-fire structure, composition and…
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JFSP-funded research is exploring and quantifying relationships among the large-scale drivers of climate and the occurrence and extent of wildfire in the various regions of the western United States.
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Millennial-scale records of forest fire provide important baseline information for ecosystem management, especially in regions with too few recent fires to describe the historical range of variability. Charcoal records from lake sediments and soil…
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Mountain ecosystems within our national parks and other protected areas provide valuable goods and services such as clean water, biodiversity conservation, and recreational opportunities, but their potential responses to expected climatic changes…
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