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Throughout the 20th century, forest scientists and land managers were guided by principles of succession with regard to aspen forests. The historical model depicted aspen as a "pioneer species" that colonizes a site following disturbance and is…
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Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis Engelm.) forests in western North America are increasingly threatened by the exotic pathogen white pine blister rast (Cronartium ribicola J.C. Fisch.). Whitebark pine is designated a high priority species on the…
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A recurrent challenge in the conservation of wide-ranging, imperiled species is understanding which habitats to protect and whether we are capable of restoring degraded landscapes. For Greater Sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus), a species of…
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Wildfire and mountain pine beetle infestations are naturally occurring disturbances in western North American forests. Black-backed woodpeckers (Picoides arcticus) are emblematic of the role these disturbances play in creating wildlife habitat,…
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Mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) (MPB) outbreaks are increasingly prevalent in western North America, causing considerable ecological change in pine (Pinus spp.) forests with important implications for wildlife. We reviewed studies…
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The widespread, native defoliator western spruce budworm (Choristoneura occidentalis Freeman) reduces canopy fuels, which might affect the potential for surface fires to torch (ignite the crowns of individual trees) or crown (spread between tree…
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Increasingly, forest management goals include building or maintaining resistance and/or resilience to disturbances in the face of climate change. Although a multitude of descriptive definitions for resistance and resilience exist, to evaluate…
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Disturbances are key drivers of forest ecosystem dynamics, and forests are well adapted to their natural disturbance regimes. However, as a result of climate change, disturbance frequency is expected to increase in the future in many regions. It is…
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Global change is increasingly challenging the sustainable provisioning of ecosystem services to society. Addressing future uncertainty and risk has therefore become a central problem of ecosystem management. With risk management and resilience-based…
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Cover data for plant species on eight environmentally similar sites that were each burned in a different year (from 2 to 36 years ago) were used to construct a composite sequence of vegetational change after fire on Artemisia-grassland sites in…
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Post-fire mulch and seeding treatments, often applied on steep, severely burned slopes immediately after large wildfires, are meant to reduce the potential of erosion and establishment of invasive plants, especially non-native plants, that could…
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This field guide identifies seven primary components that largely determine resilience to disturbance, as well as resistance to invasive grasses and plant succession following treatment of areas of concern. The primary components are (1)…
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Determining appropriate actions to create or maintain landscapes resilient to climate change is challenging because of uncertainty associated with potential effects of climate change and their interactions with land management. We used a set of…
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The final webinar in the Future Forest Webinar Series provided an example of how managers utilized available science to address questions about post-epidemic forest conditions. Assessments of current conditions and projected trends, and how these…
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Citizens, government officials, and natural resource managers are greatly concerned about potential impacts of the mountain pine beetle (MPB) epidemic on fire hazards and risk. Some mountain towns are surrounded by dead and dying trees. In the Rocky…
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Bark beetle-caused tree mortality affects important forest ecosystem processes. Remote sensing methodologies that quantify live and dead basal area (BA) in bark beetle-affected forests can provide valuable information to forest managers and…
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This document is an assessment of the FS Northern Region's key water resources, tree species, wildlife species, and disturbances, which includes descriptions of the species' current condition, existing stressors, sensitivity to and expected…
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Applying resilience thinking - Seven principles for building resilience in social-ecological systems
This publication is a popular summary of the book “Principles for Building Resilience: Sustaining Ecosystem Services in Social-Ecological Systems”, published by Cambridge University Press (2014). This book, in turn, expands on…
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Widespread tree mortality caused by outbreaks of native bark beetles (Circulionidae: Scolytinae) in recent decades has raised concern among scientists and forest managers about whether beetle outbreaks fuel more ecologically severe forest fires and…
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The scientific basis for restoration of fire-excluded western larch/mixed-conifer forests is not as well developed as that for dry fire-frequent forests. We compared the effects of wildfire and restoration (combined thinning and prescribed fire) in…
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