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Declines in habitat of greater sage-grouse and Gunnison sage-grouse across the western United States are related to degradation, loss, and fragmentation of sagebrush ecosystems resulting from development of agricultural lands, grazing practices,…
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The increase in severe wildfires in recent years is due in part to an abundance of fuels in forests. In an effort to protect values at risk, and decrease the severity of wildfires, forest managers have embarked on a major program of fuel reduction.…
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The widespread occurrence of big sagebrush can be attributed to many adaptive features. Big sagebrush plays an essential role in its communities by providing wildlife habitat, modifying local environmental conditions, and facilitating the…
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Temperature is a critical factor in stream ecosystems, and one that is very likely to be altered by wildfire and associated channel disturbance. In central Idaho streams, temperatures after wildfires may increase following loss of shade from…
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Prescribed burning in Theodore Roosevelt National Park has played an important role in maintaining a natural ecosystem. However, changes in plant community dynamics caused by burning may have led to an invasion of weedy species such as Canada…
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Fire can cause profound changes in the composition and abundance of plant and animal species, but logistics, unpredictability of weather, and inherent danger make it nearly impossible to study high-severity fire effects experimentally. We took…
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Low-elevation ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Dougl. ex. Laws.) forests of the northern Rocky Mountains historically experienced frequent low-intensity fires that maintained open uneven-aged stands. A century of fire exclusion has contributed to…
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Information about avian responses to fire in the U.S. Rocky Mountains is based solely on studies of crown fires. However, fire management in this region is based primarily on studies of low-elevation ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forests…
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The increasing size and severity of wildfires in the western United States has caused a corresponding increase in post-fire emergency erosion control activities. Hillslope treatments, such as broadcast seeding, mulching and installed barriers, are…
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We propose a modified algorithm for the gradient method to determine the near-edge smoke plume boundaries using backscatter signals of a scanning lidar. The running derivative of the ratio of the signalstandard deviation (STD) to the accumulated sum…
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Soil microorganisms have numerous functional roles in forest ecosystems, including: serving as sources and sinks of key nutrients and catalysts of nutrient transformations; acting as engineers and maintainers of soil structure; and forming…
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Low-elevation ponderosa pine ecosystems of the inland northwestern United States experienced frequent, low-severity fire that promoted open stands dominated by large diameter ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa). Fire exclusion has led to increased…
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Fire dramatically alters hydrologic processes in many regions of the world. Individual fires reduce vegetation and change soil characteristics, sometimes producing dramatic runoff events in the years shortly after a fire. The greatest determinant of…
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1. This paper reviews and compares the effects of forest fire and timber harvest on mammalian abundance and diversity, throughout successional time in the boreal forest of North America.
2. Temporal trends in mammal abundance and diversity are…
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This report presents a compilation of data on the erosive response, debris-flow initiation processes, basin morphology, burn severity, event-triggering rainfall, rock type, and soils for 608 basins recently burned by 53 fires located throughout the…
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Fire is a dominant and highly visible disturbance in sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) ecosystems. In lower elevation, xeric sagebrush communities, the role of fire has changed in recent decades from an infrequent disturbance maintaining a landscape mosaic…
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Here we review the current state of knowledge about past fire regimes and how they have been altered by human activities. We also highlight the limited information on how avian communities respond to fire. We conclude with implications for fire…
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Quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) is a long-lived clonal species in which many genetically identical stems (ramets) arise from a common root system.
Establishment by seed is extremely rare in the Rocky Mountain region, where most clones …
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The 1988 Yellowstone fires resulted in a complex mosaic within which postfire lodgepole pine seedling densities varied by over five orders of magnitude. Investigators have speculated that such postfire mosaics of vegetation structure may persist…
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Forest land conditions affect the potential of U.S. forests to sustain a wide array of forest goods and environmental services (e.g., biodiversity) that society demands. Forest survey data collected by U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service…
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