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Ecosystem

Displaying 2901 - 2920 of 6066 results

Wildfire is a dominant disturbance agent in forest ecosystems, shaping important biogeochemical processes including net carbon (C) balance. Long-term monitoring and chronosequence studies highlight a resilience of biogeochemical properties to large…
Author(s): Tara W. Hudiberg, Philip E. Higuera, Jeffrey A. Hicke
Year Published:

Evidence of increasing fire extent and severity in the western US in recent decades has raised concern over the effects of fire on threatened species such as the spotted owl (Strix occidentalis Xantus de Vesey), which nests in forests with large…
Author(s): Joseph L. Ganey, Ho Yi Wan, Samuel A. Cushman, Christina D. Vojta
Year Published:

Invasive woody plant expansion is a primary threat driving fragmentation and loss of sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) and prairie habitats across the central and western United States. Expansion of native woody plants, including conifer (primarily…
Author(s): Michael J. Falkowski, Jeffrey S. Evans, David E. Naugle, Christian A. Hagen, Scott A. Carleton, Jeremy D. Maestas, Azad Henareh Khalyani, Aaron J. Poznanovic, Andrew J. Lawrence
Year Published:

Big sagebrush does not root or crown sprout but relies entirely on seed for regeneration. The soil seed bank in sagebrush communities is short-lived, with most seeds germinating within one year of dispersal (Ziegenhagen and Miller 2009). Therefore,…
Author(s): Stanley G. Kitchen, Melissa L. Landeen, Loreen Allphen, Stephen L. Petersen
Year Published:

Concern over the effects of removing fire-scarred partial cross-sections may limit sampling of live ponderosa pine to reconstruct fire history. We report mortality rates for ponderosa pine trees 20 to 21 years after removing fire-scarred partial…
Author(s): Emily K. Heyerdahl, Steven J. McKay
Year Published:

Biomass burning is an important source to the atmosphere of carbonaceous particulate matter that impacts air quality, climate, and human health. The semivolatile nature of directlyemitted organic particulate matter can result in particle evaporation…
Author(s): Sonia M. Kreidenweis, Jeffrey R. Pierce
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Wildland firefighters suppressing wildland fires or conducting prescribed fires work long shifts during which they are exposed to high levels of wood smoke with no respiratory protection. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are hazardous air…
Author(s): Kathleen M. Navarro, Ricardo Cisneros, Elizabeth M. Noth, John R. Balmes, Katharine Hammond
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Wildland fire is a disturbance that can profoundly impact the environment and human health and welfare. While climate is generally a critical driving factor shaping the occurrence and impacts of fire, fire can also play a role in shaping climate.…
Author(s): Anping Chen, Richard A. Birdsey
Year Published:

A significant shift in the mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins, 1902) range has been attributed to long-distance dispersal from the observed spatiotemporal patterns of beetle infestations in the recent outbreak in western Canada.…
Author(s): Huapeng Chen, Peter L. Jackson
Year Published:

Fire is an enormously influential disturbance over large areas of land in the modern world. Vegetation burns because the Earth’s atmosphere contains sufficient oxygen (415%) to support combustion (Pyne, 2001). Oxygen started to accumulate in the…
Author(s): William J. Bond, Robert E. Keane
Year Published:

Past and current forest management affects wildland fire smoke impacts on downwind human populations. However, mismatches between the scale of benefits and risks make it difficult to proactively manage wildland fires to promote both ecological and…
Author(s): Jonathan Long, Leland W. Tarnay, Malcolm P. North
Year Published:

Multidecadal trends in areas burned with high severity shape ecological effects of fires, but most assessments are limited to ∼30 years of satellite data. We analysed the proportion of area burned with high severity, the annual area burned with high…
Author(s): Penelope Morgan, Andrew T. Hudak, Ashley Wells, Sean A. Parks, Scott L. Baggett, Benjamin C. Bright, Patricia Green
Year Published:

Expansion of the wildland–urban interface (WUI) and the increasing size and number of wildfires has policy-makers and wildfire managers seeking ways to reduce wildfire risk in communities located near fire-prone forests. It is widely acknowledged…
Author(s): Christine Olsen, Jeffrey D. Kline, Alan A. Ager, Keith A. Olsen, Karen C. Short
Year Published:

Diana Six has been studying pine bark beetles for 25 years, and still can’t say she completely understands them. Lately, she’s been diving into a topic she has always found even more confounding - forest management. This article describes an…
Author(s):
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Dispersal can strongly influence the demographic and evolutionary trajectory of populations. For many species, little is known about dispersal, despite its importance to conservation. The Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) is a species…
Author(s): Todd Cross, David E. Naugle, John Carlson, Michael K. Schwartz
Year Published:

This report examines federal officials' and stakeholders' views on (1) factors that affect federal-nonfederal collaboration aimed at reducing wildland fire risk to communities and (2) actions that could improve their ability to reduce risk to…
Author(s): U.S. Government Accountability Office
Year Published:

Soon after its inception in the early 1900s the U.S. Forest Service adopted a policy that can be described as “fire exclusion,” based on the view that forest fires were unnecessary and a menace.1 In the late 1970s, however, the agency was compelled…
Author(s): Stephen F. Arno
Year Published:

Mounting concerns about global climate change have increased interest in the potential to use common forest management practices, such as forest density management with thinning, in climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts. Long-term effects…
Author(s): Michael S. Schaedel, Andrew J. Larson, David L.R. Affleck, R. Travis Belote, John M. Goodburn, Deborah S. Page-Dumroese
Year Published:

Specific objectives of this review are to address the current status and future outlook of aspen across a range of ecosystems in the US Northern Rockies. Specifically, we aim to answer the following questions: Is aspen declining in the Northern…
Author(s): Camille Stevens-Rumann, Penelope Morgan, Eva K. Strand, Diane Abendroth
Year Published:

Smoke from fire can sharply reduce air quality by releasing particulate matter, one of the most dangerous types of air pollution for human health. A third of U.S. households have someone sensitive to smoke. Minimizing the amount and impact of smoke…
Author(s): Rachel White, Paul F. Hessburg, Narasimhan K. Larkin, J. Morgan Varner
Year Published: