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Displaying 21 - 40 of 636

The prevailing paradigm in the western U.S. is that the increase in stand-replacing wildfires in historically frequent-fire dry forests is due to unnatural fuel loads that have resulted from management activities including fire suppression, logging…
Author(s): Elizabeth L. Kalies, Larissa L. Yocom Kent
Year Published:

Wildfires shape the distribution and structure of vegetation across the inland northwestern United States. However, fire activity is expected to increase given the current rate of climate change, with uncertain outcomes. A fire impact that has not…
Author(s): Arjan J. H. Meddens, Crystal A. Kolden, James A. Lutz
Year Published:

In 1988, fires burned 36% (about 800,000 acres) of Yellowstone National Park (YNP). At the time, the size and severity of these fires was greater than scientists and land managers were used to and they were attributed to excessive fuel loadings that…
Author(s): Corey L. Gucker
Year Published:

The pine forests in the southern portion of the Rocky Mountains are a heterogeneous mosaic of disturbance and recovery. The most extensive and intensive stress and mortality are received from human activity, fire, and mountain pine beetles (MPB;…
Author(s): Lu Liang, Todd J. Hawbaker, Zhiliang Zhu, Xuecao Li, Peng Gong
Year Published:

In heterogeneous forest landscapes prone to wildfires, accurate classification of the fire regime beyond direct observations and records is difficult. This is in part due to the methods used to reconstruct historical fires in complex, heterogeneous…
Author(s): Vanessa Stretch, Ze'ev Gedalof, Jacklyn Cockburn, Michael F. Pisaric
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:

The persistence of ponderosa pine and lodgepole pine forests in the 21st century depends to a large extent on how seedling emergence and establishment are influenced by driving climate and environmental variables, which largely govern forest…
Author(s): M. D. Petrie, A. M. Wildeman, John Bradford, Robert M. Hubbard, William Lauenroth
Year Published:

Total post-fire tree seedling establishment (all species combined) declined sharply with greater post-fire drought severity and with greater distance to seed sources (i.e. the interior of burn patches). Effects varied among key species groups. For …
Author(s): Brian J. Harvey, Daniel C. Donato, Monica G. Turner
Year Published:

Where do most of the general public encounter whitebark pines? Ski areas! These recreational areas in high elevations allow many to encounter an otherwise remote and wilderness species. This accessibility of whitebark pines at ski areas serves as…
Author(s): Edie Dooley
Year Published:

Climate suitability is projected to decline for many subalpine species, raising questions about managing species under a deteriorating climate. Whitebark pine (WBP) (Pinus albicaulis) in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) crystalizes the…
Author(s): Andrew J. Hansen, Kathryn Ireland, Kristin Legg, Robert E. Keane, Edward Barge, Martha Jenkins, Michiel Pillet
Year Published:

Increasing rates of natural disturbances under a warming climate raise important questions about how multiple disturbances interact. Escalating wildfire activity in recent decades has resulted in some forests re-burning in short succession, but how…
Author(s): Brian J. Harvey, Daniel C. Donato, Monica G. Turner
Year Published:

Previous research has focused on quantifying fuel loadings and using operational fire behavior models to understand changes in fire severity following MPB outbreaks. In this study however, researchers used direct field measurements taken from the…
Author(s): Northwest Fire Science Consortium
Year Published:

The causes of bark beetle outbreaks - particularly the role of disturbances - are poorly understood. Stand-scale disturbances, like fires, can suddenly improve local host susceptibility and may attract beetles; however, whether such increases can…
Author(s): Crisia A. Tabacaru, Jane Park, Nadir Erbilgin
Year Published:

Young, recently burned forests are increasingly widespread throughout western North America, but forest development after large wildfires is not fully understood, especially regarding effects of variable burn severity, environmental heterogeneity,…
Author(s): William H. Romme, Timothy G. Whitby, Daniel B. Tinker, Monica G. Turner
Year Published:

Patches of live, dead, and dying trees resulting from bark beetle-caused mortality alter spatial and temporal variability in the canopy and surface fuel complex through changes in the foliar moisture content of attacked trees and through the…
Author(s): Chad M. Hoffman, Rodman Linn, Russell A. Parsons, Carolyn Hull Sieg, Judith Winterkamp
Year Published:

Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis Engelm.) populations are declining nearly rangewide from a combination of factors, including mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins, 1902) outbreaks, the exotic pathogen Cronartium ribicola J.C. Fisch…
Author(s): Signe B. Leirfallom, Robert E. Keane, Diana F. Tomback, Solomon Z. Dobrowski
Year Published:

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…
Author(s): Christian Temperli, Thomas T. Veblen, Sarah Hart, Dominik Kulakowski, Alan J. Tepley
Year Published:

The implementation of US federal forest restoration programs on national forests is a complex process that requires balancing diverse socioecological goals with project economics. Despite both the large geographic scope and substantial investments…
Author(s): Kevin C. Vogler, Alan A. Ager, Michelle A. Day, Michael Jennings, John D. Bailey
Year Published:

Recent large and severe outbreaks of native bark beetles have raised concern among the general public and land managers about potential for amplified fire activity in western North America. To date, the majority of studies examining bark beetle…
Author(s): Robert A. Andrus, Thomas T. Veblen, Brian J. Harvey, Sarah Hart
Year Published:

Ecological niche models predict plant responses to climate change by circumscribing species distributions within a multivariate environmental framework. Most projections based on modern bioclimatic correlations imply that high-elevation species are…
Author(s): Virginia Iglesias, Teresa R. Krause, Cathy L. Whitlock
Year Published: