Treesearch

An exceptionally powerful storm struck southwestern Washington in December 2007 causing large debris flows in two adjacent streams. The two affected streams had been studied prior to the storm, providing a rare opportunity to examine ecosystem recovery. We monitored the streams and their riparian zones for six years after the disturbances to determine whether recovery rates of biota, physical habitat, and water temperature differed, and if so, what factors affected resilience. Along both streams, the debris flows removed wide swaths of soil, rock, and coniferous riparian forests, widening...

Given the increasing interest in the use of lidar-based remote sensing to support carbon monitoring systems, including those used for measurement, reporting, and verification requirements for REDD+ (reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation) programs in tropical nations, there is a corresponding need for the cost-effective field measurement systems to enable model development and robust assessment of uncertainty in these programs. In this report, we describe an efficient field sampling design and measurement protocol designed to provide field-based estimates of biomass/carbon...

Public lands provide opportunities and settings for people to experience nature and the outdoors. These outdoor experiences are important for human health and well-being and result in visitor spending that benefits local communities. This report shows that new research, tools, and frameworks are needed to help us find new ways to conceptualize outdoor recreation and enhance the ability of public land managers to provide outdoor experiences while protecting natural and cultural resources. The report originated from a set of 17 working papers that were developed as part of an initiative...

Large-scale, high-severity wildfires are a major challenge to the future social-ecological sustainability of fire-adapted forest ecosystems in the American West. Managing forests to mitigate this risk is a collective action problem requiring landowners and stakeholders within multi-ownership landscapes to plan and implement coordinated restoration treatments. Our research question is: how can we promote collective action to reduce wildfire risk and restore fire-resilient forests in the American West? To address this question we draw on collective action theory to produce an environmental...

An approach to community-based forestry (CBF) on federal forestlands in the western United States consists of a number of informal civil society institutions for communities to better organize internally and interact with government. We review the body of research on this topic, which has an explicit focus on the three interlinked aspects of democratic governance practiced to provide community benefits and ecological sustainability. We situate its prominent concepts and themes relative to the global literature on CBF, and initiate new conversation about what CBF may mean within the context...

In conservation paradigms, management actions for umbrella species also benefit co‐occurring species because of overlapping ranges and similar habitat associations. The greater sage‐grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) is an umbrella species because it occurs across vast sagebrush ecosystems of western North America and is the recipient of extensive habitat conservation and restoration efforts that might benefit sympatric species. Biologists' understanding of how non‐target species might benefit from sage‐grouse conservation is, however, limited. Reptiles, in particular, are of interest in...

After a more than a century of fighting to keep fire out of forests, reintroducing it is now an important management goal. Yet changes over the past century have left prescribed burning with a big job to do. Development, wildfire suppression, rising global temperatures, extended droughts, exotic species invasions, and longer fire seasons add complexity to using this practice.Managers must consider how often, how intensely, and what time of year to burn; for insights they often look to how and when fires burned historically. However, attempting to mimic historical wildfires that burned in...

Exotic grasses are a widespread set of invasive species that are notable for their ability to significantly alter key aspects of ecosystem function. Understanding the role and importance of these invaders in forested landscapes has been limited but is now rising, as grasses from Eurasia and Africa continue to spread through ecosystems of the Americas, Australia, and many Pacific islands, where they threaten biodiversity and alter various aspects of the fire regime. The ecological, social and economic impacts of the grass-fire cycle associated with species such as cheatgrass (Bromus...

From 2007 through 2017, Oregon implemented an incentive program for biomass collection and production. This research evaluates renewable biomass production and deliveries during a 3-year period (2012 to 2014) in which this tax credit was in place. We evaluated total delivered tons, average payments per load, delivered location, and average transportation distance of woody biomass. We found that total delivered tons of biomass decreased each year between 2012 and 2014, as did the number of users participating in the tax credit program. The average delivered tons, by participant, was more...

Forests are considered a natural solution for mitigating climate change because they absorb and store atmospheric carbon. With Alaska boasting 129 million acres of forest, this state can play a crucial role as a carbon sink for the United States. Until recently, the volume of carbon stored in Alaska’s forests was unknown, as was their future carbon sequestration capacity.In 2007, Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act that directed the Department of the Interior to assess the stock and flow of carbon in all the lands and waters of the United States. In 2012, a team...