Treesearch

Owyhee County, Idaho, covers much of the Owyhee Uplands, an arid landscape characterized by sagebrush habitat where cattle grazing is a dominant land use. Because this landscape is home to many sensitive sagebrush-obligate species as well as species that require high-quality riparian and aquatic habitat, it has garnered attention from state and federal wildlife agencies and various nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) interested in restoring and conserving habitat on working landscapes. The installation of beaver dam-like structures such as beaver dam analogues, and the reintroduction of...

Landscape values mapping (LVM) is a participatory process used to gather public input for park and forest management. Respondents assign landscape values or ecosystem benefits to places on a map using a typology that usually includes the value “recreation.” Whereas other landscape values in the typology reflect personal guiding principles and enduring beliefs, recreation represents a diverse set of human behaviors influenced by their values and beliefs. For a more accurate comparison to other mapped values, and to better inform land managers of the underlying factors determining people's...

Long-term occupancy by homeless individuals in U.S. national forests and grasslands results in persistent management challenges and resource concerns. Management challenges associated with non-recreational campers (homeless long-term occupants) include: maintaining sanitary conditions, public safety, vandalism, and conflict with other forest visitors. These management challenges may already be a substantial concern for district rangers and law enforcement officers (LEOs) in many parts of the U.S. This exploratory study compares the social impacts of various types of non-recreational...

The northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) was listed as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1990. We applied modern spatial conservation theory and models to evaluate several candidate critical habitat networks, and sought an efficient conservation solution that encompassed the highest value lands for spotted owl recovery rather than maximizing the total area of potential critical habitat. We created a map of relative habitat suitability, which served as input to the spatial conservation prioritization program Zonation. We used the spatially-explicit...

Quantifying the spatial and temporal dynamics of stream metabolism across stream networks is key to understanding carbon cycling and stream food web ecology. To better understand intra-annual temporal patterns of gross primary production (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (ER) and their variability across space, we continuously measured dissolved oxygen and modeled stream metabolism for an entire year at ten sites across a temperate river network in Washington State, USA. We expected GPP and ER to increase with stream size and peak during summer and autumn months due to warmer temperatures...

Environmental DNA (eDNA) is an emerging biological monitoring tool that can aid in assessing the effects of forestry and forest manufacturing activities on biota. Monitoring taxa across broad spatial and temporal scales is necessary to ensure forest management and forest manufacturing activities meet their environmental goals of maintaining biodiversity. Our objectives are to describe potential applications of eDNA across the wood products supply chain extending from regenerating forests, harvesting, and wood transport, to manufacturing facilities, and to review the current state of the...

Stubble height, streambank alteration, and woody species use are indicators used to monitor livestock impacts on riparian areas in the western United States. Effects of wild ungulates on riparian conditions are often not monitored and assumed to be represented by indicators developed for livestock. We tested this assumption by evaluating effects of elk (Cervus canadensis) and mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) on grazing indicators along Meadow Creek, a salmonid-bearing stream in northeastern Oregon. Wild ungulates reduced stubble height by 20% to 30%. Mean streambank alteration was 1.1%...

Oregon has 30 million forested acres that cover roughly half the state’s land area. The Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program reports on the status and trends of Oregon’s forest resources, producing comprehensive updates every 5 years. This report provides detailed estimates of forest area, tree species composition and distribution, volume, biomass, carbon, standing dead trees and down wood, and understory vegetation on forest land for the state of Oregon based on the annual FIA forest land inventory through 2015. It also includes the first estimates of annual growth, mortality, and...

This report highlights key findings from data collected by the Forest Inventory and Analysis program across all forest land in the state of Washington from 2002 through 2011, updating previously published findings from data collected up to 2006. We summarize and interpret basic resource information such as forest area, composition, ownership, volume, biomass, and carbon stocks; forest structure and function topics such as biodiversity, forest age, and dead wood; disturbance information such as wildfire, root disease, and invasive plants; and include data on tree growth, mortality, and...

The socioeconomic benefits of recreational, commercial, and subsistence fishing associated with lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service are substantial and are expected to increase over time. Recreational fishing on national forests and grasslands generate over US$2.2 billion annually through fishing equipment, boats, travel, outfitter and guiding services, fuel, and licenses, which in turn provide critical funding for fisheries habitat management and conservation by federal and state agencies. The sustainable nature of recreational fishing by the public complements the agency’s multiple...