Treesearch

Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Dougl. ex Laws.) killed as part of a forest management project to reduce dwarf mistletoe (Arceuthobium sp.) in the Gila National Forest, New Mexico, were evaluated for wildlife value. One hundred and two dwarf mistletoe-infected trees were killed by basal burning, basal girdling, or by a combination of the two. Trees began to fall within 2 years. Most killed trees (96 percent) served as forage substrate for woodpeckers. Twenty percent of the trees contained woodpecker nest cavities and stood longer than small-diameter trees. The probability of cavity...

Wildland-urban interface (WUI) residents in Michigan were interviewed using a contingent valuation protocol to assess their-willingness-to-pay (WT) for incremental reductions in the risk of losing their homes to wildfire. WTP was elicited using a probability model which segments the risk of structure loss into "public" and "private" components. Most respondents expressed positive WTP for publicly funded risk reduction activities. These respondents were characterized by tolerance for property taxes, perception of significant risk, high ranking of fire risk relative to other hazards, and...

The Northwest economic adjustment initiative (NWEAI) provides economic assistance to a region including western Washington, western Oregon, and northern California. Timber harvests have fallen markedly in this region since 1990. The forest products industry is the largest manufacturing sector in the region, and employment has followed the downward trend in timber harvest. There are important differences in the declines in timber harvest, employment, and the importance of the forest products industry at the county level. The NWEAI is a significant initiative designed to coordinate and...

The Forest Ecosystem Study (FES) came about as an early response to the need for innovative silvicultural methods designed to stimulate development of late-successional attributes in managed forests—a need ensuing from the exceptional and longstanding controversies over old-growth forests and endangered species concerns in the Pacific Northwest. In 1991, scientists with the FES applied experimental, variable density thinning to even-aged Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirbel) Franco) forests on the Fort Lewis Military Reservation in western Washington after having first accumulated...

A floral survey in the Olympic National Forest and its surroundings revealed that a considerable number of introduced ruderal plant species have made deep inroads into the stands of native flora. Some of them, which are mainly of European and Asian origin, have been planted deliberately to stabilize the soil along roadsides and after clear cutting and burning. However, they have already established reproductive communities that are capable of spreading rapidly without additional human help as they have already done in almost all regions of the earth subject to a temperate climate. Plotting...

In the West, thinning and partial cuttings are being considered for treating millions of forested acres that are overstocked and prone to wildfire. The objectives of these treatments include tree growth redistribution, tree species regulation, timber harvest, wildlife habitat improvement, and wildfire-hazard reduction. Depending on the forest type and its structure, thinning has both positive and negative impacts on crown fire potential. Crown bulk density, surface fuel, and crown base height are primary stand characteristics that determine crown fire potential. Thinning from below, free...

We quantified the amount, spatial distribution, and importance of salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.)-derived nitrogen (N) by brown bears (Ursus arctos) on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska. We tested and confirmed the hypothesis that the stable isotope signature (δ15N) of N in foliage of white spruce (Picea glauca) was inversely proportional to the distance from salmon-spawning streams (r=-0.99 and P

Population dynamics and demography of the Sitka mouse, Peromyscus keeni sitkensis, were studied by mark-recapture live-trapping over a 4-year period in four floodplain and upland forest habitats: old-growth Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis) floodplain; red alder (Alnus rubra) floodplain; beaver-pond floodplain; and nearby old-growth Sitka spruce-western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla) upland forest. We did not find the expected source-sink population dynamics resulting from flood disturbance or between-habitat variation in food resources. We found significant between-year differences (P < 0.05)...

Sang numbers and decay class were measured on a chronosequence of 26 wildfires (ages 1-81 years) on the east slope of the Cascade Range in Washington. Snag longevity and resultant snag densities varied spatially across burns in relation to micro-topographic position. Longevity of snags < 41 cm dbh was greater for thin-barked engelmann spruce (Picea engelmannii), subalpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa) and lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) than thick-barked Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) and ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa). With larger diameter snags, however, Douglas-fir persisted longer than...

Understanding the concepts of place in ecosystem management may allow land managers to more actively inventory and understand the meanings that people attach to the lands and resources under the care of the land manager. Because place assessment has not been used operationally in past large-scale evaluations and analyses, it was necessary in the assessment of the interior Columbia basin (hereafter referred to as the basin) to apply theories based on available literature. These theories were used within two large test areas inside the assessment area boundaries. From the test area experience...