Treesearch

Fire management is growing increasingly complex in an environment beset by climate change, an ever-growing wildland-urban interface, and difficulties developing and maintaining workforce capacity. Delivery of timely and relevant fire science to managers is imperative, but here, too, there are challenges. Research on fire and fuels management is spread across a great variety of sources and platforms, and managers have limited time to search for relevant information needed for addressing critical management issues.

Limber pine is a keystone species in the Rocky Mountains that grows on harsh, high elevation sites where few other tree species can. Recent studies suggest the species is threatened by the combined impacts of the exotic, invasive disease, white pine blister rust (WPBR), native bark beetles, and climate change. Information on changes in the health of limber pine populations and long-term impacts posed by these threats is needed to inform management efforts.

Forest dynamics in arid and semiarid regions are sensitive to water availability, which is becoming increasingly scarce as global climate changes. The timing and magnitude of precipitation in the semiarid southwestern U.S. (“Southwest”) has changed since the 21st century began. The region is projected to become hotter and drier as the century proceeds, with implications for carbon storage, pest outbreaks, and wildfire resilience. Our goal was to quantify the importance of summer monsoon precipitation for forested ecosystems across this region. We developed an isotope mixing model in a...

Lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta var. latifolia) has a reputation for indestructibility, but recent events in the Southern Rockies may have pushed even this stalwart species to the edge. Research by Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS) scientist Chuck Rhoades and colleagues shows that lodgepole forests burned by wildfires following mountain pine beetle outbreaks may not generate enough seedlings to return to predisturbance tree densities.

An extreme drought from 2012–2016 and concurrent bark beetle outbreaks in California, USA resulted in widespread tree mortality. We followed changes in tree mortality, stand structure, and surface and canopy fuels over four years after the peak of mortality in Sierra mixed conifer and pinyon pine (Pinus monophylla) forests to examine patterns of mortality, needle retention after death, and snag fall across tree species. We then investigated how the tree mortality event affected surface and canopy fuel loading and potential impacts on fire hazard and emissions.

Journals with open-discussion forums lend themselves well for peer review exercises to train early career scientists. Earth System Science Data (ESSD) is an open-access journal for the publication of interdisciplinary datasets and articles, and it is thus an example of an educational resource in the peer review process. We offer our experiences in peer review training with manuscripts submitted to ESSD, and we do so from the disparate perspectives of workshop instructor, student, and author. We then provide recommendations for the structure of a peer review workshop. We seek to promote the...

Increasing global temperatures and variability in the timing, quantity, and intensity of precipitation and wind have led to longer fire season lengths, greater fuel availability, and more intense and severe wildfires [1]. These broad-scale shifts have increased the emphasis on understanding wildland fuel dynamics through fine-scale laboratory experiments [2], refined fuel sampling strategies [3,4], the characterization of fuel hazards and treatment longevity [5,6], and operational fuel mapping [7,8]. Many of these efforts seek to enhance fuel estimation precision, along with the spatial...

Forest removal for livestock grazing is a striking example of human-caused state change leading to a stable, undesirable invasive grass system that is resistant to restoration efforts. Understanding which factors lead to resilience the alternative grass state can greatly benefit managers when planning forest restoration. We address how thresholds of grass cover and seed rain might influence forest recovery in a restoration project on Hawaiʻi Island, USA. Since the 1980s, over 400,000 Acacia koa (koa) trees were planted across degraded pasture and invasive grasses still dominate the...

Contemporary restoration and management of sagebrush-dominated (Artemisia spp.) ecosystems across the intermountain west of the United States increasingly involves the removal of expanding conifer, particularly juniper (Juniperus spp.) and pinyon pine ( Pinus edulis, P. monophylla). The impetus behind much of this management has been the demonstrated population benefits of sagebrush restoration via conifer removal to greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus), a species of conservation concern. One of the challenges with scaling up from a focal-species approach to a community-level...

Anticipating consequences of disturbance interactions on ecosystem structure and function is a critical management priority as disturbance activity increases with warming climate. Across the Northern Hemisphere, extensive tree mortality from recent bark beetle outbreaks raises concerns about potential fire behavior and post-fire forest function. Silvicultural treatments (that is, partial or complete cutting of forest stands) may reduce outbreak severity and subsequent fuel loads, but longevity of pre-outbreak treatment effects on outbreak severity and post-outbreak fuel profiles remains...