Treesearch

This paper describes the mission, objectives, and preliminary results of the Middle Rio Grande Ecosystem Management Research Program managed at the Rocky Mountain Research Station's Albuquerque laboratory. This program was initiated in 1994 to address growing pressures to effectively manage the limited resources of the middle Rio Grande Basin. The program is divided into four problem areas: upland vegetation, links between uplands and rivers, fish and wildlife, and cultural resources. This paper describes the productivity and products of the program since its inception.

This paper reports on an application of two modeling systems in the assessment and planning effort for a 58,038-acre area on the Bitterroot National Forest: SIMulating Vegetative Patterns and Processes at Landscape ScaLEs (SIMPPLLE), and Multi-resource Analysis and Geographic Information System (MAGIS). SIMPPLLE was a useful model for tracking and analyzing an abundance of spatial data and processes, providing a good depiction of landscape patterns over time. Concerns were raised by Forest specialists about the predicted levels for a few of the fire and insect processes. MAGIS was an...

The increasing emphasis on public participation in ecosystem-based planning suggests an enlarging need to determine what makes public participation successful and what criteria are useful in identifying when a consensus has been reached. These two questions were investigated in research involving two small planning areas on the Bitterroot National Forest. It was determined that successful public participation was multidimensional and involved writing a plan, plan implementation, social acceptability, learning, interest representation, responsibility, and relationships. Six conditions for...

This study assessed the effectiveness of FireWorks, an educational trunk about wildland fire, in increasing student understanding, enabling students to apply classroom learning in a field setting, and improving the learning environment. Students who were in classrooms using the FireWorks educational trunk demonstrated more knowledge in both classroom and field-based tests than did students in comparison groups. Students using FireWorks were more interested and engaged in learning than students in comparison classrooms. FireWorks students rated their classrooms as being more orderly and...

Disturbance of forested habitats through natural or man-made causes is thought to adversely affect medium-sized carnivores such as the American marten (Martes americana), fisher (Martes pennanti), wolverine (Gulo gulo), and lynx (Lynx lynx). In order to recognize these impacts it is necessary to be able to accurately detect the presence of these species in both natural and disturbed habitats. This is made difficult by the very nature of these animals. They are secretive and, because they are carnivores, are generally found in low abundance. Over the past four years, I have helped develop...

Streams often present a challenge for collecting flow and sediment measurements on a year-round basis. Streams that can normally be waded become hazardous during seasonal flows, either endangering hydrographers or precluding data collection completely. A hand-operated cableway permits the accurate and safe collection of discharge and sediment data from the stream bank. This system provides a low-cost, safe alternative to cable cars or operation from bridges during high runoff. This publication describes the construction and use of a cableway system. Included are figures describing parts...

Researchers, educator's and land management personnel routinely construct bibliographies to assist them in managing publications that relate to their work. These personalized bibliographies are unique and valuable to others in the same discipline. This paper presents a computer data base system that provides users with the ability to search a bibliography through the World Wide Web (Web). To illustrate this system, a bibliography of publications produced by the USDA Forest Service and its cooperators is used. Users can search the references on the Web using parameters such as date, author,...

A survey of backcountry and wilderness campsites at Isle Royale National Park reveals that the park’s policies for managing visitor impacts have been remarkably effective in limiting the areal extent of camping-related disturbance. However, the dense spatial arrangement of designated campsites within backcountry campgrounds has also contributed to problems with visitor crowding and conflict. Only 9% of the sites had no other sites visible, while 22% had three or more other sites visible. Mean intersite distance was only 76 feet, and 34% of the sites are within 50 feet of another site....

The management of national park and wilderness areas dominated by forest ecosystems adapted to frequent, low-intensity fires, continues to be a tremendous challenge. Throughout the inland West and particularly in the Southwest, ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) and mixed conifer forests have become dense and structurally homogeneous after periods of intense livestock grazing, followed by more than 100 years of fire suppression. Prior to the late 1800s, pine-dominated forests at Grand Canyon National Park were structurally diverse, averaging 45 to 90 trees per acre, with frequent, low-intensi...

Declining whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) forests have necessitated development of innovative methods to restore these ecologically valuable, high elevation ecosystems. We have began an extensive restoration study using prescribed fire and silvicultural cuttings to return native ecological processes to degenerating whitebark pine forests. Preliminary results indicate these restoration treatments are successfully restoring the fire processes at a small scale, but many challenges need to be met to achieve landscape scale whitebark pine ecosystem restoration. Prescribed fires are difficult...