Treesearch

Anthropogenic climate change is warming global temperatures, with significant implications for salmonid fishes that depend on the availability of cold water during one or more life stages. Along the southern range extents of many species, and elsewhere that warm temperatures are increasingly problematic, identification and protection or restoration of habitats that may serve as climate refugia where local populations can persist is emerging as an important conservation tactic. In this perspective piece, we address the concept and utility of climate refugia - drawing a distinction with the...

Maintaining natural thermal regimes in montane stream networks is critical for many species, but as climate warms, thermal regimes will undoubtedly change. Mitigating impacts of changing thermal regimes on freshwater biodiversity requires knowledge of which elements of the thermal regime are limiting factors for aquatic biota. We used full-year stream temperature records sampled across a broad latitudinal gradient to describe the diversity of the thermal landscapes that bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus) occupy and identify potential divergences from thermal regimes where this species has...

Background: Wilderness areas are important natural laboratories for scientists and managers working to understand fire. In the last half-century, shifts in the culture and policy of land management agencies have facilitated the management practice of letting some naturally ignited fires burn, allowing fire to fulfill its ecological role and increasing the extent of fire-related research opportunities. With the goal of identifying the global scientific advances enabled by this paradigm shift in wilderness fire management, we conducted a systematic review of publications that either (1)...

This six-volume assessment provides information on the current conditions of riparian, aquatic, and groundwater-dependent ecosystems on the Rogue River-Siskiyou, Klamath, Six Rivers, Shasta-Trinity, and Mendocino National Forests of southern Oregon and northern California. We used peer-reviewed literature and national and regional-level data from the forests and their partners to evaluate the status of several key ecosystem characteristics. These characteristics are distribution, hydrologic regimes, water quality, connectivity, instream habitat quality, and riparian reserve condition for...

Context: Identifying core habitat areas and corridors is a first step to ensuring suitable areas are available to support movement and gene flow. The pygmy rabbit (Brachylagus idahoensis) is a species of concern and a sagebrush obligate of the arid Great Basin, yet a habitat network of core areas and corridors for this species has not been assessed. Methods: Using a multiscale habitat modeling approach, we mapped pygmy rabbit habitat suitability and identified important variables that define habitat suitability. Movement pinch points in the Snake River plain and from Nevada west to...

Conservation and management of wide-ranging carnivores like cougars (Puma concolor), which occur across human-altered landscapes can benefit from an in-depth understanding of their genetic status. Here, we apply the largest collection of multilocus genotypes currently available for cougars (n = 1,903) to provide a comprehensive assessment of genetic diversity, gene flow, and source-sink dynamics for cougars occurring across Washington, United States and south-central British Columbia, Canada. We found that cougars in the Olympic, Cascade, Kettle, Selkirk, and Blue Mountains ecosystems are...

PODs, potential wildfire operational delineations, give land managers, fire managers, partnering agencies, and at-risk communities a structured framework for developing landscape-scale wildfire response options before wildfires ignite.

In the late 1980s, the USDA Agricultural Research Service, along with other federal agencies and multiple universities, collaborated to develop a new physically based soil erosion model, the Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) Model. The WEPP model was intended to replace the Universal Soil Loss Equation and was to include estimates for upland runoff and erosion, sediment delivery to first order channels, and runoff and sediment routing through a down-stream channel network. The WEPP technology estimated erosion from raindrop splash and sheet flow (interrill erosion) and concentrated...

Located in North Central Utah, Emigration Canyon is a prominent and historic canyon that runs northeast from Salt Lake City into the higher elevations of the Wasatch Mountains. The Wasatch Range is characterized by steep, rocky slopes and 26-44 millimeters of annual rainfall, both of which contribute to a high threat of wildfire. The area’s landscape is diverse with oak woodland at the lower elevations up to a conifer forest type including ponderosa pine, Douglas-fir, and subalpine fir. The Utah Wildfire Risk Assessment Portal (UWRAP) rates the fire danger in Emigration Canyon as “Extreme.”...

In subalpine forests of the western United States, wildfires are becoming more frequent, severe, and widespread. In response, land management agencies are intensifying their efforts to reduce fire risk and severity, mitigate economic losses, and restore burned areas. These efforts, which include prefire tree removal, and postfire clearcutting, salvage logging, and planting, have varying impacts on wildlife. Sensitive species like fisher, spotted owl, and Canada lynx depend on structurally complex mature forests, and their habitats are often disturbed by forest management and by wildfire....