Treesearch

Niche partitioning is critical for the stable coexistence of competing species that share limited resources. Yet, niches are dynamic, especially in the face of rapid environmental change. Carnivores exhibit particularly strong forms of competition and are differentially affected by change. Fishers (Pekania pennanti) and martens (Martes caurina) are two species of carnivores that overlap in space, time, and resources. In the Sierra Nevada of California, these two species share habitats that are undergoing a sudden restructuring due to drought and the subsequent mortality of more than half...

Wildfires, which are increasing in frequency and severity with climate change, reduce soil microbial biomass and alter microbial community composition and function. The soil microbiome plays a vital role in carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycling, but its complexity makes it challenging to predict post-wildfire soil microbial dynamics and resulting impacts on ecosystem biogeochemistry. The application of biogeochemically relevant conceptual trait-based frameworks to the soil microbiome can distill this complexity-enabling enhanced predictability of soil microbiome recovery following wildfire...

Global wildfire activity has increased since the 1970s and is projected to intensify throughout the 21st century. Wildfires change the composition and biodegradability of soil organic matter (SOM) which contains nutrients that fuel microbial metabolism. Though persistent forms of SOM often increase postfire, the response of more biodegradable SOM remains unclear. Here we simulated severe wildfires through a controlled “pyrocosm” approach to identify biodegradable sources of SOM and characterize the soil metabolome immediately postfire. Using microbial amplicon (16S/ITS) sequencing and gas...

For a few years, it seemed as if everything was burning down. In 2020 and 2021, in California, Oregon and Washington, US fire records were shattered, with devastating effects for wildlife habitat. In 2020, 4 million hectares of drought-stricken wetland and savannah burnt in the Brazilian Pantanal region, killing 17 million animals. In late 2019 and early 2020, bushfires raged during the height of summer in Australia, burning an astonishing 10.3 million hectares of shrubland and forest, corresponding to just under half the area of the United Kingdom. Writing in Nature, Driscoll et al....

Natural resource agencies are frequently tasked with monitoring populations of at-risk species to ensure management activities do not negatively affect the viability of wildlife populations. Typically, these monitoring efforts evaluate trends in a population’s abundance, occupancy, or geographic distribution. Often, surveys provide local information, but results are generally not incorporated into broad-scale monitoring efforts that focus on range-wide population changes due to their variable nature in both spatial extent and effort. We investigated whether aggregating these local (hereafte...

We present a mixed integer programming model for prioritizing fuel treatments within a landscape fuel break network to maximize protection against wildfires, measured by the total fire size reduction or the sum of Wildland Urban Interface areas avoided from burning. This model uses a large dataset of simulated wildfires in a large landscape to inform fuel break treatment decisions. Its mathematical formulation is concise and computationally efficient, allowing for customization and expansion to address more complex and challenging fuel break management problems in diverse landscapes. We...

To address impacts of climate change and other stressors on stream ecosystems, managers must prioritize resources and locations for conservation actions to facilitate effective cross-boundary solutions. Through a science management partnership, we co-produced a spatially explicit landscape assessment framework for cold-water fish habitat and riparian corridors in three large watersheds of the southwestern United States. Using literature review and stakeholder workshops, we developed indicators of vulnerability and built spatial datasets depicting areas of low to high vulnerability based on...

This study explores wildfire risk and preparedness among mobile home park residents in Leadville, Colorado - a town of 2,633 residents within the wildland-urban interface (WUI) of Lake County, Colorado, a region at increasingly high risk for wildfire. Residents in mobile home parks are socially vulnerable to disasters and their manufactured homes are highly susceptible to fire. Although mobile home parks are a critical form of affordable housing, their wildfire risk and their residents’ preparedness for wildfires are understudied. This multi-methods project - conducted in partnership with...

Spreading fleabane is widely distributed throughout the western United States and northwestern Mexico (Nesom 2015) and is most widespread in the interior West (Cronquist et al. 1994). Populations occur in British Columbia and Alberta south through all states west of North Dakota and Texas. In Mexico, populations occur in Baja California, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Sonora, and likely in the more southern states (Nesom 2006). In the United States, distribution is limited at the eastern edge of its range with populations occurring only in the western parts of the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas,...

1. Widespread fuel accumulation in various strata is increasing the risk of high-severity, crown-fires. Knowing the vertical forest structure is a crucial factor for fire management planning. 2. Light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensors have successfully retrieved the main characteristics of the vertical structure of forests. However, detecting and vertically mapping the various fuel strata that can act as ladder fuels (i.e. fuel arrangements that will bring the fire from the surface to the canopy) is challenging and limits our ability to manage the most hazardous forests. 3. Here we...