Treesearch

Knowledge of Merriam's wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo merriami) resource selection in the context of landscape attributes is an important asset for managing resources on multiple-use public lands. We investigated resource selection for foraging by Merriam's wild turkey broods in the southern Black Hills, South Dakota. We collected macro- and microhabitat data from 48 radiotagged female wild turkeys during brood-rearing from 2001 to 2003. Broods selected meadows for macrohabitat resource selection, whereas dense stands of mature ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) and wildfire-burned...

Landscape design is both art and organization. Anyone can plant trees or shrubs in a row, but that isn't a designed landscape. Landscape design is placing plants and structures in ways that organize and enrich an outdoor space to have agreeable and useful relationships with the natural environment. A good design makes the best use of the space available and the most of the site's natural features and advantages. It will often minimize the challenges of a site.

Most of the coastal Alaska inventory unit is part of the temperate rain-forest biome, and fire is an extremely rare event. However, for the western side of the Kenai Peninsula and the Cook Inlet region, fire is a common source of natural disturbance (fig. 50). Although wildfires are a normal part of the disturbance regime for this region, urban growth and associated infrastructure raises the risk of increasing potential loss from fire.

New knowledge of fire regimes in the pinyon-juniper woodlands of the interior western United States has altered management views. Once known as being at low wildfire risk, these woodlands are now at a higher risk for severe wildfires because of high tree densities exacerbated by ongoing drought and region-wide bark beetle (Ips confusus) infestation. To help reduce fuels and fire hazards and to create defensible space in the wildland urban interface, regional land managers have conducted thinning-piling-burning treatments. Recently, however, a different treatment has been used - mechanical...

Downy brome or cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum L.) is one of the most invasive and widespread exotic plants in North America. Downy brome can reduce soil nutrient availability, alter native plant community composition, and increase fire frequencies. The effectiveness of Plateau® imazapic herbicide in reducing downy brome cover has been variable, and there is uncertainty about the impacts of imazapic on native species. Researchers from Flagstaff, Arizona, recently published an article in Invasive Plant Science and Management that investigated if treatments of imazapic and/or seeding with native...

The 2007 East Zone and Cascade wildfires in central Idaho burned through fuel treatments in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) surrounding two local communities: Secesh Meadows and Warm Lake. The WUI fuel treatments funded by the National Fire Plan were designed to increase fire fighter safety, protect people and property, and mitigate severe fire effects on natural resources. It has been shown previously via two independent on-the-ground assessments that these WUI treatments were generally effective by these criteria. In this study, we demonstrate that fuel treatment effectiveness also...

Rapid advances in molecular genetic techniques and the statistical analysis of genetic data have revolutionized the way that populations of animals, plants and microorganisms can be monitored. Genetic monitoring is the practice of using molecular genetic markers to track changes in the abundance, diversity or distribution of populations, species or ecosystems over time, and to follow adaptive and non-adaptive genetic responses to changing external conditions. In recent years, genetic monitoring has become a valuable tool in conservation management of biological diversity and ecological...

Vegetation changes associated with climate shifts and anthropogenic disturbance can have major impacts on biogeochemical cycling and soils. Much of the Great Basin, U.S. is currently dominated by sagebrush (Artemisia tridentate (Rydb.) Boivin) ecosystems. Sagebrush ecosystems are increasingly influenced by pinyon (Pinus monophylla Torr. & Frém and Pinus edulis Engelm.) and juniper (Juniperus osteosperma Torr. and Juniperus occidentalis Hook.) expansion. Some scientists and policy makers believe that increasing woodland cover in the intermountain western U.S. offers the possibility of...

Climate change effects on wildfire occurrence have been attributed primarily to increases in temperatures causing earlier snowpack ablation and longer fire seasons. Variability in precipitation is also an important control on snowpack accumulation and, therefore, on timing of meltwater inputs. We evaluate the correlation of total area burned and area burned severely to snowmelt-induced streamflow timing and total annual streamflow metrics across the Pacific Northwest region from 1984-2005. Principal component scores on total annual water year flow and date of 50th percentile flow (PC1T) in...

Herein we report information on habitat, morphology, and activity from 813 captures of 505 individual Plestiodon obsoletus from riparian forest habitat along the middle Rio Grande in central New Mexico. We used toe-clipping during a mark-recapture study conducted from late May to mid-September each year from 2000 to 2006 to evaluate the effects of non-native plant and fuels removal on herpetofauna (Bateman et al. 2008. Restoration Ecol. 16:180-190).