Treesearch

Seeds of many native species are challenging to germinate. One important thing a grower can do is learn as much as possible about the life history, ecology, and habitat of the species they wish to grow.What processes do seeds of this species go through in nature? Any observations will be valuable when trying to germinate and grow species that have little or no published information available. How seeds are handled, treated, and sown will affect the quality of the seedling produced. Several sowing options are best suited to seeds with certain characteristics. In this chapter, we discuss...

For the past 30 years, interest in the propagation of native plants has been growing. Many desirable and ecologically important species, however, are difficult or very time consuming to propagate by seeds. Thus, nursery growers may want to investigate how to propagate a species of interest by vegetative propagation. This can be done by combining classic horticultural propagation techniques with an understanding of the ecological and reproductive characteristics of the species. By investigating how a species perpetuates under natural conditions, nursery growers may be able to vegetatively...

Fires were prevalent in the Southwestern Borderlands of Arizona and New Mexico prior to the arrival of European-American settlers in the 1880s. The almost total exclusion of fires for more than 100 years has been linked to declines in biological diversity and a loss of productivity associated with the encroachment of woody vegetation into the grasslands and open woodlands. Private and public land managers agreed that reintroducing fire could improve or reverse these landscape changes. The Coronado National Forest developed the Peloncillo Programmatic Fire Plan after intense consultations...

Fires caused by lightning or Native Americans were the major ecological factor in the borderlands region of Arizona, New Mexico, and Mexico prior to European settlement. Historical overgrazing and aggressive fire suppression have led to the encroachment of woody vegetation and accumulations of woody fuels in these grasslands. Ranchers associated with the Malpai Borderlands Group, state and federal land managers, and the staff of The Nature Conservancy agreed that re-introducing fire could improve landscape productivity and biological diversity. The ranching community was concerned that...

A lack of research on the conceptual intersection of leisure, place and wildland fire and its role in identity prompted this exploratory study. The purpose of this research was to gather evidence regarding how people negotiate identities under the threat of wildland fire. Qualitative interviews with 16 homeowners and recreationists who value leisure activities in undeveloped places in Colorado's Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest were conducted. Results show that wildland fire plays a varied role in the identities of many of the research participants. Three dominant discourses of nature...

Conservation science is concerned with understanding why distribution and abundance patterns of species vary in time and space. Although these patterns have strong signatures tied to the availability of energy and nutrients, variation in climate, physiographic heterogeneity, and differences in the structural complexity of natural vegetation, it is becoming more difficult to ignore the role that humans play in shaping the composition of species assemblages across landscapes (Gaston 2006). The amount of net primary productivity that goes directly to support humans has become a common, if not...

In 2003, the Healthy Forests Restoration Act (HFRA) called for USA communities at risk of wildfire to develop Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPPs) requiring local, state and federal actors to work together to address hazardous fuels reduction and mitigation efforts. CWPPs can provide the opportunity for local government to influence actions on adjacent public land, by establishing local boundaries of the wildland-urban interface (WUI), the area where urban lands meet or intermix with wildlands. The present paper explores local response to the HFRA and CWPPs in the eastern USA,...

Spatial and temporal patterns of fire history are affected by factors such as topography, vegetation, and climate. It is unclear, however, how these factors influenced fire history patterns in small isolated forests, such as that found on Rincon Peak, a "sky island" mountain range in southern Arizona, USA. We reconstructed the fire history of Rincon Peak to evaluate the influences of broad-scale (i.e., climate) versus local-scale (i.e., topographic) factors on fire occurrence and extent. We evaluated both fire scars and tree demography (natality and mortality) to investigate surface fire...

Greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) populations and the sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) communities that they rely on have dramatically declined from historic levels. Moreover, information regarding sage-grouse annual life-history requirements at the eastern-most extension of sagebrush steppe communities is lacking. Understanding the ecology of sage-grouse in this region is essential for developing management strategies and to ensure future viability of populations in the Dakotas. This dissertation addresses factors that influence sage-grouse survival, winter habitat use, seasonal...

Ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus) are important game birds and the management indicator species for quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) in the Black Hills National Forest (BHNF). As a result, a robust monitoring protocol which reflects the status, trends, and habitat associations of ruffed grouse in the BHNF is necessary. To evaluate these processes, we used ruffed grouse drumming counts combined with occupancy modeling. Ruffed grouse occupancy in the BHNF was 0.13 (SE = 0.029) in 2007 and 0.11 (SE = 0.022) in 2008, and was positively influenced by the amount of aspen. Detection probability...