Treesearch

(Please note, this is an abstract only) Land managers frequently thin small-diameter trees and apply prescribed fire to reduce fuel loads and restore ecosystem structure, function, and process in forested areas. There is increasing concern that disturbances associated with these management practices can facilitate nonnative plant invasions. Bromus tectorum is an annual grass from the Mediterranean region. It has invaded large areas of the Interior West and has become the dominant species in many of these areas. In 2003, a ponderosa pine ecological restoration site on Mt. Trumbull in the...

(Please note, this is an abstract only) Pinyon-Juniper (PJ) woodland is the 3rd largest vegetation type in the United States, covering 35.5% of the Colorado Plateau, it is the largest vegetation type administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on the Colorado Plateau. These woodlands have been increasing dramatically in density and extent over the last 100 years. In response to this increase and a concomitant loss of grasslands, the BLM has been actively treating these lands by removing pinyon and juniper and seeding with desired vegetation since the 1950s. To date, over 700...

(Please note, this is an abstract only) The Mesa project is a landscape scale restoration treatment for a pinyon/ juniper woodland. Primarily, the goal of the project is to reduce encroaching woodland on savanna grasslands, thus improving rangeland and wildlife habitat. This project is financed by several non-profit wildlife organizations.

(Please note, this is an abstract only) Mechanical treatments in the pinon-juniper type are driven by the objectives of the treatment. Objectives of restoring meadows or grassland from encroachment or returning to a savanna can require a different method of treatment than thinning pinon-juniper woodlands. Often these types of objectives are intermingled within a treatment area as site characteristics vary across the landscape. Characteristics such as tree/shrub density and size, soils (or the lack of), slope, terrain, species, and selectivity of treatment method can determine the type of...

The large acreages of the woodland forest cover type on tribal lands continues to post challenges to this agency's overall management strategies. The development of management plans, evaluation of growth study plots, and anticipated biomass utilization can help resolve some of the challenges.

(Please note, this is an extended abstract only) P&M Plastics, Inc. ("P&M" or the "Company" began operation in 1998 as a result of efforts within P&M Signs, a sister company, to develop a new composite material to be used for external signage-one more rugged than wood. The result of these efforts is a 40% woody biomass and a 60% plastic (HDPE) fortified wood composite. The composite was appropriately named AltreeTM and was patented. AltreeTM was chosen because the woody biomass is made up of small diameter trees and includes the trunk, limbs, bark, needles, and berries. Thus, no additional...

The 27 papers in these proceedings are divided into five sections. The first includes an introduction to the symposium theme of Shrublands under Fire, along with a keynote address comparing ecosystem degradation in Iran with current problems in the semi-arid to arid Western United States. The next three sections cluster papers on invasive species, community dynamics and restoration, and fire recovery of shrubland ecosystems. The final section contains descriptions of two field trips; one focusing on the transitional zone between cold and warm desert systems, and the other on Great Basin...

(Please note, this is an abstract only) Pinon-juniper restoration sites are being implemented in northern Arizona on lands managed by the Diablo Trust that have experienced increased pinon and juniper densities. Such land managers want to restore basic ecosystem structure and function to their lands in a way that preserves their livelihoods and open space in the region. The first objective of this project was to create reference conditions by reconstructing age structure and spatial arrangement to 1860, prior to livestock grazing, across three soil types. Stand reconstruction using stem...

(Please note, this is an extended abstract only) The Pueblo of Santa Ana (Pueblo) is located in north central New Mexico within southeastern Sandoval County, about 15 miles north of Albuquerque and 45 miles south of Santa Fe. The Pueblo encompasses approximately 79,000 acres of trust lands. Between 1999 and 2001, the Pueblo of Santa Ana Department of Natural Resources, through a United States Environmental Protection Agency grant, collected quantitative and qualitative baseline ecological data from 145 long-term monitoring plots established across the Pueblo. These data were used to...

Semi-arid shrublands and woodlands of Nevada are changing in the face of many daunting challenges. I compare Nevada to Iran to understand these challenges better, because Iran and Nevada have similar climate, geology, physiography, and latitude. Floristically, Iran and Nevada share many dominant genera, and many of Nevada?s troubling invasive species are native to Iran. Yet, Iran is different in its long history of civilization and concomitant human exploitation of the landscape. Thus, we can look to Iran to gain insight into possible outcomes of our management actions in our remaining...