Treesearch

Interactions between plants and herbivores are central in most ecosystems, but their strength is highly variable. The amount of variability within a system is thought to influence most aspects of plant-herbivore biology, from ecological stability to plant defense evolution. Our understanding of what influences variability, however, is limited by sparse data. We collected standardized surveys of herbivory for 503 plant species at 790 sites across 116° of latitude. With these data, we show that within-population variability in herbivory increases with latitude, decreases with plant size, and...

What could be better than spending a long weekend botanizing in the cold desert ecosystem of Millard County, UT? How about doing so with over thirty other botanical enthusiasts! We did exactly that at the first annual Intermountain Botanical Foray this June. The Foray is a new program organized out of the Intermountain Herbarium at Utah State University: Each year we will coordinate a botany trip that is open to botanists of all types and levels of experience. We will visit a different region of the Intermountain West each year to document the local flora and build community among botanists.

There is a dire need to improve our prediction capabilities of wildland fire behavior in a range of conditions from marginal burning to the most extreme. In order to develop a more physically-based operational wildland fire behavior model, we need to improve our understanding of the effect of ventilation on burning rate of fuel beds. In this work, wood cribs are used as a simplified fuel bed. A variety of crib designs were tested with stick sizes ranging from 0.32 cm to 1.27 cm and porosities ranging from densely packed to loosely packed. A pressurized box was built that allowed for a...

Respondents to a social survey sent to residents in the Lake Wenatchee Fire & Rescue (LWFR) service district are moderately aware of the risk of wildfire to their home, are discussing wildfire with their neighbors, and are taking action to reduce risk. There are gaps in respondents’ understanding of wildfire risk that might be addressed through educational outreach, particularly from LWFR. Respondents are accepting of wildfire risk reduction strategies at the community level, including fuel treatments and policy options.

Previously established correlations of flame length L with fireline intensity IB are based on theory and data which showed that flame zone depth D of a line fire could be neglected if L was much greater than D. Aims. We evaluated this correlation for wildland fires where D is typically a non-negligible proportion of L (i.e. roughly L/D < ~2). Methods. Experiments were conducted to measure flame length L from line-source fires using a gas burner where IB and D were controlled independently (0.014 ≤ L/D ≤ 13.6). Key results. The resulting correlation showed D significantly reduced L for a...

We integrated a mechanistic wildfire simulation system with an agent-based landscape change model to investigate the feedbacks among climate change, population growth, development, landowner decision-making, vegetative succession, and wildfire. Our goal was to develop an adaptable simulation platform for anticipating risk-mitigation tradeoffs in a fire-prone wildland-urban interface (WUI) facing conditions outside the bounds of experience. We describe how five social and ecological system (SES) submodels interact over time and space to generate highly variable alternative futures even...

Wildfires have nearly become a guaranteed annual event in most western National Forests. Severe fire effects can be mitigated with a goal of minimizing the hydrologic response and promoting soil and vegetation recovery towards the pre-disturbance condition. Sometimes, post-fire actions include salvage logging to recover timber value and to remove excess fuels. Salvage logging was conducted after three large wildfires on the Lolo National Forest in Montana, USA, between 2017 and 2019. We evaluated detrimental soil disturbance (DSD) on seven units that were burned at low, moderate, and high...

Understanding the suitable habitat of endangered species is crucial for agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management to plan management and conservation. However, few species distribution models are directly validated, potentially limiting their application in management. In preparation for a Species Status Assessment of clay-loving wild buckwheat (Eriogonum pelinophilum), an endangered subshrub found in southwest Colorado, we ran a series of species distribution models to estimate the species' potential occupied habitat and validated these models in the field. A 1-meter resolution...

Rationale. Pine needles represent an important fuel source in coniferous forest systems in the western United States. During forest fires, they can be easily ignited and help sustain flame on the ground. Methodology. In this study, a comprehensive chemical analysis was conducted to examine oxygenated organic compounds (OOCs) present in PM2.5 (particles ≤ 2.5 μm in aerodynamic diameter) formed from burning dry and moist ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) needles (PPN) in the presence and absence of fine woody debris (FWD). The effect of fuel moisture content (FMC), a key parameter that...

Assessing the effectiveness and measuring the performance of fuel treatments and other wildfire risk mitigation efforts are challenging endeavors. Perhaps the most complicated is quantifying avoided impacts. In this study, we show how probabilistic counterfactual analysis can help with performance evaluation. We borrow insights from the disaster risk mitigation and climate event attribution literature to illustrate a counterfactual framework and provide examples using ensemble wildfire simulations. Specifically, we reanalyze previously published fire simulation data from fire-prone...