Treesearch

We investigated how changes in vegetation structure and prey resources following wildfire affected the winter ecology of hairy woodpeckers (Picoides villosus) in ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forests of northern Arizona, USA. Using point-counts, radiotelemetry, and focal bird observation, we assessed the relative abundance, home range size and composition, and habitat use by foraging hairy woodpeckers in 3 stands that had experienced wildfire in 1996, 2000, or 2002. Because we conducted the study over 2 years, we used the 1996 fire to represent 6 and 7 years after fire, while we used...

The state of Oregon has about 28 million acres of forestland. The west side of the state is dominated by Douglas-fir forests, and most of the east side forests are occupied by Ponderosa pines or mixed conifers. The Oregon Board of Forestry is charged with making policy for Oregon’s forests. It has relied on quantitative assessments of forest conditions for many years, but the Board’s recent focus has shifted toward the concepts of sustainability and examining a wide range of outputs. The Board has adopted the Montreal Process criteria and indicators as a framework to use to measure and...

Ecosystem management, also called integrated management can be defined as integrated careful and skilful use, development, and protection of ecosystems using ecological, economic, social and managerial principles to sustain ecosystem integrity and desired conditions, uses, products, values, and services over the long term. Although ecosystem or conservation management issues can have global, regional or trans-boundary impacts, most activities need to be focused at the sub-regional and community level to be effective. The basic concept is that the community is the most efficient unit for...

Based on ten years of Northwest Forest Plan implementation, we focus on key scientifically-oriented questions relating to improving Plan monitoring. The questions, which fall into groups concerning issues of scale, integration, and efficiency, have applicability to monitoring programs being designed and implemented throughout the world. Progress toward answering such questions is evidence of a functioning adaptive management paradigm, specifically an important subcomponent of such an approach dealing with adaptive change within monitoring programs themselves.

SnowModel is a spatially distributed snow-evolution modeling system designed for application in landscapes, climates, and conditions where snow occurs. It is an aggregation of four submodels: MicroMet defines meteorological forcing conditions, EnBal calculates surface energy exchanges, SnowPack simulates snow depth and water-equivalent evolution, and SnowTran-3D accounts for snow redistribution by wind. Since each of these submodels was originally developed and tested for nonforested conditions, details describing modifications made to the submodels for forested areas are provided....

The symposium identified the major barriers to collaboration among institutions and programs. This synthesis, while admittedly drawing from only a sample of the papers presented, provides a synoptic view of the major recurring themes voiced by participants.Several overarching statements were voiced. No one institution or one program in isolation can hope to provide and integrate all of the necessary monitoring data, supporting science and information, or technology capabilities for use of decision makers. Monitoring is the unifying and integrating aspect of natural resource management....

Federal, State, and municipal government entities are increasingly depending on geospatial data for a myriad of purposes. This trend is expected to continue. Information sharing and interoperability are in line with the Federal Executive Order 12906 (Clinton, 1994) which calls for the establishment of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI). If other organizations voluntarily implement the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s quality planning approach--or a similar approach that embraces the same critical quality elements--for projects that include geospatial data, then an...

We evaluated the effects of probabilistic (hereafter DESIGN) and non-probabilistic (PURPOSIVE) sample surveys on resultant classification tree models for predicting the presence of four lichen species in the Pacific Northwest, USA. Models derived from both survey forms were assessed using an independent data set (EVALUATION). Measures of accuracy as gauged by resubstitution rates were similar for each lichen species irrespective of the underlying sample survey form. Cross-validation estimates of prediction accuracies were lower than resubstitution accuracies for all species and both design...

The private working land base of America’s forests, farms, and ranches is being converted at the rate of nearly 1,620 ha (4,000 acres) per day with tremendous economic, ecological, and social impacts. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service is sponsoring the “Forests on the Edge” project to develop a better understanding of the contributions of America’s private forests to timber, wildlife, and water resources and the pressures exerted on these resources from development, fire, air pollution, and insects and diseases. The project uses Geographic Information...

The USDA Forest Service is among the pioneers incorporating the Montreal Process criteria and indicators into its programs. Among its initial efforts is the adaptation of a criteria and indicators framework for its national strategic plan, which is the primary instrument for setting the course to achieve the Forest Service mission of sustaining the nation’s forests and grasslands for present and future generations. This presentation describes the steps the Forest Service has taken to adopt and implement a criteria and indicators-based strategic plan. It also describes the challenges of...