Treesearch

Intensifying wildfire activity in western North America has motivated focus on fuel treatments as a tool for moderating fire severity. Treatment effectiveness is influenced by complex interactions among biophysical settings, treatments and weather.This study introduces a standardized, scalable workflow to quantify wildfire-treatment outcomes across diverse landscapes.We evaluated federal fuel treatments across 50 wildfires in southern Oregon and Northern California (2012–2021). We analyzed outcomes across two distinct landscapes: the productive, western Klamath mountains (west) and the...

Smooth brome (Bromus inermis) is a Eurasian prairie grass whose roots in America can be traced to 1884, when the California Agricultural Experimental Station began studying its potential as forage for the country’s burgeoning cattle industry. Germinating earlier in the spring with protein-rich foliage and blades wider than native grasses, smooth brome was described in a 1915 Canadian Department of Agriculture circular as “a promising grass, possessing the necessary qualifications to the prairie climate.”

Fuel breaks are linear strips of land along which vegetation is cleared or thinned - constructed along ridgelines, roads, and other strategic places - to give firefighters a safer, higher chance to slow or steer a fire. Often described as “speed bumps” for wildfires, fuel breaks rarely stop fire spread on their own, but they do give crews critical anchor points for building fireline, setting backfires, or safely applying water and retardant. They have been used since the 1960s across many landscapes.

Protected areas are considered an antidote to biodiversity loss, but have not protected all biodiversity equally. Freshwater biodiversity has declined globally by 84 percent since 1970 - more than twice the rate of marine and terrestrial species. Legacy effects from logging, mining, livestock grazing, dams, and fish stocking have affected freshwater ecosystems across the landscape including federally-protected areas.

Climate change increases drought frequencies and intensities, posing risks to biodiversity. Species inhabiting arid regions may be vulnerable to drought because they live near their physiological limits, while species with low historical drought exposure may lack adaptations to cope with unprecedented drought. Using a breeding bird dataset and the Standardized Precipitation‐Evaporation Index, we assessed drought vulnerability of 37 bird species across deserts of the western United States. We tested drought effects on community and species‐level relative abundance, how species’ long‐term...

For centuries, Western cultures viewed strict protection as the best way to preserve nature. The practice of “fortress conservation” attempts to maintain environmentally valuable landscapes by excluding human influence. By doing so, landscapes could be maintained in a static climax condition - think, a stand of mature or old-growth forest - untrammeled by humans. The problem? This is not how nature works. Ecosystems are not ancient manuscripts that can be preserved in a climate-controlled chamber. They are highly dynamic systems, and what we view as desirable states are only ephemeral...

Restoration treatments have been implemented in many of the dry conifer forests of the western United States. By decreasing forest density and increasing forest heterogeneity, these treatments are generally effective at meeting their primary objective of reducing the risk of uncharacteristically severe wildfire. Treatments also commonly achieve a secondary objective of increasing overall native understory plant species richness and cover. However, it is less certain how treatments affect the recruitment, loss, and growth of individual understory plant species and, in turn, shape the...

A species’ daily and seasonal activity patterns are fundamental components of its ecological niche, shaping how it interacts with the surrounding community. Many species modify their activity patterns when near humans, with varying consequences. New technologies that identify the location of wildlife and humans, in combination with their behaviors, can offer insight into whether impacts of human–wildlife interactions are positive, negative, or neutral. We studied activity patterns of southern Sierra Nevada fishers ( Pekania pennanti (Erxleben, 1777)) in the presence of humans in Yosemite...

Large magnitude snow avalanches (destructive size ≥ D3) impact settlements, transportation corridors, and public safety worldwide. In Colorado, United States, avalanches have killed more people than any other natural hazard since 1950. In March 2019, a large magnitude avalanche cycle occurred throughout the entire mountainous portion of Colorado resulting in more than 1000 reported avalanches during a two-week period. Nearly 200 of these avalanches were size D4 or larger with at least three D5 avalanches. However, placing this 2019 large magnitude avalanche cycle in historic context...

Seed banking supports conservation, but freshly collected and stored seed may differ in important characteristics. Our resurrection study assessed differences in seedling traits from stored and fresh populations of six native plant species in the Great Basin, where invasive annual grasses increase fire frequency to the detriment of native plants. We evaluated stored seed collected through the Seeds of Success programme and contemporary re-collections from the same population 3–11 years later, including sites that burned between collection dates and paired, unburned sites. We sowed seeds in...