Treesearch

Increasing the population of spring Chinook salmon and summer steelhead in Washington state’s Methow River is a goal of the Upper Columbia Spring Chinook Salmon and Steelhead Recovery Plan. Spring Chinook salmon and summer steelhead are listed as endangered and threatened, respectively, under the Endangered Species Act. Installing logjams and reconnecting the river to its floodplain are management actions being undertaken to restore salmon habitat. However, researchers with the U.S. Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station, the U.S. Geological Survey, and Idaho State University...

Japanese barberry (Berberis thunbergii), a member of the barberry family (Berberidaceae), is a low-growing perennial shrub. This ornamental shrub was sent to Boston from Russia in 1875 as a substitute for common barberry, a nuisance plant that harbors black stem rust (Puccinia graminis), which affects several cereal crops (Kaufman and Kaufman 2007). Japanese barberry has low wildlife value and deer may promote its spread by creating soil disturbance that favor its growth. It can grow in sun or shade. Due to its shade tolerance, this species is of particular concern within forested areas....

Managers use restorative fire and thinning for ecological benefits and to convert fuel-heavy forests to fuel-lean landscapes that lessen the threat of stand-replacing wildfire. In this study, we evaluated the long-term impact of thinning and prescribed fire on soil biochemistry and the mycorrhizal fungi associated with ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa). Study sites were located in the Blue Mountains of northeastern Oregon where prescribed fire treatments implemented in 1998 and thinning treatments in 2000 included prescribed fire, mechanical thinning of forested areas, a combination of...

The pine bark adelgid, Pineus strobi (Hartig, 1839) (Hempitera: Adelgidae), is native to eastern North America and is found throughout the natural range of its main host species, eastern white pine, Pinus strobus L. (Pinaceae), which stretches from the Atlantic coast, west to Ontario and Minnesota (Drooz 1985). For the first time, we confirmed the presence of P. strobi west of this range in Washington, Colorado, and Saskatchewan by identification of contemporary samples using morphology and DNA barcodes. We also include information from existing slide-mounted specimens of P. strobi...

People have inhabited the Northern Rocky Mountains of the United States since the close of the last Pleistocene glacial period, some 14,000 years B.P. (Fagan 1990; Meltzer 2009). Evidence of this ancient and more recent human occupation is found throughout the Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USFS) Northern Region and the Greater Yellowstone Area, hereafter called the Northern Rockies region. Each of the five subregions, and the public and private lands they now encompass, contains thousands of years of human history.

The Northern Rockies Adaptation Partnership (NRAP) provided significant contributions to assist climate change response in national forests and national parks of the Northern Rockies region. The effort synthesized the best available scientific information to assess climate change vulnerability, develop adaptation options, and catalyze a collaboration of land management agencies and stakeholders seeking to address climate change in the region. The vulnerability assessment and corresponding adaptation options provided information to support national forests and national parks in implementing...

In this issue of the GSD Update, we feature selected studies of the RMRS Grassland, Shrubland and Desert Ecosystems Science Program (GSD) that focus on the theme of fire. Significant results of recent research and science delivery by GSD scientists are highlighted. We feature program research that lines up with the strategic priorities and goals of the USDA Forest Service (USFS). These include improving, restoring and sustaining forest and rangeland condition, serving our customers and engaging with partners through co-production of knowledge and actions, and applying and delivering...

The northern leatherside chub (Lepidomeda copei) is a cyprinid fish native to the Snake River, Green River, and Bonneville basins of the western United States. Population declines prompted the development of a multistate conservation agreement and strategy, which emphasized the need to reliably delineate its current distribution and monitor its status. To facilitate species monitoring, we developed a quantitative PCR assay to detect northern leatherside chub DNA in environmental samples. The assay consistently detected northern leatherside chub DNA in concentrations as low as 2 copies per...

Future droughts are expected to become more severe and frequent under future climate change scenarios, likely causing widespread tree mortality in the western USA. Coping with an uncertain future requires an understanding of long-term ecosystem responses in areas where prolonged drought is projected to increase. Tree-ring records are ideally suited for this task. We developed 24 tree-ring chronologies from 20 U.S. Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) plots in the southwestern USA. Climate variables were derived from the PRISM climate dataset (800-m grid cells) to capture the...

Crop residue burning is a common land management practice that results in emissions of a variety of pollutants with negative health impacts. Modeling systems are used to estimate air quality impacts of crop residue burning to support retrospective regulatory assessments and also for forecasting purposes. Ground and airborne measurements from a recent field experiment in the Pacific Northwest focused on cropland residue burning was used to evaluate model performance in capturing surface and aloft impacts from the burning events. The Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model was used to...