Treesearch

Land management agencies face uncertain tradeoffs regarding investments in preparedness and fuels management versus future suppression costs and impacts to valued resources and assets. Prospective evaluation of fuel treatments allows for comparison of alternative treatment strategies in terms of socioeconomic and ecological impacts, and can facilitate tradeoff analysis. This presentation will demonstrate recently developed methodologies for estimating potential suppression cost impacts of fuel treatments. The approach pairs wildfire simulation outputs with a regression cost model, estimatin...

The Research Ranch is an 8000-acre sanctuary and research facility in the semi-arid grasslands of southeastern Arizona, USA. Cattle were removed from the property in 1968 to provide a reference area by which various land uses, such as grazing and exurbanization, could be evaluated. Vegetation transects were established in 2000 and 2003 on several ecological sites in Major Land Resource Area 41.This monitoring program has tracked changes after wildfires and during drought. Trends associated with non-native, invasive species, particularly Eragrostis lehmanniana (Lehmann lovegrass) and E....

Mountain pine beetle has rarely been found in the Madrean Sky Island Archipelago and has not been reported from the Pinaleño Mountains until recently. This insect began killing southwestern white pine in 1996 or earlier, with additional mortality each year since. Activity has increased in the last 2 years. The life cycle in the Pinaleños during this time has been univoltine, with some females surviving the winter to produce a second brood in the spring. Stain fungi are evident in most killed trees, but not all. In infested areas, total stocking and the abundance of southwestern white pine...

The black tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus) is a species of conservation concern for Mexico, the United States and Canada. Populations in Mexico (including those in Sonora), which are considered endangered by the Mexican authority, require additional conservation efforts to maintain them on the long term. Our objective was to determine population size and density of the colonies in Sonora, as a first step to translocate individuals into a new colony in the region (Los Fresnos Ranch). The size of prairie dog colonies is 93 ha for La Mesa and 58 ha for Las Palmitas. La Mesa was...

The Babocomari River is a major tributary of the San Pedro River in Santa Cruz and Cochise counties, Arizona. This 140,000 acre catchment includes rolling grasslands on the Sonoita plain, oak woodlands in the Canelo Hills and the pine-oak forests of the northwestern Huachuca Mountains. The Babocomari River runs for 22 miles from its headwaters near Sonoita at 5000 feet elevation, eastward to join the San Pedro at Fairbanks at an elevation of 3850 feet. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that this important tributary contributes about 6000 acre- feet of water annually to the San Pedro...

The Important Bird Areas (IBA) Program is a worldwide program through BirdLife International that identifies sites considered to provide important habitats for avian species. Criteria for designation are species abundance, diversity, and range restriction. As the United States Partner of BirdLife International, the National Audubon Society administers the IBA Program in the United States. In Mexico, the network of AICAs is administered by CONABIO. The Madrean Archipelago has a diverse range of Identified IBAs (AICAs, Áreas de Importancia para la Conservación de las Aves, in Mexico) that...

Ejido Tonibabi is located 12 kilometers east-northeast of Moctezuma in east-central Sonora, México (29°50’16’’N 109°33’45’’W, 780 m elevation). The vegetation is riparian in the wetlands and foothills thornscrub on slopes. The flora was inventoried on transects in different areas in Ejido Tonibabi. Specimens were collected to identify by comparing with specimens in the University of Arizona and Universidad de Sonora Herbaria and for voucher specimens. A total of 162 species in 125 genera and 47 families were documented in the area. The families with the most species were Fabaceae, Asteracea...

Between 2001 and 2009, the Borderlands Jaguar Detection Project deployed 174 camera traps in the mountains of southern Arizona to record jaguar activity. In addition to jaguars, the motion-activated cameras, placed along known wildlife travel routes, recorded occurrences of ~ 20 other animal species. We examined temporal relationships of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and javelina (Pecari tajacu) to landscape phenology (as measured by monthly Normalized Difference Vegetation Index data) and the timing of wildfire (Alambre Fire of 2007). Mixed model analyses suggest that...

We mapped habitat for threatened Yellow-billed Cuckoo (Coccycus americanus occidentalis) in the State of Arizona using the temporal greenness dynamics of the landscape, or the landscape phenology. Landscape phenometrics were derived from Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data for 1998 and 1999 by using Fourier harmonic analysis to analyze the waveform of the annual NDVI profile at each pixel. We modeled the spatial distribution of Yellow-billed Cuckoo habitat by coupling the field data of Cuckoo presence or absence and point-based...

Throughout the world, the invasion of nonnative plants is an increasing threat to native biodiversity and ecosystem sustainability. Invasion is especially prevalent in areas affected by land transformation and disturbance. Surface mines are a major land transformation, and thus may promote the establishment and persistence of invasive plant communities. Using the Shale Hills region of Alabama as a case study, we assessed the use of landscape characteristics in predicting the probability of occurrence of six invasive plant species: sericea lespedeza, Japanese honeysuckle, Chinese privet,...