Digital Commons Network^™

A National Study Of The Consequences Of Fire And Fire Surrogate Treatments, Phil Weatherspoon, Jim Agee, Phil Aune, Jim Baldwin, Jamie Barbour, Frank Beall, Julio Betancourt, Ralph Boerner, Matt Busse, Carl Edminster, Gary Fiddler, Carl Fiedler, Sally Haase, Kathy Harchsen, Mick Harrington, Ron Hodgson, Sue Husari, Jon Keeley, Mike Landram, Bill Laudenslayer, Jim Mciver, Dan Neary, Bill Otrosina, Roger Ottmar, Martin Ritchie, Kevin Ryan, Patrick Shea, Carl Skinner, Scott Stephens, Nate Stephensen, Elaine Kennedy Sutherland, Bob Vihanek, Dale Wade, Tom Waldrop, Dan Yaussy, Andy Youngblood, Steve Zack

Joint Fire Science Program Research Project Reports

Many U.S. forests, especially those with historically short-interval, low- to moderate-severity fire regimes, are too dense and have excessive quantities of fuels. Widespread treatments are needed to restore ecological integrity and reduce the high risk of destructive, uncharacteristically severe fires in these forests. Among possible treatments, however, the appropriate balance among cuttings, mechanical fuel treatments, and prescribed fire is often unclear. For improved decisionmaking, resource managers need much better information about the consequences of alternative management practices involving fire and mechanicaVmanual "fire surrogates." Long-term, interdisciplinary research thus should be initiated to quantify the consequences and tradeoffs of alternative fire and …

Cumulative Effects Of Fire And Fuels Management On Stream Water Quality And Ecosystem Dynamics, David S. Pilloid, Robert S. Arkle

Joint Fire Science Program Research Project Reports

Prescribed fires and wildland fire-use are increasingly important management tools used to reduce fuel loads and restore the ecological integrity of western forests. Although a basic understanding of the effects of fire on aquatic ecosystems exists, the cumulative and possibly synergistic effects of wildfire following prescribed fire are unknown. Wildfires following prescribed fire may produce different burn severities and effects on riparian and stream ecosystems than wildfires in fire suppressed forests (e.g., fires absent >70 yrs) or prescribed fires alone. The goal of this study was to quantify and compare the effects of wildfire on stream and riparian ecosystems under …

Effects Of Fires And Insects On Fuel Structures In Piñon-Juniper And Post-Fire Invasive Communities, Lisa Floyd-Hanna Dr., Tim Crews Dr., William H. Romme, David Hanna, Monique Rocca Dr., Dustin Hanna, George San Miguel

Joint Fire Science Program Research Project Reports

In the last decade, piñon-juniper (Pinus edulis-Juniperus osteosperma) woodlands of southwestern Colorado have been heavily impacted by wildfires and insects, and the effects on fuel structures and future fire intervals have been unclear. In these piñon-juniper woodlands, pre-historic fire rotations of up to 400 years were documented, but in recent climatic conditions, large stand-replacing wildfires burned between 1989 and 2008. Since the 1990s, a period of drought and rising temperatures, portions of the post-fire landscape were targets for invasive Carduus nutans, muskthistle and Bromus tectorum, cheatgrass, whose presence create unprecedented fuels, may shorten fire intervals, and reduce native biodiversity. We …

Engaging The Humanities To Address Wildland Fire Issues, Fred Swanson, Nathaniel Brodie, Charles Goodrich

Joint Fire Science Program Research Project Reports

This project examined existing programs and potential options for collaborations among the humanities, art, science, land management, and public concerning wildfire and wildfire policy and education. These programs and partnerships include creative residencies; conferences, workshops, and symposia; art-science collaborative field studies; and community programs and partnerships. We also reviewed how popular literature frames, reflects and has affected our cultural understanding of wildfire. Our analysis concludes that, compared to the richness of the subject of wildfire, compared to the way wildfire encapsulates all the complexities and controversies of culture, history, and ecology, wildfire’s potential as a literary subject remains largely unfulfilled. …

Estimating Critical Climate-Driven Thresholds In Landscape Dynamics Using Spatial Simulation Modeling: Climate Change Tipping Points In Fire Management, Robert E. Keane, Rachel A. Loehman

Joint Fire Science Program Research Project Reports

Climate projections for the next 20-50 years forecast higher temperatures and variable precipitation for many landscapes in the western United States. Climate changes may cause or contribute to threshold shifts, or tipping points, where relatively small shifts in climate result in large, abrupt, and persistent changes in landscape patterns and fire regimes. Rather than simulate potential climate-fire interactions using future climate data derived from Global Climate Models (GCMs), we developed sets of progressively warmer and drier or wetter climate scenarios that span and exceed the range of GCM outputs for the western US, including temperature and precipitation combinations that may …

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Wood Shreds On Post-Fire Erosion, Peter R. Robichaud, Randy B. Foltz, Charles G. Showers, James S. Groenier, Rory Sternke, Louise E. Ashmun, Robert E. Brown, Peter Jordan

Joint Fire Science Program Research Project Reports

Agricultural straw mulching is a commonly used post-fire hillslope erosion control treatment that is aerially applied by helicopter. While widely used and reasonably effective at reducing erosion, agricultural straw is not native to the forest environment. There is a growing consensus among Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) teams that mulch made from native forest material would be preferable to agricultural straw. Wood shred mulch made from post-fire road hazard trees is an alternative to agricultural straw. An optimized blend of sizes of wood shreds was effective in reducing sediment yields in both indoor rainfall simulation and outdoor field experiments. Several …

Identification Of Necessary Conditions For Arctic Transport Of Smoke From United States Fires, Narasimhan K. Larkin, Jennifer L. Dewinter, Tara M. Strand, Steven G. Brown, Sean M. Brown, Sean M. Raffuse, Jonathan Callahan, Kenneth J. Craig, Robert C. Solomon, Hilary R. Hafner

Joint Fire Science Program Research Project Reports

The deposition of black carbon (BC), a dark absorbing aerosol, is a significant contributor to observed warming trends in the Arctic (Hansen and Nazarenko, 2004; Jacobson et al., 2007). Biomass burning outside of the Arctic, including wildland prescribed fires, is a major potential source of Arctic BC. Therefore, limiting or eliminating spring prescribed burning has been suggested to Congress as a BC reduction technique (e.g., Zender, 2007). However, there are large uncertainties in the current estimates of the sources, source regions, and transport and transformation pathways of BC transported to the Arctic region (Shindell et al., 2008; Hegg et al., …

Impacts Of An Invasive Snail (Tarebia Granifera) On Nutrient Cycling In Tropical Streams: The Role Of Riparian Deforestation In Trinidad, West Indies, J. M. Moslemi, S. B. Snider, Keeley Macneill, J. F. Gilliam, A. S. Flecker

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Land Use, Landscapes, And Biological Invasions, Karie L. Decker, Craig R. Allen, Leonardo Acosta, Michelle L. Hellman, Christopher F. Jorgensen, Ryan J. Stutzman, Kody M. Unstad, Amy Williams, Matthew Yans

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

The negative effect of invasive species on native species, communities, and ecosystems is widely recognized, and the economic effects in the United States are estimated to be billions of dollars annually. Studies often examine traits of nonnative species or examine what makes a particular habitat invasible. To better understand the factors governing invasions, we used the flora of Nebraska to characterize and compare native and nonnative plant occurrences throughout the state. In addition, we assessed four critical landscape predictors of nonnative plant richness: human population size and three land cover attributes that included percentage of grassland, percentage of agriculture, and …

Predictions And Retrodictions Of The Hierarchical Representation Of Habitat In Heterogeneous Environments, Jurek Kolasa, Craig R. Allen, Jan Sendzimir, Craig A. Stow

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Interaction between habitat and species is central in ecology. Habitat structure may be conceived as being hierarchical, where larger, more diverse, portions or categories contain smaller, more homogeneous portions. When this conceptualization is combined with the observation that species have different abilities to relate to portions of the habitat that differ in their characteristics, a number of known patterns can be derived and new patterns hypothesized. We propose a quantitative form of this habitat–species relationship by considering species abundance to be a function of habitat specialization, habitat fragmentation, amount of habitat, and adult body mass. The model reproduces and explains …

The Feasibility Of Switchgrass For Biofuel Production, Rob Mitchell, Kenneth P. Vogel, Daniel R. Uden

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Switchgrass research has been conducted cooperatively by the US Department of Agriculture and the University of Nebraska since the mid-1930s, with a primary focus on bioenergy since 1990 at several institutions. Progress has been made in switchgrass breeding and genetics, molecular genetics, establishment, fertility management, production economics, production energetics, harvest and storage management, ecosystem services and ethanol yield. A complete field-validated biomass production system has been developed for the Midwest and Central Plains. Even with favorable economic and sustainability results from field trials, switchgrass for bioenergy has not been adopted on a large scale. Lack of adoption is likely due …

Effect Of Fires On Soil Organic Carbon Pool And Mineralization In A Northeastern China Wetland, Hongmei Zhao, Daniel Q. Tong, Qianxin Lin, Xianguo Lu, Guoping Wang

United States Department of Commerce: Staff Publications

Fire occurs frequently over wetland, but little is known of its impact on soil carbon variations and carbon mineralization, process that are potentially important in global carbon cycle. To investigate this issue, we have designed and implemented a two-year field campaign to quality the effects of fire seasonality and frequency on soil carbon abundance and carbon mineralization in a wetland of the Sanjiang Plain in Northeastern China. A total of 4 burning experiments were conducted over 12 wetland plots from autumn 2007 to spring 2009. Our results show that after burning soil organic carbon (OC) increased in the burned soils …

Establishment Of Introduced Reptiles Increases With The Presence And Richness Of Native Congeners, Rodrigo Barbosa Ferreira, Karen H. Beard, Stephen L. Peterson, Sharon A. Poessel, Colin M. Callahan

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Darwin proposed two contradictory hypotheses to explain the influence of congeners on the outcomes of invasion: the naturalization hypothesis, which predicts a negative relationship between the presence of congeners and invasion success, and the pre-adaptation hypothesis, which predicts a positive relationship between the presence of congeners and invasion success. Studies testing these hypotheses have shown mixed support. We tested these hypotheses using the establishment success of non-native reptiles and congener presence/absence and richness across the globe. Our results demonstrated support for the pre-adaptation hypothesis. We found that globally, both on islands and continents, establishment success was higher in the presence …

Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Meredith Fairbanks, David Bowran, Geraldine Pasqual

Bulletins 4000 -

Agriculture contributes 15.5 per cent of Australia’s emissions (Figure 1), largely due to methane, from ruminant livestock digestion, nitrous oxide from soils and carbon dioxide from fossil fuel use (Australian National Greenhouse Accounts 2011; ABARES 2011).

This bulletin identifies current ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from Australian agriculture.

Hydrologic Efficiency In Water Conservation, L. Douglas James

Reports

Introduction: The hydrologic cycle can be subdivided into three phases: 1)Humidity is transported within the atmosphere and becomes precipitation, and 2) Water moves downhill until eventually reaching the sea while all the time 3) Evapotranspiration returns exposed moisture to the atmosphere. During its movement, flowing water transports suspended sediments and dissolved minerals to reshape landforms and redistribute the mineral composition of the earth's surface throughout geologic time. It is during the second phase that flowing water can be diverted for uses that generally add to evaportranspiration (through consumptive use) and transport (through waste disposal). The water resources development that serves …

Solving Problems In Water Quality, Utah Water Research Laboratory

Reports

No abstract provided.

Cee & Uwrl Research In Action, Utah Water Research Laboratory

Reports

Introduction: The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineer (CEE) and the Utah Water Research Laboratory (UWRL) have a symbiotic working relationship. The CEE Department provides the pricipal investigators with academic affiliation to the university while the UWRL provides faculty with a strong water research arena. Both the CEE department and the UWRL have been involved in research and problem solving for government agencies and private industry.

Impacts Of Soil Heavy Metal Contamination On Methane Flux And The Primary Production Of Phragmites Australis, Adam G. Piombino

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Liberty State Park in Jersey City, NJ, a mixed landscape encompassing areas of freshwater wetlands, was the site of an abandoned train yard and contains several areas in which soil concentrations of As, Cr, Cu, Pb, V and Zn occur above ambient levels of New Jersey soil. Human population growth and expanding urbanization are both placing an increased amount of stress on wetland environments. Methane, a greenhouse gas is both produced and consumed by the respiration of microorganisms in the soil. The methane flux rate and direction might be impacted by soil metal contamination. This variation could have broad implications …

From Invader To Income, Tatiana Height

Op-Eds from ENSC230 Energy and the Environment: Economics and Policies

From Invader to Income

Magnitude And Structure Of Lymantria Dispar Asiatica Infestations Of Common Forest Steppe Tree Species In Northern Mongolia, Nina Tiralla, Kai Füldner, Stefan Schütz

Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei / Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia, ISSN 0440-1298

Lymantria dispar L. is one of the most serious forest pests worldwide by infesting large forest areas involving massive tree dieback. Unlike outbreaks of Lymantria dispar L. in Germany that cause massive defoliation, observations of outbreaks of Lymantria dispar asiatica made in the research area Khonin Nuga, West Khentii, Mongolia during the past six years showed only punctual defoliation, and dieback was extremely scarce. However, information on the performance of Lymantria dispar asiatica and the corresponding reaction of host tree species in Khonin Nuga is rare. Therefore, this study concentrates on the examination of primarily affected tree species and the …

Bird Red List And Its Future Development In Mongolia, Sundev Gombobaatar, D. Samiya, Jonathan M. Baillie

Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei / Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia, ISSN 0440-1298

With the involvement of the World Bank, Zoological Society of London, Dutch Government and National University of Mongolia, the volumes of Mongolian Red Lists of Fish, Amphibians and Reptiles, Birds and Mammals were completed, and Mongolia is now among the few nations that have up-to-date conservation assessments for all vertebrates. Of the 476 assessed native bird species of Mongolia, 10% were categorized as regionally threatened including Near Threatened. A further 0.6% were categorized as Critically Endangered (CR), 1.7% as Endangered (EN), 3.3% as Vulnerable (VU), and 4.4% as Near Threatened (NT). Almost 90% of Mongolian birds are categorized as Least …

Morphological Disparity Among Rock Voles Of The Genus Alticola From Mongolia, Kazakhstan And Russia (Rodentia, Cricetidae), V. N. Bolshakov, I. A. Vasilyeva, A. G. Vasilyev

Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei / Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia, ISSN 0440-1298

The Central Asian high-mountain or rock voles of the genus Alticola Blanford, 1881 are one of the least studied groups of rodents. Taxonomic status of various geographic forms is not yet established until our days. This genus is not enough examined by biochemical and molecular genetic methods. We analyzed morphological disparity among rock voles of the genus Alticola from 8 localities. The samples studied represent 7 nominal species: A. semicanus Allen, 1924 (East Mongolia), Alticola argentatus Severtzov, 1879 (East Kazakhstan), A. tuvinicus Ognev, 1950 (Russia: Tuva), A. olchonensis Litvinov, 1960 (Russia: Olchon Island), A. macrotis Radde, 1861 (Russia: Khamar-Daban ridge), …

Long-Term Research On Biodiversity In West Khentey, Northern Mongolia, Michael Mühlenberg

Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei / Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia, ISSN 0440-1298

Biodiversity is studied at ecosystem, community, and species level around Khonin Nuga, where the University Goettingen supports a research station since 15 years (established 1997 in cooperation with the National University of Mongolia). In that period 39 scientists have been involved and 67 students graduated with theses (7 PhD) about field work at that station. Inventories started at 1998 for several taxa and are now compiled in a book, which will be printed 2012 in Ulaanbaatar. It covers fungi, lichens, plants, several insect groups, spiders, crustaceans, and all vertebrate classes. For all taxa adequate experts proved the species lists. Because …

Protection Of The Natural And Cultural Heritage Of The Mongolian Altai, Ulikpan Beket, Hans D. Knapp

Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei / Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia, ISSN 0440-1298

The Altai-Sayan Ecoregion is known as a hotspot of biodiversity with large wilderness landscapes and a high rate of endemism in Central Asia and Siberia. There are many large and important protected areas of different categories. Parts of the Russian Altai, the “Golden Mountains of Altai”, are inscribed as World Natural Heritage. Also the neighbouring countries contain pristine landscapes, which could be a potential for an extension to a transnational serial World Heritage Site.

The Mongolian part of the ecoregion is characterized by very diverse landscapes and vegetation complexes: Deserts, semi-deserts and desert steppes in arid basins, river floodplains, salt …

Home Range Characteristics Of Corsac And Red Foxes In Mongolia, Tserendorjiin Munkhzul, J. D. Murdoch, R. P. Reading

Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei / Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia, ISSN 0440-1298

Red (Vulpes vulpes) and corsac foxes (V. corsac) live sympatrically throughout most of Mongolia, but few details of their home range characteristics exist. We captured and radio-tagged 13 red fox (♂ = 5, ♀ = 8) and 15 corsac foxes (♂ = 8, ♀ = 7) between 2004 and 2008. We tracked their movements to estimate home range sizes and examined the effects of four factors on home range size, including sex, age, season, and year. We determined mean home range size for 12 red and 10 corsac foxes that had sufficient data using fixed kernel …

Pleistocene Faunal Fossils From Bayangol I Site, Bulgan Aimag, Mongolia, Takao Sato, Fedora Khenzykhenova, Toshiaki Tsurumaru, Masao Ambiru, Jun Takakura, Yoshiaki Otsuka, Shigeo Iida, Natalya Schepina, Batmunkh Tsogtbaatar

Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei / Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia, ISSN 0440-1298

During excavation of the Bayan-gol I Palaeolithic site in the Bulgan Aimak, Mongolia, some faunistic remains were recovered attributable to Aves (two species), Anura (two species), and mammals (three species). The fossil remains bear a considerable similarity to the corresponding species of today in Mongolia.

Ochotona Daurica Pallas, 1776: Modern And Past Distribution Area In Mongolia And The Transbaikal Region, M. A. Erbjeva, N. V. Alexeeva, T. V. Kisloschaeva

Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei / Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia, ISSN 0440-1298

Ochotona daurica Pallas, 1776 is one of the ancient species among modern taxa having an origination in Transbaikalia possible at the end of Pleistocene. Review on the Late Pleistocene- Holocene-Recent area of distribution of this species is given on the base of new evidences and detail analysis of the previous data.

Ecology And Behaviour Of The Black-Billed Capercaillie (Tetrao Urogalloides Stegmanni) In The Khentej Mountains, Mongolia, Siegfried Klaus, Karl-Heniz Schindlatz, Alexander V. Andreev, Hans-Heiner Bergmann

Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei / Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia, ISSN 0440-1298

Introduction

A common inhabitant of East Siberian larch forests, the Siberian or black-billed capercaillie (Tetrao urogalloides) ranges south to the limits of the boreal forests in the northern Mongolian mountains and east to the very coast of the Asian continent (KLAUS et al. 1989). Tetrao urogalloides MIDDENDORF (1851) has priority over T. parvirostris BONAPARTE (1856). Therefore, we prefer the T. urogalloides.

The subspecies T.u. stegmanni was first described on the basis of morphological differences by POTAPOV (1985) using specimens collected during Russian expeditions by KOZLOVA (1930). This description was based on 18 males in the collection at …

Recruitment Of Larix Sibirica Ledeb. In Closed Forest Stands, On Clear-Felling Sites And At Fire-Sites In The Forests Of Mongolia, Vasiliy T. Yarmishko, Nikolay N. Slemnev

Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei / Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia, ISSN 0440-1298

The paper deals with recruitment patterns in larch forests of Mongolia following anthropogenic impacts (felling, fires), and describes successional trends in highland forest communities. It is established that mass seed recruitment of Larix sibirica Ledeb. took place during anomalous combinations of hydrothermal conditions supposedly occurring at periods of about 100 years. During the last decades, frequent fires of various intensities put serious constraints on reforestation of the larch, and induced successional trends in disturbed forests.

Osnabrück Botanical Expeditions To Mongolia, Barbara Neuffer, Nikolai Friesen, Batlai Oyuntsetseg, Tseden Jamsran, Herbert Hurka

Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei / Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia, ISSN 0440-1298

Three botanical expeditions to Mongolia have been undertaken by the Botany Department of the University of Osnabrück in cooperation with the Botany Department of the National Mongolian University of Ulaanbaatar. The first expedition in 2000 took us to the Mongolian Altay, the second in 2001 to the Gobi and Gobi Altay, and the third in 2010 to East Mongolia including the Khingan Mts. (Numrug). In 2000, we were the first botanists being allowed to enter the border area between China and Russia in the Mongolian Altay since a long time, because this had been a prohibited area for decades. We …