Other Forestry and Forest Sciences Commons^™

Assessing The Impact Of Parallel Burnout Fires On Flank Rate Of Spread, Erik Borke

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The effects of flank-parallel suppression fires on the local rate of spread (ROS) of freely burning headfires through fully cured homogeneous grass fuels are assessed. Data sets include: one thermal image stack of a prescribed burn recorded by drone, and a suite of simulation experiments carried out in Wildland Urban Interface Fire Dynamics Simulator (WFDS). A new approach to computing ROS, curvature proxy driven normals to convex polylines, was developed to carry out this analysis. ROS time series depicting flank acceleration of the prescribed burn and simulation experiments, observable under coarse and fine directional classification schemes respectively, are the primary …

Impacts Of Climate And Wildfire On Western Larch Regeneration, Spencer T. Vieira

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Fire plays a critical role in forests of the western United States (US), but as wildfire and climate deviate from historical patterns, increasing fire activity may significantly alter forest ecosystems. To understand the impacts of changing climate and wildfire activity on conifer forests, we studied the impact of wildfire and annual post-fire climate on western larch (Larix occidentalis) regeneration. We destructively sampled 1651 seedlings from 57 sites within 32 fires that burned at moderate or high severity from 2000-2015 in the northwestern US. Using dendrochronological methods, we estimated germination years of seedlings to calculate annual recruitment rates. We …

Ecological Effects Of Prescribed Burning, Mechanical Cutting, And Post-Treatment Wildfire For Restoration Of Pinus Albicaulis, Enzo Paolo Martelli Moya

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The field of ecological restoration is growing rapidly, increasing the need for reliable and generalizable information on the impacts of management interventions aimed to be restorative. Prescribed burning and mechanical cutting have been proposed as primary strategies for restoration. However, there is limited information on their efficacy and effects in subalpine forest types, suggesting that monitoring to inform adaptive management is a priority need. I used data from a 15-year, replicated before-after-control-impact (BACI) study on Pinus albicaulis (whitebark pine) restoration to assess the ecological effects of prescribed burning and mechanical cutting, with and without subsequent unplanned wildfire, as well as …

Invasive Earthworms In The Crown Of The Continent System And Implications For Land Management, Meghan Elizabeth Scott

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The United States contains invasive earthworms originating from Europe and Asia; the majority are European lumbricids. Direct introduction occurs primarily through human activity and, once established, earthworm populations are difficult to address. When exotic earthworms engage in bioturbation, they negatively alter subterranean food webs and nutrient cycling by disrupting soil layering systems. The most prominent form of physical alteration is the change and removal of the topmost organic layer. This disruption is associated with altered nitrogen and carbon cycling, as well as altered forest floor plant communities.

The Crown of the Continent ecosystem is located in southwestern Alberta, southeastern British …

Lidar-Landsat Covariance For Predicting Canopy Fuels, Margaret D. Epstein

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Managing wildfires in the western United States is becoming increasingly complex. Visualizing and quantifying canopy structures allows fire managers to both plan for fire and track recovery. Light detecting and ranging, or LiDAR can measure forests in three dimensions, but has limited spatial and temporal coverage. LiDAR-Landsat covariance uses machine learning to fill in the spatial and temporal gaps of LiDAR coverage with supplemental Landsat imagery. However, in order to capture real forest dynamics, a model needs to be stable enough to detect long term trends, sensitive to episodic disturbance, and general enough to work on multiple landcovers. The purpose …

Investigating Surface Temperature From First Principles: Seedling Survival, Microclimate Buffering, And Implications For Forest Regeneration, Robin Rank

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Forests are extremely important ecosystems with large impacts on global water, energy, and biogeochemical cycling, and they provide numerous ecosystems services to human populations. Even though these systems consist of long-lived vegetation, forests are constantly experiencing changes to their extent and composition through the interacting forces of disturbance dynamics and climate change. In semi-arid landscapes like the western United States, patterns of recurring wildfire and subsequent seedling recruitment and forest regeneration are important in establishing the distribution of forests on the landscape. In this context, climate, hydrology, and existing vegetation all act together to limit the current and potential range …

Sula Study Revisited: 20-Year Post-Fire Regeneration In The Southern Bitterroot Valley, Montana., Luke Alan Rymniak

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In the summer of 2000, a number of large fires burned in the southern Bitterroot Valley near Sula, Montana. Research was conducted in 2001 and 2003 in the fire-affected areas of the French Basin and Larid Creek areas in order to investigate the effects of environmental variables, fire severity, and post-fire management on vegetation regeneration. In 2020 these areas were remeasured to understand trends over time by evaluating the impact of these same factors 20 years post fire. The results showed that the effects of environmental variables, fire severity, and post-fire management on vegetation regeneration were varied. The most influential …

Resource Selection And Calving Success Of Moose In Colorado, Forest P. Hayes

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Across much of North America, moose populations (Alces alces) are declining due to disease, predation, climate, and anthropogenic pressures. Despite this, populations of moose in Colorado have continued to grow. Studying successful (i.e., persistent or growing) populations of moose can facilitate the continued conservation of the species by identifying habitat features critical for moose persistence.

First, I evaluated calving success of moose in Colorado and the impact of willow habitat quality and nutrition. I then estimated the probability of female moose having a calf using repeated observations in a Bayesian occupancy model. I assigned values for dry matter …

Tribal Consultation Policy And Practice:A Case Study Of The Confederated Salish And Kootenai Tribes And Nmisuletkʷ (The Middle Fork Of The Clark Fork River) As A Tribal Trust Resource, Jennifer J. Harrington

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Formal, government-to-government Consultation between sovereign nations is a process of continuous relationship-building, a partnership and an agreement made with all points-of-view included in the process, with results that have the fingerprint of all nations involved evident. The Federal Government is obligated to work with Federally-recognized Tribes as sovereign nations in matters that have or will impact each Nation’s people and places (reservations, treaty-protected areas)—a process legally known as Consultation. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as a federal agency, must uphold the Federal Trust responsibility which includes the act of Consulting with Federally-recognized Tribes on matters involving human health and the …

Through The Eyes Of Locals: A Changing Climate In Bolivia, Jacob D. Rex

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Deforestation and Agricultural Land-Use Change in Bolivia as a Function of Socio-Economic Realities.

This research combines semi-structured interviews of key informants and local participants, as well as field observations, which were conducted between January and April of 2019 in the Departments of Santa Cruz & Chuquisaca.

Molecular Diversity Of Foliar Fungal Endophytes In Relation To Defense Strategies And Disease In Whitebark Pine, Lorinda Bullington

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

An invasive fungal pathogen, Cronartium ribicola (the causative agent of white pine blister rust) infects and kills whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) throughout the western US. Blister rust has decreased whitebark pine populations by over 90% in some areas. Whitebark pine, a keystone species, has been proposed for listing under the Endangered Species Act in the U.S., and the loss of this conifer is predicted to have severe impacts on forest composition and function in high elevations. Hundreds of asymptomatic fungal species live inside whitebark pine tissue, and recent studies suggest that these fungi can influence the frequency and …

Structural Integrity And Physical Properties Of Ponderosa Pine Over Time After Death Between Vectors Of Mortality, Edward J. O'Donnell

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In an era of accelerated climate change, with persistent and increasing disturbance on our landscapes it is important to increase our knowledge of how these natural disturbances effect our lands. This study investigated the changes that take place in ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) stems after death when killed by mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) and by fire. Trees killed by mountain pine beetle as well as trees killed by fire were sampled and separated into two age classes, those dead 0-4 years and those dead 4+ years. Data was gathered on the modulus of rupture, modulus …

Synthesis Of Satellite Microwave Observations For Monitoring Global Land-Atmosphere Co2 Exchange, Lucas Alan Jones

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This dissertation describes the estimation, error quantification, and incorporation of land surface information from microwave satellite remote sensing for modeling global ecosystem land-atmosphere net CO₂ exchange. Retrieval algorithms were developed for estimating soil moisture, surface water, surface temperature, and vegetation phenology from microwave imagery timeseries. Soil moisture retrievals were merged with model-based soil moisture estimates and incorporated into a light-use efficiency model for vegetation productivity coupled to a soil decomposition model. Results, including state and uncertainty estimates, were evaluated with a global eddy covariance flux tower network and other independent global model- and remote-sensing based products.

Long-Term Impacts Of Fuel Treatments On Tree Growth And Aboveground Biomass Accumulation In Ponderosa Pine Forests Of The Northern Rocky Mountains, Kate A. Clyatt

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In western North America, many low-elevation, dry forest types historically experienced frequent, low-severity fires. However, European settlement and fire suppression policies have contributed to over a century of fire exclusion, substantially altering forest structure and composition. There is considerable interest in restoring fire resilient characteristics to these forests through fuel reduction treatments. One limitation of current research on the impacts of fuel treatments is treatment longevity, as few studies have been able to quantify long-term responses to commonly applied treatments. This research evaluated tree growth and aboveground biomass responses 23 years after treatment in two silvicultural installations with different underburning …

Density Management In Young Western Larch Stands: Tree Growth, Stand Yield, And Carbon Storage 54 Years After Thinning, Michael S. Schaedel

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Long-term silvicultural experiments can be used to test novel ecological hypotheses and answer contemporary management questions that were not envisioned at study initiation. We used a 54-year old western larch precommercial thinning (PCT) study in northwest Montana to examine two sets of questions: (1) how different PCT regimes affect long-term stand yield and tree growth, and (2) how PCT affects total aboveground carbon (C) storage and distribution among C pools. The study has three target densities (494 trees ha^-1, 890 trees ha^-1, and 1680 trees ha^-1) and three numbers of entries to achieve those …

A Model For Determining Drivers Of Phenology In Western United States Rangelands, Joseph R. St. Peter

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Plant phenology has long been used as an indicator of climate. Recent changes in plant phenology are evidence of the influence of climate change. Modeling plant phenology has become an effective tool to understand the impacts of climate change. Using machine learning techniques I developed a modeling process for accurately predicting phenology across a diverse landscape. This model uses individual site data to set site specific climate thresholds for plant phenology. This model also identifies the limiting factors to vegetation phenology for rangelands in the western United States. NDVI remotely sensed data was used to quantify land surface phenology and …

Bamboo Harvesting For Household Income Generation In The Ethiopian Highlands: Current Conditions And Management Challenges, Bridget L. Tinsley

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Bamboo is a renewable resource that has been advocated as a means to alleviate poverty and foster rural development throughout the world. Ethiopia holds 67% of continental Africa’s bamboo coverage and is gaining interest by international markets. Despite great speculation about Ethiopia’s bamboo market potential, foundational information regarding household utilization and income reliance is lacking. To understand how bamboo contributes to rural Ethiopian households, a quantitative household assessment was undertaken in this study. A questionnaire census collected data from 371 households. A quantitative assessment of household incomes and assets evaluated what factors influence bamboo harvesting.

The contribution of bamboo to …

Effects Of Road-Stream Crossings On Populations Of The Idaho Giant Salamander (Dicamptodon Aterrimus), Richard K. Honeycutt

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Habitat disturbances affect wildlife populations through numerous mechanisms, and determining specific components of habitat disturbances affecting those populations is challenging. For example, a single disturbance can both change local habitat conditions and impose limitations on dispersal of animals. Both of these components can negatively affect biological responses, such as body condition, local movement patterns, or survival. Culverts are a habitat disturbance having both of these components. Culverts affect local habitat conditions by increasing sediment levels in downstream reaches, negatively affecting animals downstream of culverts. Culverts also impose limits on dispersal by blocking passage of stream organisms to upstream reaches, negatively …

Developing Strategies To Initialize Landscape-Scale Vegetation Maps From Fia Data To Enhance Resolution Of Individual Species-Size Cohort Representation In The Landscape Disturbance Model, Simpplle, Jacob Muller

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The ability of forest resource managers to understand and anticipate landscape-scale change in composition and structure relies upon an adequate characterization of the current forest composition and structure of various patches (or stands), along with the capacity of forest landscape models (FLMs) to predict patterns of growth, succession, and disturbance at multiple scales over time. Comprehensive vegetation maps, which classify patch polygons or raster cells into forest cover types, can be developed from available inventory data (e.g., FIA Grid) in combination with remotely sensed data, but a simple categorical forest type, even one incorporating average size, may not provide adequate …

Spatial Patterns And Physical Factors Of Smokejumper Utilization Since 2004, Tyson A. Atkinson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This research examines patterns of aerial smokejumper usage in the United States. I assess landscape and environmental factors of their deployment using a detailed nine-year record of smokejumper activity in combination with terrain, fuels, and transportation network data. Specifically, the research seeks to identify commonalities in location (proximity), terrain, fuels, fire occurrence, and accessibility of smokejumper actions that inform current usage and identify opportunities for improved utilization. Terrain parameters (steep, rugged, inaccessible) of the western U.S. were classified and a baseline travel time grid was created (30 meter resolution). Fires in which smokejumpers responded were compared with all fires that …