Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Northwest Forest Plan The First 20 Years (1994-2013): Watershed Condition Status And Trend, Stephanie A. Miller, Sean N. Gordon, Peter Eldred, Ronald M. Beloin, Steve Wilcox, Mark Raggon, Heidi Andersen, Ariel Muldoon

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

We used two data sets to evaluate stream and upslope/riparian condition for sixth-field watersheds in each aquatic province within the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) area. The stream evaluation was based on stream sampling data collected from 2002 to the 2013 (214 watersheds) as part of an eight year repeating (rotating) sample design. We are currently halfway through our second rotation of stream sampling, and have repeated 110 watersheds since the second rotation began in 2009. The analysis presented in this report uses roughly half the number of watersheds as was originally intended by the sample design since re-visitation will not …

Bending The Carbon Curve: Fire Management For Carbon Resilience Under Climate Change, E. Louise Loudermilk, Robert M. Scheller, Peter J. Weisberg, Alec M. Kretchun

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Context: Forest landscapes are increasingly managed for fire resilience, particularly in the western US which has recently experienced drought and widespread, high-severity wildfires. Fuel reduction treatments have been effective where fires coincide with treated areas. Fuel treatments also have the potential to reduce drought-mortality if tree density is uncharacteristically high, and to increase long-term carbon storage by reducing high-severity fire probability.

Objective: Assess whether fuel treatments reduce fire intensity and spread and increase carbon storage under climate change.

Methods: We used a simulation modeling approach that couples a landscape model of forest disturbance and succession with an ecosystem model of …

The Effect Of Salinity Acclimation On The Upper Thermal Tolerance Threshold Of The European Green Crab, Lauren S. Muñoz-Tremblay, A. L. Kelley, Catherine De Rivera

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Fluctuations in salinity and temperature, among other varying environmental conditions, are stressors in estuaries and may work together to alter the physiological response of organisms that inhabit such environments. Laboratory assessments that investigate how animals respond to multiple environmental stressors can provide an ecological framework for understanding physiological performance across varying conditions. In this study, European green crabs, Carcinus maenas, were collected from Seadrift Lagoon, California, USA (37°54′27.82″N, 122°40′19.56″W) and were lab-acclimated at three different salinity concentrations typical of many estuaries: 15, 25, and 35 PSU at 12 °C (± 1 °C). After acclimation, crabs from each salinity treatment experienced …

Columbia River Basin Salmon And Steelhead Long-Term Recovery Situation Assessment, Oregon Solutions, William D. Ruckelshaus Center

National Policy Consensus Center Publications and Reports

In the fall of 2012, after consulting with a wide range of salmon recovery partners, NOAA Fisheries asked Oregon Consensus and the William D. Ruckelshaus Center (university-based, neutral, third-party institutions devoted to promoting collaborative governance and consensusbased public policy) to conduct an independent, impartial situation assessment to explore regional views about how best to approach comprehensive, long-term salmon and steelhead recovery in the Basin. The centers assembled an Assessment Team comprised of practitioners and academics from Washington, Oregon and Idaho.

The Assessment Team conducted 206 semi-structured interviews with individuals selected for their knowledge of, engagement in, and/or concern for salmon …

Mapping Meaningful Places On Washington’S Olympic Peninsula: Toward A Deeper Understanding Of Landscape Values, Lee Cerveny, Kelly Biedenweg, Rebecca J. Mclain

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

Landscape values mapping has been widely employed as a form of public participation GIS (PPGIS) in natural resource planning and decision-making to capture the complex array of values, uses, and interactions between people and landscapes. A landscape values typology has been commonly employed in the mapping of social and environmental values in a variety of management settings and scales. We explore how people attribute meanings and assign values to special places on the Olympic Peninsula (Washington, USA) using both a landscape values typology and qualitative responses about residents’ placerelationships. Using geographically referenced social values data collected in community meetings (n …

Would You Like Fires With That? Using Stakeholder-Derived Forest Management Preference Maps To Model Landscape-Level Fuel Reduction Treatment Effects On Wildfire Spread, Brooke A. Cassell, Robert M. Scheller, Max Nielsen-Pincus

ESM Colloquium

Management of public lands in the U.S. aims to achieve multiple goals relating to ecological function, wildlife habitat, support of local economies, and recreation; and in fire-prone landscapes these goals are often combined with fuels reduction treatments such as forest thinning and prescribed fire. Applied landscape research may attempt to evaluate the tradeoffs implicit in public lands planning or envision potential future land management scenarios, but often fails to incorporate the spatial diversity of stakeholder perspectives. This study explores the use of public participation geographic systems (PPGIS) to identify spatial and thematic community preferences for fuel treatments in a fire-prone …

Non-Native Mangroves Of Moloka’I, Hawai’I: A Socio-Ecological Analysis, Casey Lewis

ESM Colloquium

Invasive species are recognized as a leading threat to biodiversity and their management is expensive, time consuming, and labor intensive. Therefore, it is important to review both benefits and detriments of the species to inform appropriate management decisions. Red mangrove was introduced to Moloka'i, Hawaii in 1902 to mitigate the effects of soil erosion and has since spread along the coast and to adjacent islands creating novel habitat. This study assessed both biological services and social attitudes towards Moloka'i's non-native mangroves to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the species. Zooplankton community structure was examined in mangrove and non-mangrove sites and …

Effects Of Beaver Dams On Surface Water Flow During Storm Events In An Urban Landscape, Erin Poor

ESM Colloquium

Urban land-use generally alters the hydrologic cycle, leading to changes in the natural flow regime of local streams. Runoff from impervious surfaces and routing of stormwater to streams causes urban streams to respond quickly and more intensely to storm events-more so than then would be observed in a less urbanized landscape. The rapid pulse of water that is routed to streams during precipitation events can degrade the physical structure of the channel and alter water quality and habitat availability. To manage these common urban stream issues, agencies have been seeking alternative ways of restoring and enhancing resilience in urban stream …

Community Science And The Ecological Merits Of Backyard Habitat Patches And Adjacent Green-Spaces For Urban Avian Species, Kristen S. Gulick, Nikkie West, Marion Dresner

ESM Colloquium

In what ways do small-scale urban backyards contribute to local bird abundance and biodiversity? In what ways might these yards serve as an ‘extension’ of neighboring native forest areas? This project investigates the contribution that a group of backyards, certified through the Backyard Habitat Certification Program, have in the suburb of Hillsdale, Oregon, which is adjacent to the natural area of Keller Woodland. Backyard owners functioning as citizen or community scientists assisted with conducting residential bird point-counts once a week in each backyard and the natural area. Counts were done for a total of 8 weeks during nesting season to …

The Limitation Of Spread Of Non-Native Marine Invertebrates From Artificial Structures To Natural Habitats, Whitney Mcclees, Catherine E. De Rivera

ESM Colloquium

Artificial structures created for aquatic anthropogenic activities are often colonized and fouled by many non-native species, few of which have invaded natural areas. Some research has indicated predation is limiting the spread of non-native species, while other research has indicated that it is dispersal-driven. To determine the effects of dispersal limitation and predation on the risk to surrounding habitats of being invaded by non-native species established on marina docks, we used a three-factor design, deploying seven unglazed ceramic panels per each treatment combination of 1) inside versus outside a marina in Yaquina Bay, Oregon; 2) cage keeping out predators >mesh …

Informing Oregon's Marine Protected Area (Mpa) Baseline: Past And Present Tribal Uses Of Marine Resources, Sabra Marie Tallchief Comet

ESM Colloquium

Native American tribes with ancestral land adjacent to the coast have gathered, hunted, and fished marine resources for millennia. In 2012, the state of Oregon designated five marine sites as reserves in which ocean development and harvest were prohibited. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are paired with each of the reserves and have less stringent “take” restrictions. Conflict over tribal use of MPAs have arisen in other states (e.g., California) as designation of MPAs and Reserves can impact subsistence, ceremonial, and traditional uses. My master’s thesis is intended to inform Oregon MPA management by developing a dataset that will describe tribal …

Competition Amplifies Drought Stress In Forests Across Broad Climatic And Compositional Gradients, Kelly E. Gleason, John B. Bradford, Alessandra Bottero, Anthony W. D'Amato, Shawn Fraver, Brian J. Palik, Michael A. Battaglia, Louis Iverson, Laura Kenefic, Christel C. Kern

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Forests around the world are experiencing increasingly severe droughts and elevated competitive intensity due to increased tree density. However, the influence of interactions between drought and competition on forest growth remains poorly understood. Using a unique dataset of stand-scale dendrochronology sampled from 6405 trees, we quantified how annual growth of entire tree populations responds to drought and competition in eight, long-term (multi-decadal), experiments with replicated levels of density (e.g., competitive intensity) arrayed across a broad climatic and compositional gradient. Forest growth (cumulative individual tree growth within a stand) declined during drought, especially during more severe drought in drier climates. Forest …

Past, Present, And Future Of Ecological Integrity Assessment For Fresh Waters, Lauren M. Kuehne, Julian D. Olden, Angela L. Strecker, Joshua J. Lawler, David M. Theobald

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

One of the most influential environmental laws in the US – the 1972 Clean Water Act – included the visionary objective of maintaining and restoring aquatic ecological integrity. However, the efficacy of the Act depends on how integrity is assessed. Reviewing the assessment literature for fresh waters over the past 40 years, we found evidence of methodological trends toward increased repeatability, transferability, and robustness of assessments over time. However, implementation gaps were revealed, based on the relatively weak linkages to freshwater policies, stakeholder involvement, emerging threats, and conservation opportunities. A related survey of assessment practitioners underscored the disparity between need …

Advancing Collaborative Solutions: Lessons From The Oregon Sage-Grouse Conservation Partnership (Sagecon), Jennifer H. Allen, Turner Odell, Julia Babcock, Charis Henrie

National Policy Consensus Center Publications and Reports

The Sage-Grouse Conservation Partnership, also known as “SageCon,” was an unprecedented collaborative effort among federal, state, and private stakeholders to address landscape-scale threats to greater sage-grouse while also acknowledging rural economic and community interests across eastern Oregon’s sagebrush range. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) preliminary finding that the sage-grouse warranted listing under the endangered species act, and a subsequent court settlement setting a deadline for a final listing decision were key drivers for SageCon participants to seek proactive solutions to protect the bird. A cadre of diverse Eastern Oregon stakeholders with experience working collaboratively on related public lands …

Increased Habitat Connectivity Homogenizes Freshwater Communities: Historical And Landscape Perspectives, Angela L. Strecker, Jeffrey Thomas Brittain

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

1. Increases in habitat connectivity can have consequences for taxonomic, functional, and genetic diversity of communities. Previously isolated aquatic habitats were connected with canals and pipelines in the largest water development project in the US history, the Columbia Basin Project (CBP; eastern Washington, USA), which also altered environmental conditions; however, the ecological consequences are largely unknown.

2. Using a historical dataset, we examined long-term patterns in zooplankton communities, water chemistry and clarity, testing the hypothesis that increased connectivity will result in taxonomic homogenization. Further, we tested contemporary drivers of communities using a comprehensive set of environmental and landscape variables.

3. Waterbodies were sampled …

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Developing A Representative Snow-Monitoring Network In A Forested Mountain Watershed, Kelly E. Gleason, Anne Nolin, Travis R. Roth

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

A challenge in establishing new ground-based stations for monitoring snowpack accumulation and ablation is to locate the sites in areas that represent the key processes affecting snow accumulation and ablation. This is especially challenging in forested montane watersheds where the combined effects of terrain, climate, and land cover affect seasonal snowpack. We present a coupled modeling approach used to objectively identify representative snow-monitoring locations in a forested watershed in the western Oregon Cascades mountain range. We used a binary regression tree (BRT) non-parametric statistical model to classify peak snow water equivalent (SWE) based on physiographic landscape characteristics in an average …

Factors Affecting Snowy Plover Chick Survival In A Managed Population, Stephen J. Dinsmore, Eleanor P. Gaines, Scott F. Pearson, David J. Lauten, Kathleen J. Castelein

Institute for Natural Resources Publications

Understanding survival of precocial chicks in the period immediately following hatching has important conservation implications because population growth is often sensitive to post-hatching survival. We studied federally threatened Western Snowy Plover (Charadrius nivosus nivosus) broods at the northern limit of their range in coastal Oregon (n ¼ 1,157) and Washington (n ¼ 84) from 1991 to 2011 in an attempt to understand seasonal, annual, and spatial patterns of chick survival. In Oregon, plover chick survival increased with age, varied between sites, and was greater at sites with predator management. The mean probability of surviving from hatch to fledging at 28 …