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Articles 1 - 20 of 20
Full-Text Articles in Other Environmental Sciences
Renewable Energy Projects In Southwestern Deserts – Update On Our Involvement, Scott R. Abella
Renewable Energy Projects In Southwestern Deserts – Update On Our Involvement, Scott R. Abella
Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research
Like many in the conservation field, we have a good understanding of the urgent need for alternative energy sources, but also of the negative environmental tradeoffs of placing renewable energy developments on vast tracts of public lands in southwestern deserts as currently envisioned. We also understand political and economic reasons, good or bad, for not doing some obvious things that make sense for renewable energy like placing solar arrays on building tops in cities, within multi-use contexts such as crops, and on already impacted land when alternative energy projects (right or wrong) are to be placed on public land.
Evaluating Efficacy Of Restoration Techniques, Keys View Road Reconstruction, Joshua Tree National Park, California, U.S.A, Scott R. Abella, E. Cayenne Engel
Evaluating Efficacy Of Restoration Techniques, Keys View Road Reconstruction, Joshua Tree National Park, California, U.S.A, Scott R. Abella, E. Cayenne Engel
Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research
Keys View Road in Joshua Tree National Park (JOTR) was recently repaved, resulting in a buffer of vegetation and soil disturbance along the road corridor. In order to mitigate the effects of the repaving, JOTR designed an experimental framework to test various revegetation strategies. They outplanted salvaged and nursery grown native plant species in conjunction with vertical mulch in a fully crossed design (outplanting only, vertical mulch only, outplanting + vertical mulch, bare ground) to examine if any of the treatments most efficiently establish native plant communities.
Survey Of Resource Managers Completed On Monitoring And Management Actions For Rare Plants In Arizona And Nevada, Scott R. Abella
Survey Of Resource Managers Completed On Monitoring And Management Actions For Rare Plants In Arizona And Nevada, Scott R. Abella
Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research
In a collaborative project with Northern Arizona University and more than 35 resource managers in Arizona and Nevada, we completed a survey of monitoring and management activities that are ongoing in these states for conserving populations of rare plants. We sent questionnaires consisting of 16 questions to as many resource managers as possible in these states and had follow-up conversations with several managers willing to share their perspective on ongoing conservation actions. The findings may be interesting for managers to see what issues and management strategies other managers in the same or different regions are grappling with. Results will be …
Disturbance And Plant Succession In The Mojave And Sonoran Deserts Of The American Southwest, Scott R. Abella
Disturbance And Plant Succession In The Mojave And Sonoran Deserts Of The American Southwest, Scott R. Abella
Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research
Disturbances such as fire, land clearing, and road building remove vegetation and can have major influences on public health through effects on air quality, aesthetics, recreational opportunities, natural resource availability, and economics. Plant recovery and succession following disturbance are poorly understood in arid lands relative to more temperate regions. This study quantitatively reviewed vegetation reestablishment following a variety of disturbances in the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts of southwestern North America. A total of 47 studies met inclusion criteria for the review. The time estimated by 29 individual studies for full reestablishment of total perennial plant cover was 76 years. Although …
Native Species Interactions With Red Brome: Suggestions For Burn-Area Revegetation, Scott R. Abella
Native Species Interactions With Red Brome: Suggestions For Burn-Area Revegetation, Scott R. Abella
Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research
In deserts, native perennial plants often actually facilitate the establishment of exotic annual grasses. One of our focal areas of research is to identify native species for use in revegetation projects that reduce the establishment of exotic annual grasses, or at least do not strongly facilitate exotic species establishment. An initial research effort involving a competition experiment of red brome with native species and a correlational field study of brome distribution among native perennial plants is in press with the journal Invasive Plant Science and Management.
Trying To Beat The Brome: Understanding Establishment Thresholds And Choosing Competitive Native Species At Parashant National Monument, Scott R. Abella, E. Cayenne Engel
Trying To Beat The Brome: Understanding Establishment Thresholds And Choosing Competitive Native Species At Parashant National Monument, Scott R. Abella, E. Cayenne Engel
Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research
Desert fires fueled by exotic grasses like the omnipresent red brome (Bromus rubens) can be intense and cause widespread mortality of native vegetation. Native desert scrub communities such as those dominated by blackbrush (Coleogyne ramosissima) do not readily reestablish after fire (Abella 2009) and may even become more abundant in the post-burn landscape initiating a fire cycle that occurs at a greater frequency than the recovery time of the long-lived desert perennial community.
Undergraduate And Graduate Programs In Environmental Science At Unlv, Scott R. Abella
Undergraduate And Graduate Programs In Environmental Science At Unlv, Scott R. Abella
Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research
The School of Environmental and Public Affairs at UNLV houses B.A. and B.S. degrees in Environmental Studies and M.S. and PhD degrees in Environmental Science. These degrees are flexible, multi-purpose, interdisciplinary programs that can be tailored for both breadth and depth.
Heat And Smoke Effects On Red Brome Soil Seed Banks, Scott R. Abella, E. Cayenne Engel
Heat And Smoke Effects On Red Brome Soil Seed Banks, Scott R. Abella, E. Cayenne Engel
Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research
Management of exotic plants that are annuals entails understanding and managing their soil seed banks. We completed a study of the influences of heat and liquid smoke on red brome (Bromus rubens) soil seed banks collected from Red Rock Canyon in southern Nevada as part of a collaborative fire effects monitoring effort with Bureau of Land Management - Las Vegas. We collected the samples from the 2005 Loop Fire, where we observed in a monitoring field study that exotic grasses such as red brome were relatively sparse in the first 2-3 years (which were during a dry period) following the …
Synthesis Completed Of Post-Fire Recovery Of Native Perennials In The Mojave, Sonoran Deserts, Scott R. Abella
Synthesis Completed Of Post-Fire Recovery Of Native Perennials In The Mojave, Sonoran Deserts, Scott R. Abella
Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research
Literature syntheses to develop status of knowledge reports are important to integrate and summarize the scattered scientific literature on a particular topic. The isolation and fragmentation of scientific literature on a topic is not necessarily a shortcoming of science. Rather, it is simply a consequence of having (1) research published in a diverse array of journals, (2) articles build on each other and therefore articles relevant to a particular topic can be published decades apart, and (3) funding virtually impossible to secure to do these periodic assessments of what we know and don’t know (competitive science grants want researchers to …
Env 492 Undergraduate Research Symposium, Scott R. Abella
Env 492 Undergraduate Research Symposium, Scott R. Abella
Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research
In spring semester since January, UNLV Environmental Studies and Biology students in ENV 492 (Undergraduate Research) have conducted a wide variety of ecological research projects.
Tree Canopy Types Constrain Plant Distributions In Ponderosa Pine- Gambel Oak Forests, Northern Arizona, Scott R. Abella
Tree Canopy Types Constrain Plant Distributions In Ponderosa Pine- Gambel Oak Forests, Northern Arizona, Scott R. Abella
Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research
Trees in many forests affect the soils and plants below their canopies. In current high-density southwestern ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forests, managers have opportunities to enhance multiple ecosystem values by manipulating tree density, distribution, and canopy cover through tree thinning. I performed a study in northern Arizona ponderosa pine-Gambel oak (Quercus gambelii) forests to measure the influences of tree canopy types on understory plant communities and soil properties. On ten 2.5-acre (1-ha) sites, I sampled five 43-ft2 (4-m2) plots below each of the following five canopy types: openings; single ponderosa pine; and Gambel oak single stems, dispersed clumps, and thickets. …
Progress In Strategic Research Areas, Scott R. Abella
Progress In Strategic Research Areas, Scott R. Abella
Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research
Three years ago through conversations with resource managers, assessing the status of knowledge of the scientific literature, and our own interests, we set forth several strategic research areas that we believed would be timely for advancing Mojave Desert conservation and management.
New Book Chapter Reviewing Mojave Desert Revegetation Practices Is Forthcoming, Scott R. Abella
New Book Chapter Reviewing Mojave Desert Revegetation Practices Is Forthcoming, Scott R. Abella
Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research
I was invited to write a chapter for a forthcoming book on Arid Environments to be published by Nova Science Publishers. This book is anticipated to appear in late 2008 or early 2009, and we will be able to provide additional details about the entire book at that time. I co-authored our chapter on revegetation with Alice Newton, Vegetation Manager at Lake Mead National Recreation Area. We systematically reviewed 23 published studies of planting or seeding native species in the Mojave Desert.
Changes In Gambel Oak Densities In Southwestern Ponderosa Pine Forests Since Euro-American Settlement, Scott R. Abella, Peter Z. Fule
Changes In Gambel Oak Densities In Southwestern Ponderosa Pine Forests Since Euro-American Settlement, Scott R. Abella, Peter Z. Fule
Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research
Densities of small-diameter ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) trees have increased in southwestern ponderosa pine forests during a period of fire exclusion since Euro-American settlement in the late 1800s. However, less well known are potential changes in Gambel oak (Quercus gambelii) densities during this period in these forests. We reviewed published literature to summarize changes in oak density in ponderosa pine forests over the past 140 years and evaluated the possibility that large-diameter oaks have decreased in density. All nine studies examining oak density changes found that densities of small-diameter oaks have escalated. Increases ranged from 4- to more than 63-fold. …
We're Moving Into Unlv's New Science And Engineering Building, Scott R. Abella
We're Moving Into Unlv's New Science And Engineering Building, Scott R. Abella
Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research
Our research group is one of the few select groups that is moving into the new, $113-million UNLV Science and Engineering Building. The building is exclusively dedicated to research, and its four stories contain 200,000 square feet of research laboratories, faculty offices, and auditorium space for research symposia. Located on North Campus just northeast of the Biology Building, the building is anticipated to obtain LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification.
Fire Effects On Gambel Oak In Southwestern Ponderosa Pine-Oak Forests, Scott R. Abella, Peter Z. Fule
Fire Effects On Gambel Oak In Southwestern Ponderosa Pine-Oak Forests, Scott R. Abella, Peter Z. Fule
Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research
Gambel oak (Quercus gambelii) is ecologically and aesthetically valuable in southwestern ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forests. Fire effects on Gambel oak are important because fire may be used in pine-oak forests to manage oak directly or to accomplish other management objectives. We used published literature to: (1) ascertain historical fire regimes in pine-oak forests, (2) discern prescribed burning effects on Gambel oak survival and diameter growth, and (3) provide suggestions for using fire to manage oak. Frequent fire is part of Gambel oak’s historical environment, as historical fire return intervals often averaged less than 10 years in pine-oak forests. More …
Plant Community Response To Fire: A Chronosequence Study, Scott R. Abella, E. Cayenne Engel
Plant Community Response To Fire: A Chronosequence Study, Scott R. Abella, E. Cayenne Engel
Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research
Fires are becoming more prevalent events across the landscape in the southwestern US. Over the next several decades the already arid southwest is predicted to become warmer and drier, with longer summers, and an increase of “extreme” weather events such as lightening inducing thunderstorms. While the “hotter and drier” forecast may indicate less abundant plant life, and thus less available biomass for fuel, exotic invasive plant species are becoming more dominant across the landscape with increases in human travel and commerce. Exotic species (particularly many of the invasive grasses) are adding fuel for the fires to burn when the annuals …
Fire History And Forest Structural Change In The Spring Mountains, Scott R. Abella
Fire History And Forest Structural Change In The Spring Mountains, Scott R. Abella
Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research
Since early 2006 we have been working to develop a partnership with the Spring Mountains District of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest to provide science support for understanding fire history and forest structural changes in support of ecologically based management strategies. We teamed up with the Ecological Restoration Institute (ERI) at Northern Arizona University and the University of Arizona Tree Ring Lab to deliver a workshop on March 6, 2008 at the interagency office in Las Vegas, Nevada. On September 16-18, we again teamed up with colleagues at ERI to conduct a preliminary field assessment of forest change at 10 sites …
Opportunities For New Collaborative Projects, Scott R. Abella, Jill E. Craig
Opportunities For New Collaborative Projects, Scott R. Abella, Jill E. Craig
Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research
The Research Group is currently working in successful partnerships with Lake Mead National Recreation Area, BLM Las Vegas, Desert National Wildlife Refuge (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service), Joshua Tree National Park, and in collaboration with the Ecological Restoration Institute, the U.S. Forest Service (Region 3).
Resource Use Conflict In New York City's Catskill Watersheds: A Case For Expanding The Scope Of Water Resource Management, Krystyna Anne Stave
Resource Use Conflict In New York City's Catskill Watersheds: A Case For Expanding The Scope Of Water Resource Management, Krystyna Anne Stave
Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research
In New York City's water supply watersheds, controversy over water quality protection underscores both the need to expand the scope of water resource management and the challenges to doing so. This paper describes the response of watershed residents to !'Jew York City's efforts to avoid filtration mandated by the 1986 Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments and 1989 Surface Water Treatment Rule. The emergence of a spectrum of stakeholder groups representing land owners, sport fishermen, businesses, environmental groups and local communities has brought social and economic issues not previously part of the City's water management program to the center of the …