Science You Can Use

Mature forest cover for nesting and roosting currently plays a starring role in California spotted owl (Strix occidentalis occidentalis) habitat management, but spotted owls also depend on access to nearby mixed-age forest stands that support one of their main food sources, the dusky-footed woodrat (Neotoma fuscipes). Music courtesy of Souvenir Thread. Read the Science You Can Use and access relat...

Historical and contemporary policies and practices, including the suppression of lightning-ignited fires and the removal of intentional fires ignited by Indigenous peoples, have resulted in over a century of fire exclusion across many of the USA's landscapes. Within many designated wilderness areas, this intentional exclusion of fire has clearly altered ecological processes and thus constitutes a...

Evolutionary niches are great for species survival, but when humans get stuck arguing from viewpoint niches, it can mean bad news for ecosystem resilience. The Utah Forest Restoration Working Group, a collaborative partnership of agencies and stakeholders, operates beyond niches and uses group consensus. Their approach has resulted in a big first: agreement among divergent stakeholders on a step-b...

What plants can survive fire, can displace native plants, and are difficult to manage? Among others are these eight nonnative species in the western United States: buffelgrass, cutleaf blackberry, diffuse knapweed, Himalayan blackberry, Sahara mustard, spotted knapweed, ventenata, and yellow starthistle. Unfortunately, one of the reasons that invasive plants are so hard to manage is because there...

The Landscape Fire and Resource Management Planning Tools program (LANDFIRE) is a multi-agency (U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service and U.S. Department of the Interior) national geospatial suite of datasets. Born from the Congressional National Fire Plan in support of the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy, LANDFIRE's prototype was launched in 2002. Chartered by the Wild...

An extreme multi-year drought with extensive bark beetle outbreaks in California from 2012 to 2016 killed an estimated 147 million trees. This included ponderosa pine, incense cedar, white fir, and pinyon pine, rapidly changing forests over vast areas. Recently published work by Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS) researchers Sharon Hood and Charlotte Reed found that major tree mortality events...

Rangelands worldwide are essential for carbon sequestration, water retention, and habitat to name a few critical benefits. Prescribed fire is used to benefit vegetation and soil and reduce fuels on rangeland sites. What hasn't been clear is how burning on rangelands may affect microbes in the soil, which are responsible for breaking down woody material. Also missing was an understanding of how the...

Livestock grazing is a common use of rangelands that can be managed to support rangeland health, including the wide array of ecosystem services that benefit society from public lands and private lands. This requires careful allocation of naturally occurring forage on large landscapes for both domestic and wild herbivores. Managers know grazing can sustain rangeland health as long as they time it r...

More than 100 years of fire exclusion, logging, grazing, and other human activities have contributed to uncharacteristically high tree densities in the dry conifer forests of the western United States. Mechanical forest treatments using heavy machinery or chainsaws to remove trees are being used widely to create a more open and diverse overstory, especially in situations where prescribed fire is n...

The REPLANT Act, part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, directs the Forest Service to plant more than a billion trees on 4 million acres of deforested national forest lands over the next decade. Most of these lands were burned by severe wildfire, and are not reforesting naturally due to a lack of seed sources and unfavorable climatic conditions. Currently, there are several bottl...

In the western United States, wildfire activity has increased the exposure of communities to fires that can devastate lives and destroy homes and businesses. As fires encroach on urban areas, protecting communities from wildfire impacts is a top priority for fire managers. Scientists studying wildland fire in the wildland urban interface (WUI) are particularly interested in using historical data a...

Limber pine is an ecologically vital species that provides food for wildlife, facilitates the establishment of other tree species, and grows where other species struggle. A nonnative disease, white pine blister rust (WPBR), and native bark beetles are killing limber pines faster than they can grow back. Music courtesy of Souvenir Thread. Read the Science You Can Use and access related content on T...

In the United States, more than 1,400 native plant nurseries produce more than a billion seedlings for reforestation and restoration projects every year. Many years of monitoring and research have shown that seedling survival of native plants can be greater when the plants are grown in nurseries and outplanted compared to direct seeding or natural regeneration. Production of high-quality seedlings...

Scientists have spent decades trying to understand how to best promote resilient forests and reduce fuels. A golden endeavor certainly. Is the best approach using a series of prescribed burns? Or is it mechanically cutting trees? Or does the additive effect of both cutting and burning provide the best alchemy? Music courtesy of Souvenir Thread. Read the Science You Can Use and access related conte...

More high-severity wildfire is occurring in the U.S. West and affecting people and forests in challenging ways. In places where mitigating high-severity wildfire is desirable, returning low-severity fire through fuel treatments is common practice. The last quantitative review of fuel treatment research happened 10 years ago. Much has been learned since then. Music courtesy of Souvenir Thread. Read...

Satellite, radar, and strategically placed Remote Automated Weather Stations (RAWS) are a few of the many technologies used to gather data and predict weather. Yet, some weather events are still unpredictable. A morning forecast for a chance of storms in the afternoon can transform into a major thunderstorm in the middle of an alpine hike. Music courtesy of Souvenir Thread. Read the Science You Ca...

Archaea, bacteria, fungi, and viruses are organisms that comprise the soil microbiome and play a crucial role in the health of the world's forests. The soil microbiome is vital in cycling important nutrients needed by vegetation (e.g., nitrogen), stabilizing soil organic matter, and forming essential symbioses with plants, such as the ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF) that are obligate symbiotic partner...

Public support is crucial for successful fuels management, but vocal opposition can mask broader yet quieter community acceptance. It is helpful for land managers to have a picture of all perspectives, not just the most vocal ones. And what do communities think about fuels treatments? Music courtesy of Souvenir Thread. Read the Science You Can Use and access related content on Treesearch .

When land managers or planners need to understand how a segment of a forest road is impacting water quality, the Geomorphic Road Analysis and Inventory Package (GRAIP) is the go-to resource, with in-depth tools for intensive analysis. However, GRAIP's use is limited to road segments where detailed field data are available or when analyzing high-risk roads within priority watersheds. With the Natio...

The 2021 Tamarack Fire in California, started by lightning in a national forest wilderness area, burned nearly 70,000 acres and eventually destroyed 24 structures. Because properties were damaged, the public and media scrutinized the fire management response. This fire exemplifies not only the challenges of fire management in land and resource management, but also how shortcomings in the fire resp...

The first fire on Earth ignited 420 million years ago. Today, our planet remains the only one that we know of where oxygen, fuels, and ignition sources - including humans - come together to spark flames. As fire historian Stephen Pyne writes, "We are uniquely fire creatures on a unique fire planet." Music courtesy of Souvenir Thread. Read the Science You Can Use and access related content on Trees...

Lamprey are a lineage of boneless fish that is older than trees. Traditionally, lamprey species have been identified by morphology - that is, their visible features, such as teeth. However, this method can be unreliable because without bones, lampreys don't have many distinguishing features, and most of these don't develop until adulthood. Thus, significant conservation actions may be taken, or no...