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Historical disturbance regimes are often considered a critical element in maintaining native plant communities. However, the response of plant communities to disturbance may be fundamentally altered as a consequence of invasive plants, climate change, or prior disturbances. The appropriateness of historical disturbance patterns under modern conditions and the interactions among disturbances are issues that ecologists must address to protect and restore native plant communities. We evaluated the response of Artemisia tridentata ssp. wyomingensis (Beetle & A. Young) S.L. Welsh plant communities to their historical disturbance regime compared to other disturbance regimes. The historical disturbance regime of these...
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Aspen exhibits a variety of ecological roles. In southern Colorado, the 1880 landscape mosaic contained a range of stand ages, of which half were >70 years old and half were younger. Pure aspen stands in southern Colorado are widespread and may result from previous short fire intervals that eliminated local conifer seed sources. Aspen regeneration in northern Yellowstone Park is controlled by ungulate browsing pressure and fire, so it has been limited since 1920. However, an episode of aspen seedling establishment occurred after the 1988 fires. We urgently need additional detailed, local case studies of aspen ecology to inform management decisions. Published in Sustaining Aspen in Western Landscapes: Symposium Proceedings,...
The Department of the Interior Bison Conservation Initiative calls for its bureaus to plan and implement collaborative American bison conservation and to ensure involvement by tribal, state, and local governments and the public in that conservation. Four independently managed and geographically separated National Park Service (NPS) units in Interior Region 5 (IR5) preserve bison and other components of a formerly contiguous Great Plains landscape. Management of bison in IR5 parks has historically been specific to each park, and livestock and range management science informed much of the decision making. In the past two decades, NPS has shifted away from managing bison from this livestock-based perspective towards...
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The purpose of this paper is to quantify climatic controls on the area burned by fire in different vegetation types in the Western United States. We demonstrate that wildfire area burned (WFAB) in the American West was controlled by climate during the 20th century (1916-2003). Persistent ecosystem-specific correlations between climate and WFAB are grouped by vegetation type (ecoprovinces). Most mountainous ecoprovinces exhibit strong year-of-fire relationships with low precipitation, low Palmer drought severity index (PDSI), and high temperature. Grass- and shrub-dominated ecoprovinces had positive relationships with antecedent precipitation or PDST. For 1977-2003, a few climate variables explain 33 to 87 percent...
The purpose of this paper is to quantify climatic controls on the area burned by fire in different vegetation types in the Western United States. We demonstrate that wildfire area burned (WFAB) in the American West was controlled by climate during the 20th century (1916-2003). Persistent ecosystem-specific correlations between climate and WFAB are grouped by vegetation type (ecoprovinces). Most mountainous ecoprovinces exhibit strong year-of-fire relationships with low precipitation, low Palmer drought severity index (PDSI), and high temperature. Grass- and shrub-dominated ecoprovinces had positive relationships with antecedent precipitation or PDST. For 1977-2003, a few climate variables explain 33 to 87 percent...
    map background search result map search result map Interaction of historical and nonhistorical disturbances maintains native plant communities Aspen's ecological role in the West Climate and wildfire area burned in western U.S. ecoprovinces, 1916–2003 Interaction of historical and nonhistorical disturbances maintains native plant communities Aspen's ecological role in the West Climate and wildfire area burned in western U.S. ecoprovinces, 1916–2003