Real-Time Monitoring with a Tablet App Improves Implementation of Treatments to Enhance Forest Structural Diversity

Maher, Colin; Oja, Emily B.; Marshall, Abigail; Cunningham, Matthew; Townsend, Lucas; Worley-Hood, Graham; Robinson, Luke Ruffner; Margot, Taylor; Lyons, Drew S.; Fety, Stuart; Schneider, Eryn E.; Jeronimo, Sean M.A.; Churchill, Derek J.; Larson, Andrew J.

doi:10.1093/jofore/fvz003

Cited by 11 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Challenges can arise from a number of factors including the complexity of implementing spatially variable prescriptions, constraints on creation of gaps above a certain size, and lack of availability of locally relevant science to guide prescriptions (Underhill et al. 2014, Briggs and Fornwalt 2017, Colavito 2017, Dickinson and Cadry 2017, Cannon 2018, Maher 2019, LeFevre et al. 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Low‐ and moderate‐severity fire offers key insights for landscape restoration in ponderosa pine forests

Cannon

Warnick

Elliott

et al. 2021

Ecological Applications

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Restoration goals in fire‐prone conifer forests include mitigating fire hazard while restoring forest structural components linked to disturbance resilience and ecological function. Restoration of overstory spatial pattern in forests often falls short of management objectives due to complexities in implementation, regulation, and available data. When historical data is available, it is often collected at plots too small to inform coarse‐scale metrics like gap size and structure of tree patches (e.g., 1 ha). Principles of ecological forestry typically emphasize overstory removal patterns that emulate those of natural disturbances. So, low‐ and moderate‐severity portions of contemporary wildfires may serve as a guide to restoration treatments where mixed‐severity fires occur. Here, we compare forest spatial pattern and configuration in 15 mechanical restoration treatments and low‐ and moderate‐severity portions of three wildfires in ponderosa pine‐dominated forests to determine how they differ in spatial pattern. We obtained satellite imagery of restoration treatments and wildfires and used supervised classification to differentiate canopy and openings. We assessed elements of landscape structure including canopy and gap cover, gap attributes, and landscape heterogeneity for each disturbance type. We found that both mechanical restoration treatments and low‐ and moderate‐severity portions of wildfires reduced forest cover, increased gap cover, and altered pattern and arrangement of gaps relative to undisturbed areas, though the magnitude of changes were greatest in the burned sites. Low‐ and moderate‐severity wildfire consistently increased landscape heterogeneity, but mechanical treatments did not. This suggests that a greater emphasis on increasing gap and patch spatial structure may make mechanical treatments more congruent with natural disturbances. Outcomes of low‐ and moderate‐severity portions of wildfires may provide important information upon which to base management prescriptions where reference data on landscape patterns is unavailable.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Low‐ and moderate‐severity fire offers key insights for landscape restoration in ponderosa pine forests

Cannon

Warnick

Elliott

et al. 2021

Ecological Applications

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“…Guidelines for restoration of ponderosa pine-dominated forests, for example, emphasize restoration of variability in forest structure including increasing horizontal spatial complexity at both fine and coarse scales (Reynolds et al 2013;Addington et al 2018). Maintaining high structural variability with mechanical treatments can be relatively challenging, and outcomes can range from heterogeneous to homogeneous depending on implementation methods (Maher et al 2019), initial conditions (Ziegler et al 2017), and logistical constraints (Cannon et al 2018). However, studies of treatment effects on landscape-scale wildfire risk and other ecosystem characteristics typically simulate fuel treatments with post-treatment target conditions (e.g., Thompson et al 2013b;Stevens et al 2016), or proportional changes in fuel structure (Jones et al 2017;Gannon et al 2019) to mimic completed, planned, or hypothetical fuel mitigation treatments without explicitly capturing spatial goals.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulating spatial complexity in dry conifer forest restoration: implications for conservation prioritization and scenario evaluation

et al. 2020

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Context Several initiatives seek to increase the pace and scale of dry forest restoration and fuels reduction to enhance forest resilience to wildfire and other stressors while improving the quality and reliability of key ecosystem services. Ecological effects models are increasingly used to prioritize these efforts at the landscape-scale based on simulated treatment outcomes. Objectives Treatments are often simulated using uniform post-treatment target conditions or proportional changes to baseline forest structure variables, but do not account for the common objective of restoration to mimic the complex forest structure that was present historically which is thought to provide an example of structural conditions that contributed to ecosystem diversity and resilience. Methods We simulate spatially homogenous fire hazard reduction treatments along with heterogeneous restoration treatments in dry conifer forests to investigate how spatial complexity affects ecological indicators of (1) forest structural heterogeneity, (2) forest and watershed vulnerability to high-severity fire, and (3) feasibility of future prescribed fire use. Results Our results suggest that spatially explicit restoration treatments should produce similar wildfire and prescribed fire outcomes as homogeneous fuels reduction treatments, but with greater forest structural heterogeneity. The lack of strong tradeoffs between ecological objectives suggests the primary benefit of spatially complex treatments is to increase forest structural heterogeneity which may promote biodiversity. Conclusions We show that landscape-scale prioritization to maximize ecological benefits can change when spatially complex restoration treatments are modeled. Coupling landscape-scale management simulations and ecological effects models offers flexible decision support for conservation assessment, prioritization, and planning.

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“…, Maher et al. ), the long‐term goal in the restoration of these forest types is to reestablish overstory resistance (i.e., ability to survive disturbance) and community resilience (i.e., ability to reorganize with similar attributes following disturbance) to future disturbance, especially fire. One crucial element in this is fuel reduction.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Forest restoration practices in dry and historically frequent-fire forests typically reestablish open, early-seral, forest structures and communities to reverse effects of past management and fire exclusion (Hessburg et al 2015). Whether informed by historical range of variability (Keane et al 2009, Clyatt et al 2016 or desired future structure and function (Ful e 2008, Janowiak et al 2014, Maher et al 2019, the long-term goal in the restoration of these forest types is to reestablish overstory resistance (i.e., ability to survive disturbance) and community resilience (i.e., ability to reorganize with similar attributes following disturbance) to future disturbance, especially fire. One crucial element in this is fuel reduction.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vegetation dynamics following compound disturbance in a dry pine forest: fuel treatment then bark beetle outbreak

Crotteau

Keyes

Hood

et al. 2019

Ecological Applications

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In the western United States, restoration of forests with historically frequent, low‐severity fire regimes often includes fuel reduction that reestablish open, early‐seral conditions while reducing fuel continuity and loading. Between 2001 and 2016, fuel reduction (e.g., thinning, prescribed burning, etc.) was implemented on over 26 million hectares of federal lands alone in the United States, reflecting the urgency to mitigate risk from high‐severity wildfire. However, between 2001 and 2012, nearly 20 million hectares in the United States were impacted by mountain pine beetle (MPB; Dendroctonus ponderosae), compounding restoration effects in wildfire‐hazard‐treated stands. Knowledge of the effects of treatments followed by natural disturbance on long‐term forest structure and communities is needed, especially considering that fuel treatments are increasingly being implemented and warming climate is predicted to exacerbate disturbance frequency and severity. We tested the interacting effects of treatments designed to reduce high‐severity wildfire hazard in stands subsequently challenged by MPB outbreak on vegetation dynamics using a factorial experimental design (control, thin only, burn only, thin + burn) in a ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa)‐dominated forest. Stands were treated by 2002, then impacted by MPB outbreak from 2005 to 2012. We assessed change in overstory and understory forest community structure, composition, and diversity over time. There were distinct thinning, burning, and year effects. Thinning immediately reduced overstory density; pine density then declined 4.5 times more in unthinned than thinned treatments due to MPB. Burning immediately reduced graminoid, shrub, and total understory cover by as much as 52%, resulting in greater species evenness than unburned treatments, but differences disappeared by 2016 due to growth and MPB outbreak. Similarly, multivariate analyses indicated forest communities were starkly different after treatment but became more similar over time, though key understory and overstory attributes still distinguish control and thin + burn. This study shows the value of long‐term silvicultural experiments to evaluate treatment longevity and the compounded effects of treatment and natural disturbance. We demonstrate the homogenizing effects of treatment‐induced growth coupled with MPB‐caused tree mortality on management strategies that just treat the overstory (thinning) or understory (burning), showing that only combined treatments can provide the unique structural and compositional outcomes expected of restoration.

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Real-Time Monitoring with a Tablet App Improves Implementation of Treatments to Enhance Forest Structural Diversity

Cited by 11 publications

References 19 publications

Low‐ and moderate‐severity fire offers key insights for landscape restoration in ponderosa pine forests

Low‐ and moderate‐severity fire offers key insights for landscape restoration in ponderosa pine forests

Simulating spatial complexity in dry conifer forest restoration: implications for conservation prioritization and scenario evaluation

Vegetation dynamics following compound disturbance in a dry pine forest: fuel treatment then bark beetle outbreak

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