Wildfire impacts on California spotted owl nesting habitat in the Sierra Nevada

Stephens, Scott L.; Miller, Jay D.; Collins, Brandon M.; North, Malcolm P.; Keane, John J.; Roberts, Susan L.

doi:10.1002/ecs2.1478

Cited by 52 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 115 publications

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“…At the landscape scale the intermixing of vegetation types can increase resilience to fire, but large patches of deforested land are undesirable due to negative consequences for some wildlife species of concern and the reduction of carbon dioxide uptake to offset greenhouse gas emissions (Hurteau and Brooks , Stephens et al. ). Natural conifer forest regeneration is often low or absent in large, high‐severity patches (van Wagtendonk et al.…”

Section: Management Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence of fuels management and fire weather influencing fire severity in an extreme fire event

Lydersen

Collins

Brooks

et al. 2017

Ecological Applications

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118

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Following changes in vegetation structure and pattern, along with a changing climate, large wildfire incidence has increased in forests throughout the western United States. Given this increase, there is great interest in whether fuels treatments and previous wildfire can alter fire severity patterns in large wildfires. We assessed the relative influence of previous fuels treatments (including wildfire), fire weather, vegetation, and water balance on fire-severity in the Rim Fire of 2013. We did this at three different spatial scales to investigate whether the influences on fire severity changed across scales. Both fuels treatments and previous low to moderate-severity wildfire reduced the prevalence of high-severity fire. In general, areas without recent fuels treatments and areas that previously burned at high severity tended to have a greater proportion of high-severity fire in the Rim Fire. Areas treated with prescribed fire, especially when combined with thinning, had the lowest proportions of high severity. The proportion of the landscape burned at high severity was most strongly influenced by fire weather and proportional area previously treated for fuels or burned by low to moderate severity wildfire. The proportion treated needed to effectively reduce the amount of high severity fire varied by spatial scale of analysis, with smaller spatial scales requiring a greater proportion treated to see an effect on fire severity. When moderate and high-severity fire encountered a previously treated area, fire severity was significantly reduced in the treated area relative to the adjacent untreated area. Our results show that fuels treatments and low to moderate-severity wildfire can reduce fire severity in a subsequent wildfire, even when burning under fire growth conditions. These results serve as further evidence that both fuels treatments and lower severity wildfire can increase forest resilience.

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Section: Management Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence of fuels management and fire weather influencing fire severity in an extreme fire event

Lydersen

Collins

Brooks

et al. 2017

Ecological Applications

Self Cite

118

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show abstract

“…This assumption is accompanied by recommendations for increased logging-especially "mechanical thinning"-on National Forest lands, intended to create low-density forests and reduce the potential for high-severity fires (Jones et al 2016, Stephens et al 2016. Post-fire logging and tree plantation establishment have also been promoted by the U.S. Forest Service in high-severity fire areas in an attempt to recover and restore mature, green forest cover (Peterson et al 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of post-fire logging on California spotted owl occupancy

Hanson¹,

Bond²,

Lee³

2018

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In fire-adapted forest ecosystems around the world, there has been growing concern about adverse impacts of post-fire logging on native biodiversity and ecological processes. This is also true in conifer forests of California, U.S.A. which are home to a rare and declining owl subspecies, the California spotted owl (Strix occidentalis occidentalis). While there has been recent concern about the California spotted owl occupancy in large fire areas where some territories have substantial high-severity fire effects, the influence of post-fire logging on the California spotted owl occupancy has been investigated very little, leading to some uncertainty about interpretation of conflicting results in different large fires. Research has found these owls preferentially select high-severity fire areas, characterised by high levels of snags and native shrubs, for foraging in forests that were not logged after fire, suggesting that removal of this foraging habitat might impact occupancy. The authors assessed the effect of post-fire logging and high-severity fire, on occupancy of this subspecies in eight large fire areas, within spotted owl sites with two different levels of high-severity fire effects. They found a significant adverse effect of such logging and no effect of high-severity fire alone. These results indicate it is post-fire logging, not large fires themselves, that poses a conservation threat to this imperilled species. RESEARCH ARTICLE Launched to accelerate biodiversity conservation A peer-reviewed open-access journalChad T. Hanson et al. / Nature Conservation 24: 93-105 (2018) 94

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“…In the case of the CSO, reductions in the number of large trees and structurally complex older forest stands due to past forest management and the more recent effects of wildland fire may be a contributing factor to current CSO population declines (Stephens et al. ). Further, recent studies have documented high rates of large tree mortality due to interacting effects of drought, climate change, wildfire and insect activity (Lutz et al.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accessible light detection and ranging: estimating large tree density for habitat identification

et al. 2016

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Abstract. Large trees are important to a wide variety of wildlife, including many species of conservation concern, such as the California spotted owl (Strix occidentalis occidentalis). Light detection and ranging (LiDAR) has been successfully utilized to identify the density of large-diameter trees, either by segmenting the LiDAR point cloud into individual trees, or by building regression models between variables extracted from the LiDAR point cloud and field data. Neither of these methods is easily accessible for most land managers due to the reliance on specialized software, and much available LiDAR data are being underutilized due to the steep learning curve required for advanced processing using these programs. This study derived a simple, yet effective method for estimating the density of large-stemmed trees from the LiDAR canopy height model, a standard raster product derived from the LiDAR point cloud that is often delivered with the LiDAR and is easy to process by personnel trained in geographic information systems (GIS). Ground plots needed to be large (1 ha) to build a robust model, but the spatial accuracy of plot center was less crucial to model accuracy. We also showed that predicted large tree density is positively linked to California spotted owl nest sites.

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Wildfire impacts on California spotted owl nesting habitat in the Sierra Nevada

Cited by 52 publications

References 115 publications

Evidence of fuels management and fire weather influencing fire severity in an extreme fire event

Evidence of fuels management and fire weather influencing fire severity in an extreme fire event

Effects of post-fire logging on California spotted owl occupancy

Accessible light detection and ranging: estimating large tree density for habitat identification

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