“Management opportunities and research priorities for Great Plains grasslands” @gpfirescience @usfs_rmrs #rxfire #grasslands

“Management opportunities and research priorities for Great Plains grasslands”

Access the article through the permanent web address at the US Forest Service Treesearch database (DOI) - https://doi.org/10.2737/RMRS-GTR-398

This report is a digest of seven working sessions at the 2018 Great Plains Grassland Summit, including a session on wildfire and prescribed fire. Presentations and posters from the summit are also available online - https://westernforestry.org/past-conferences/great-plains-grassland-summit-challenges-and-opportunities-from-north-to-south

Abstract

The Great Plains Grassland Summit: Challenges and Opportunities from North to South was held April 10-11, 2018 in Denver, Colorado to provide syntheses of information about key grassland topics of interest in the Great Plains; networking and learning channels for managers, researchers, and stakeholders; and working sessions for sharing ideas about challenges and future research and management opportunities. The summit was convened to better understand stressors and resource demands throughout the Great Plains and how to manage them, and to discuss methods for improved collaboration among natural resource managers, scientists, and stakeholders.

Over 200 stakeholders, who collectively were affiliated with all of the Great Plains States, attended the summit. Attendees included university researchers, government scientists, and individuals affiliated with Federal and State agencies, tribes, the private sector, and nongovernmental organizations. Plenary speakers provided syntheses of current knowledge on key topics to help stage working sessions on working lands, native wildlife and biological diversity, native plants and pollinators, invasive species, wildland and prescribed fire, energy development, and weather, water, and climate. The summit steering committee designed a suite of questions that were asked of participants in each working session.

This report is a digest of the input from those who attended the seven working sessions and responded to the structured questions.

Keywords: Great Plains, grasslands, working lands, invasive species, native plants, wildlife, fire, energy development, climate

Citation

Finch, Deborah M., Carolyn Baldwin, David P. Brown, Katelyn P. Driscoll, Erica Fleishman, Paulette L. Ford, Brice Hanberry, Amy J. Symstad, Bill Van Pelt, and Richard Zabel. "Management opportunities and research priorities for Great Plains grasslands." Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR-398. Fort Collins, CO: US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. 56 p. 398 (2019).

Grassland management actions influence soil conditions and plant community responses to winter #climate change #rxfire @hennhouse11 @edamschen

TPOS Note:

This research is the latest publication from a recent research-management collaboration. The experiment was established on property owned and managed by The Prairie Enthusiasts (https://www.theprairieenthusiasts.org/), an organization which has been very active in the protection and management of tallgrass prairie and oak savanna in the TPOS region.

The research was also supported by the Joint Fire Science Program’s Graduate Research Initiative (GRIN) for masters and doctoral students. Applications for the 2023 funding cycle are now open. More information is available here - https://www.firescience.gov/JFSP_funding_announcements.cfm?pass_task_id=23-1-01.

For previous work from this project see also “Disturbance Type and Timing Affect Growth and Tolerance Strategies in Grassland Plant Leaves” (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rama.2021.09.005).

About this article:

“Grassland management actions influence soil conditions and plant community responses to winter climate change”

This open access article was originally published October 17, 2022, in the journal Ecosphere.
Access the article through the permanent web address (DOI) (https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.4270)

Abstract

Restoring ecosystems in a changing climate requires understanding how management interventions interact with climate conditions. In tallgrass prairies, disturbance through fire, mowing, or grazing is a critical force in maintaining herbaceous plant diversity. However, unlike historical fire regimes that occurred throughout the growing season, management actions like prescribed fire and mowing are commonly limited to the spring or fall seasons. Warming winters are resulting in less snow, causing overwintering plants to experience reduced insulation from snow and these more extreme winter conditions may be exacerbated or ameliorated depending on the timing of management actions. Understanding this novel interaction between the timing of management actions and snow depth is critical for managing and restoring grassland ecosystems.
Here, we applied experimental management treatments (spring and fall burn and fall mow) in combination with snow depth manipulations to test whether the type and timing of commonly implemented disturbances interact with snow depth to affect restored prairie plant diversity and composition. Overall, snow manipulations and management actions influenced soil temperature while only management actions influenced spring thaw timing. Burning in the fall, which removes litter prior to winter resulted in colder soils and earlier spring thaw timing. However, plant communities were mostly resistant to these effects. Instead, plants responded to management actions such that burning and mowing, regardless of timing, increased plant diversity and spring burning increased flowering structure cover while reducing weedy cool season grass cover.

Together these results suggest that grassland plant communities are resistant to winter climate change over the short term and that burning or mowing is critical to promoting plant diversity in tallgrass prairies.

Keywords: tallgrass prairies; climate change; prescribed fire; mowing; fall burning

Citation

Henn, Jonathan J., and Ellen I. Damschen. "Grassland management actions influence soil conditions and plant community responses to winter climate change." Ecosphere 13, no. 10 (2022): e4270.

Growing or dormant season burns: the effects of burn season on bee and plant communities #rxfire #pollinators

“Growing or dormant season burns: the effects of burn season on bee and plant communities”

This open access article was originally published August 19, 2019, in the journal Biodiversity and Conservation.

Access the article through the permanent web address (DOI) (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-019-01840-6)

Abstract

Habitat management can play a critical role in increasing and maintaining species diversity, but timing of management techniques can have significant effects on biodiversity management. In tallgrass prairie systems, prescribed burns are a common method to promote diversity.

Managers prefer winter dormant season burns but this timing differs significantly from the historic growing season burns that helped shape this community, and it is largely unexplored whether changing burn season has significant effects on higher trophic levels. Here we investigate how the timing of such burns affects the bee communities and their resources.

Depending on life history traits such as above or below ground nesting, timing of fire management can have differential effects on bee diversity. In 2016 and 2017, bees were collected from prairies in south-central Illinois using active netting, pan traps, and vane traps, and measurements of plant species, flower abundance and ground cover were recorded.

While both burns showed significant improvement over unburned areas, growing season burns had the greatest total bare ground area and an increase in overall bee abundances. This may suggest long term benefits of growing season burns.

The results suggest that growing season burns are beneficial for bees, and the use of either burn season can be utilized for land management.

Keywords: Bee;  Fire;  Land management;  Prescribed burn;  Conservation; Species diversity

Citation

Decker, Brenna L., and Alexandra N. Harmon-Threatt. "Growing or dormant season burns: the effects of burn season on bee and plant communities." Biodiversity and Conservation 28, no. 13 (2019): 3621-3631.

Pollinators of the Great Plains: Disturbances, Stressors, Management, and Research Needs #pollinators #grasslands #rxfire #grazing

"Pollinators of the Great Plains: Disturbances, Stressors, Management, and Research Needs"

This open access article was published online September 16, 2020, in the journal Rangeland Ecology and Management.

Access the article through the permanent web address (DOI) (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rama.2020.08.006)

Abstract

Recent global declines of pollinator populations have highlighted the importance of pollinators, which are undervalued despite essential contributions to ecosystem services. To identify critical knowledge gaps about pollinators, we describe the state of knowledge about responses of pollinators and their foraging and nesting resources to historical natural disturbances and new stressors in Great Plains grasslands and riparian ecosystems. In addition, we also provide information about pollinator management and research needs to guide efforts to sustain pollinators and by extension, flowering vegetation, and other ecosystem services of grasslands.

Although pollinator responses varied, pollinator specialists of disturbance-sensitive plants tended to decline in response to disturbance. Management with grazing and fire overall may benefit pollinators of grasslands, depending on many factors; however, we recommend habitat and population monitoring to assess outcomes of these disturbances on small, isolated pollinator populations.

The influences and interactions of drought and increasingly variable weather patterns, pesticides, and domesticated bees on pollinators are complex and understudied. Nonetheless, habitat management and restoration can reduce effects of stressors and augment floral and nesting resources for pollinators.

Research needs include expanding information about 1) the distribution, abundance, trends, and intraregional variability of most pollinator species; 2) floral and nesting resources critical to support pollinators; 3) implications of different rangeland management approaches; 4) effects of missing and reestablished resources in altered and restored vegetation; and 5) disentangling the relative influence of interacting disturbances and stressors on pollinator declines.

Despite limited research in the Great Plains on many of these topics, consideration of pollinator populations and their habitat needs in management plans is critical now to reduce future pollinator declines and promote recovery.

Keywords: climate; fire; grazing; Great Plains; herbivory; pesticides; pollinators

Citation

Hanberry, Brice B., Sandra J. DeBano, Thomas N. Kaye, Mary M. Rowland, Cynthia R. Hartway, and Donna Shorrock. "Pollinators of the Great Plains: disturbances, stressors, management, and research needs." Rangeland Ecology & Management 78 (2021): 220-234.

The Birds and the Bees: Producing Beef and Conservation Benefits on Working Grasslands #rxfire #capacity

The Birds and the Bees: Producing Beef and Conservation Benefits on Working Grasslands

This open access article was published Aug. 17, 2022, in the journal Agronomy.

Access the article through the permanent web address (DOI)

Abstract

Globally, grasslands have been heavily degraded, more so than any other biome. Grasslands of the eastern U.S. are no exception to this trend and, consequently, native biota associated with the region’s >20 million ha of agricultural grasslands are under considerable stress. For example, grassland associated breeding bird populations have declined precipitously in recent decades as have numerous species of pollinators. Although there is increasing awareness of the role grasslands can play in global carbon cycles and in providing high quality dietary proteins needed by an increasing global population, there is a lack of awareness of the alarming trends in the sustainability of the native biota of these ecosystems. Here, we present the status of this conservation challenge and offer prospective solutions through a working lands conservation approach. Such a strategy entails maintaining appropriate disturbances (i.e., grazing, fire, and their combination), improved grazing management, an increased reliance on native grasses and forbs, and improved plant diversity within pastures. Furthermore, we note some examples of opportunities to achieve these goals, offer suggestions for agricultural and conservation policy, and provide a framework for evaluating tradeoffs that are inevitably required when pursuing a multi-purpose grassland management framework.

Keywords: biodiversity; breeding birds; grazing; native grasses; pollinators; sustainability; working lands conservation

Citation

Keyser, Patrick D., David A. Buehler, John H. Fike, Deborah L. Finke, Samuel D. Fuhlendorf, James A. Martin, Harley D. Naumann, and S. Ray Smith. "The Birds and the Bees: Producing Beef and Conservation Benefits on Working Grasslands." Agronomy 12, no. 8 (2022): 1934.

Barriers to Prescribed Fire in the US Great Plains, Part II: Critical Review of Presently Used and Potentially Expandable Solutions #rxfire #capacity

Barriers to Prescribed Fire in the US Great Plains, Part II: Critical Review of Presently Used and Potentially Expandable Solutions

This open-access article was published in the journal Land on Sept. 9, 2022. This article can be downloaded for free from the US Forest Service Treesearch database.

Abstract

This is the second paper of a two-part series on the barriers to prescribed fire use in the Great Plains of the USA. While the first part presented a systematic review of published papers on the barriers to prescribed fire use, specifically regarding perceptions and attitudes of land managers, this second part reviews the solutions that are employed to increase prescribed fire use by land managers in the Great Plains. First, the review compiled the solutions currently and ubiquitously employed to promote fire use and how they have been documented to address barriers. Second, potentially expandable solutions used in similar natural resource fields and communities were reviewed as possible solutions to the unaddressed aspects of remaining barriers that limit fire use.

Keywords: prescribed fire; prescribed burn association; socio-ecological

Citation

Clark, Autumn S., Devan Allen McGranahan, Benjamin A. Geaumont, Carissa L. Wonkka, Jacqueline P. Ott, and Urs P. Kreuter. "Barriers to prescribed fire in the US Great Plains, Part II: Critical review of presently used and potentially expandable solutions." Land 11, no. 9 (2022): 1524.

Barriers to Prescribed Fire in the US Great Plains, Part I: Systematic Review of Socio-Ecological Research #rxfire #barriers #capacity

Barriers to Prescribed Fire in the US Great Plains, Part I: Systematic Review of Socio-Ecological Research

This article was published in the journal Land on Sept. 9, 2022. This article can be downloaded for free from the US Forest Service Treesearch database.

Abstract

Prescribed fire is increasingly being considered as a viable management tool by public and private land managers. Fully expanding prescribed fire use in a land management context, where it is an ecologically effective but not commonly applied tool, requires a comprehensive understanding of barriers that limit prescribed fire, especially in working rangelands of the North American Great Plains. While there is an emerging body of work on the perceptions of prescribed fire, there has yet to be a compilation of the research. We present a systematic review of the published literature on the perceptions and attitudes of land managers towards prescribed fire in the Great Plains in an effort to provide a social-ecological perspective on the issue. The aim is to share the methods used to assess social perceptions of prescribed fire in the Great Plains and regional distribution of these studies as well as to identify perceived barriers and limitations that restrict the use of prescribed fire by reviewing studies primarily located in the Great Plains ecoregion and focused on perceptions of fire. Surveys were the most commonly used method to assess social perceptions, with most research concentrated in the southern Great Plains. Barriers included a range of social, informational, practical, and regulatory concerns. This compilation of research synthesizes the current knowledge regarding social perceptions of and potential barriers to prescribed fire use so that fire practitioners and communities considering prescribed fire use for rangeland management have the most current information to make sound decisions.

Keywords: prescribed fire; landowner perception; rangelands; socio-ecological; capacity

Citation

Clark, Autumn S., Devan Allen McGranahan, Benjamin A. Geaumont, Carissa L. Wonkka, Jacqueline P. Ott, and Urs P. Kreuter. "Barriers to prescribed fire in the US Great Plains, Part I: Systematic review of socio-ecological research." Land 11, no. 9 (2022): 1521.

Pyrodiversity in a warming world: research challenges and opportunities

"Pyrodiversity in a warming world: research challenges and opportunities"

This article was published on Aug. 15, 2022, in the journal Current Landscape Ecology Reports. This article is available to download for free from the USDA Forest Service’s Treesearch database.

Abstract

Purpose of Review
Climate change will continue to alter spatial and temporal variation in fire characteristics, or pyrodiversity. The causes of pyrodiversity and its consequences for biological communities are emerging as a promising research area with great potential for understanding and predicting global change. We reviewed the literature related to the causes and consequences of pyrodiversity over the 3-year period 2019–2021 to identify emerging themes and innovations.

Recent Findings
Key innovations include multi-scale analyses of pyrodiversity, a focus on mechanisms underlying single-species responses to pyrodiversity, investigating how pyrodiversity influences community stability and beta-diversity, and novel, integrative approaches for measuring pyrodiversity.

Summary
Pyrodiversity research is still maturing, and will benefit from exploration of multi-scale, gradient analysis of integrated (multi-measure) pyrodiversity metrics, an increased focus on how climate change may influence pyrodiversity across different systems, and a stronger framework for operational pyrodiversity within the context of land management. We suggest that research focusing on pyrodiversity could be generalized to include “turbadiversity,” or the cumulative patterns of heterogeneity produced by multiple types of disturbances (i.e., not just fire).

Keywords: pyrodiversity;  biodiversity; climate change; multi-scale; fire management; landscape ecology

Citation

Jones, G. M., J. Ayars, S. A. Parks, H. E. Chmura, S. A. Cushman, and J. S. Sanderlin. "Pyrodiversity in a warming world: Research challenges and opportunities." Current Landscape Ecology Reports (2022): 1-19.

Oak forests and woodlands as Indigenous landscapes in the Eastern United States

"Oak forests and woodlands as Indigenous landscapes in the Eastern United States"

This open access article was published Dec. 14, 2021, in The Journal of the Torrey Botanical Society.

Access the article through the permanent web address (DOI) (https://doi.org/10.3159/TORREY-D-21-00024.1)

Abstract

Land use by Indigenous people (Native Americans) and climate are primary factors affecting the dynamics of oak (Quercus) forests and woodlands in the eastern United States. Prior to Euro-American settlement, much of the eastern deciduous forest was dominated by oak species.

The role of periodic surface burning, agriculture, and other forms of land management by Indigenous peoples is frequently noted by cultural anthropologists and historical ecologists. However, these points are often debated by paleoecologists and climate scientists.

Here we present a literature review, synthesis, and data summary to investigate the role of altered land use, season of burning, and climate change in relation to pre– and post–Euro-American changes in forest composition. Human-based ignitions, as reflected by dormant-season fires, prevailed over the oak- and pine-dominated forests, with intermediate fire frequency during Indigenous periods. From the 18th century on, Euro-American populations rapidly expanded, impacting much of the eastern United States through extensive timber harvesting, land clearing, and severe fires. Starting in the 20th century, a variety of ecological influences, including agricultural land abandonment, chestnut blight, fire suppression, mesophication, and urbanization, resulted in dramatic vegetation changes in eastern landscapes. These trends have culminated in recruitment failures of most oak species on all but the most xeric sites and an increase in mid- to late-successional mesic hardwoods, most notably red maple (Acer rubrum), a species with very low density in our analysis of the witness tree record.

We conclude that prescribed burning, agriculture, and other land uses by Indigenous peoples created a mosaicked landscape of expansive oak savannas, woodlands, and forests. A warming world over the past century should have promoted warm-adapted, fire-tolerant, xerophytic genera such as oak, hickory (Carya), and pine (Pinus) and grassland communities but instead have promoted the invasion by cool-adapted, fire-sensitive, mesophytic trees due to the absence of burning, much to the detriment of major vegetation biomes.

Understanding that eastern oak and other pyrogenic ecosystems represent an Indigenous landscape strengthens our ability to best manage vegetation against the expansion of less desirable species and restore historic fire cycles through prescribed burning.

Citation

Abrams, Marc D., Gregory J. Nowacki, and Brice B. Hanberry. "Oak forests and woodlands as Indigenous landscapes in the Eastern United States." The Journal of the Torrey Botanical Society 149, no. 2 (2021): 101-121.

Reconstruction of the Spring Hill Wildfire and Exploration of Alternate Management Scenarios Using QUIC-Fire

This open-access article was published Oct 15, 2021 in the journal Fire

Access the article through the permanent web address (DOI)

Abstract

New physics-based fire behavior models are poised to revolutionize wildland fire planning and training; however, model testing against field conditions remains limited. We tested the ability of QUIC-Fire, a fast-running and computationally inexpensive physics-based fire behavior model to numerically reconstruct a large wildfire that burned in a fire-excluded area within the New York–Philadelphia metropolitan area in 2019. We then used QUIC-Fire as a tool to explore how alternate hypothetical management scenarios, such as prescribed burning, could have affected fire behavior. The results of our reconstruction provide a strong demonstration of how QUIC-Fire can be used to simulate actual wildfire scenarios with the integration of local weather and fuel information, as well as to efficiently explore how fire management can influence fire behavior in specific burn units. Our results illustrate how both reductions of fuel load and specific modification of fuel structure associated with frequent prescribed fire are critical to reducing fire intensity and size. We discuss how simulations such as this can be important in planning and training tools for wildland firefighters, and for avenues of future research and fuel monitoring that can accelerate the incorporation of models like QUIC-Fire into fire management strategies. View Full-Text

Keywords: prescribed fire; wildfire; QUIC-Fire; coupled fire-atmospheric models; fuels

Citation

Gallagher, Michael R., Zachary Cope, Daniel Rosales Giron, Nicholas S. Skowronski, Trevor Raynor, Thomas Gerber, Rodman R. Linn, and John Kevin Hiers. "Reconstruction of the Spring Hill Wildfire and Exploration of Alternate Management Scenarios Using QUIC-Fire." Fire 4, no. 4 (2021): 72.