The return of the bison to Minneopa State Park: how fire, grazing, and persistence play a role in prairie recovery

"The return of the bison to Minneopa State Park: how fire, grazing, and persistence play a role in prairie recovery"

Virtual Field Days - February 15-16, 8:30-11:30 a.m. (Central)

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the Prairie Reconstruction Initiative (PRI) invite you to an online field day.

In this format, you'll see video segments from filming done at Minneopa State Park in the summer of 2022, followed by a live panel discussions with land managers, park volunteers, and bison ambassadors.

They will take walk us through past, present, and future prairie management including the reintroduction of bison, fire, and grazing at Minneopa State Park in southern Minnesota.

There will be two modules each day:

Feb. 15:

• History of Management at Minneopa State Park
• The Return of the Bison

Feb. 16:

• Managing Prairie and Savanna with Grazing and Fire
• Change and the Future of Prairie Management and Conservation at Minneopa

Learn more and how to join at the Prairie Reconstruction Initiative's Field Days page: https://sites.google.com/view/prairiereconinitiative/what-we-do/field-days

Fueling Collaboration - Season 3

Fueling Collaboration is a series of interactive panel discussions designed to connect fire managers and researchers. Fueling Collaboration is created and hosted by the USDA Forest Service Northern  and Southern Research Stations, and the Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP) Fire Science Exchanges in the eastern United States.

Learn More and Register For the Fueling Collaboration Panel Discussion Series

Fire and Wildlife - January 19, 2023

The good, bad, and ugly of fire and wildlife - roasty toasty critters or promoting sustainable habitat for expanding and healthy wildlife populations? Let’s discuss the pros and cons of fire on wildlife. How is the lack of fire at the necessary scale, frequency, intensity/severity, and seasonality one of the greatest threats to wildlife in fire-dependent ecosystems?

Prescribed Burning in the Eastern WUI - February 16, 2023

More and more natural resource managers in the eastern US are looking to use prescribed fire to reduce wildfire risk and manage ecosystems located in the WUI. Using prescribed fire in urban and suburban locations brings unique, intimidating challenges that can add to the complexity of a burn. In this panel discussion, we’ll highlight success stories, common themes, and lessons learned from prescribed fire programs in the WUI.

Fire and Water (rescheduled) - TBD

The changing climate is reshaping the balance of fire and water in eastern ecosystems. Drought alters soil structure and stability; combined with intense rainfall, this impacts hydrologic dynamics. This panel will explore the interconnections between fire, nutrient cycling, ecohydrology, and climate change.

Fueling Collaboration - Season Two

Fueling Collaboration is a series of interactive panel discussions designed to connect fire managers and researchers. 

Learn More and Register For the Fueling Collaboration Panel Discussion Series

Connecting Research Methods to Fire Management Decisions

New Webinar Series: Connecting Research Methods to Fire Management Decisions

Presentations in this webinar series emphasize work by fire ecologists and research-management partnerships. Researchers will address fire effects and implications for land managers, as well as describing hypotheses, experimental designs, and methods which could be adapted for future applied fire ecology research.

Land managers and other fire practitioners across the Upper Midwest recognize fire is a critical process in local ecosystems. They also recognize that a complex array of factors determine whether burn plans and application of fire will meet burn objectives and conservation goals. The outcomes of using fire at a particular place are determined by many abiotic factors, as well as direct and indirect impacts on native and exotic organisms. Consequently, land managers cannot always readily apply the results of fire research which uses fire as a categorical variable (burned/unburned or frequency of burns).

However, many fire ecology research methods have been developed to investigate how abiotic and biotic factors influence the effects of a prescribed fire and the longer term fire regime. The presentations in this series are intended to help inform fire management decisions as well as contribute to the development of fire ecology research in the Midwest.

Presentation 1 – Feb. 19, 2019, 2-3 PM Central

Fire Science Literacy: How to better understand and communicate the wildland fire environment

Presenters

Devan Allen McGranahan, Assistant Professor of Range Science, North Dakota State University.

Carissa L. Wonkka, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Nebraska

Presentation summary

The wildland fire environment is complex, with fire behavior and fire effects depending on interactions between fuels, management history, and weather patterns beginning days and weeks before a burn. Thus it can be difficult to extrapolate results or observations from one fire to another, or anticipate how a given fire might behave or affect organisms in the burn unit. We have developed a framework for wildland fire education, research, and communication that promotes Wildland Fire Literacy--a basic, shared understanding of important components of the wildland fire environment and how they relate to fire regimes in our modern socio-ecological context. In this presentation we will walk through the critical aspects of fuels, weather, and fire behavior fire scientists and practitioners alike should be comfortable thinking out, observing, and communicating to others in the community. We believe this shared language will not only help relate fire weather conditions to fire behavior, and ultimately better explain fire effects, but also help fire planners identify ideal conditions to achieve desired outcomes.

You can read the presenters' paper on wildland fire literacy for free.

Presentation 2 – March 6, 2019, 12-1 PM Central

 
The Danger of an Overly-Precise Burn Prescription:
Re-visiting perspectives and knowledge gaps on fire and which factors to consider for measuring success

Presenter

Nathan Holoubek, Wildlife Biologist, Wisconsin DNR

Presentation summary

Prescribed fire is vital to maintaining and promoting many of our highest value cover types in the Midwest. However, we must avoid over-prescribing burn plans and acknowledge that there is much to learn about what factors best predict the success of a given fire for burn planning and monitoring. We will discuss which factors mattered, and which didn’t, for brush control in over 56 prescribed burns in Wisconsin.

We will specifically cover:
•    Perspectives on our understanding of natural fire regimes
•    How standard modeling compares to measured fuels and fire behavior
•    What fire behavior metrics mattered most for brush control
•    Realistic expectations in prescribing burn day conditions in this region
•    What to consider looking at in a prescribed fire monitoring program

Register

This webinar will expand upon research presented at the 2018 Upper Midwest Invasive Species Conference (a PDF copy of that presentation can be downloaded from the Midwest Invasive Plant Network - Impacts of Prescribed Fire Intensity and Seasonality on Woody Vegetation).

Archived: Prescribed Fire Effects on Oak Timber Value

Prescribed Fire Effects on Oak Timber Value

July 20

Presenter: Joe Marschall, University of Missouri Tree-Ring Lab

Coauthors: Michael Stambaugh, Benjamin Knapp

Throughout much of the eastern U.S., prescribed fire is increasingly being applied to manage oak communities including glades, savannas, woodlands, and forests. Prescribed fire can be effective for decreasing woody stems, consuming fuels, opening forest canopies, promoting fire-tolerant tree and shade-intolerant herbaceous species, and restoring plant and animal species of conservation concern. Along with increased use, prescribed burn unit sizes have also trended upward (i.e., landscape-scale), and consequently, fires more frequently burn across sites containing merchantable trees with significant timber product value. Currently, there is much debate about whether applying prescribed fire and managing for timber products are mutually exclusive practices.

This webinar will discuss recent studies from Missouri that have evaluated fire effects on oak timber values. Fire effects will be considered at multiple scales: 1) damage to residual trees, and 2) changes in stand volume and species composition.

Examples of integration of prescribed fire and timber management practices will be provided and a framework for evaluating compatibility of these seemingly competing management objectives will be discussed.

To view the recording there are two options:

1) Register using this link: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/2741191731542926851

2) Or stream through the consortium's Vimeo page, where you can find this talk and more on oak savanna and woodland management.