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The conference organizers have accepted some 93 abstracts for presenting at the conference July 18-20, 2006 in Boulder, Colorado. These abstracts are grouped into three categories. Scientific syntheses and case studies were offered as oral presentations, with subsequent publication on the Forest Threats web site and as a book. The conference also offered a poster session. Abstracts for all three categories are available here.
Encyclopedia ID: p12
Encyclopedia ID: p24
Ned B. Klopfenstein, Mee-Sook Kim, Detlev R. Vogler, Bryce A. Richardson, Jane E. Stewart, and Paul J. Zambino
USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station (1-2,4-6), Washington State University Department of Plant Pathology (4), USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station (3)
Molecular genetic tools (e.g., genetic markers, DNA sequencing, and genomics) provide powerful methods for molecular diagnostics, genetic mapping, DNA fingerprinting, phylogenetic analysis, and population genetics of trees, pathogens, arthropods, invasive plants, and associated organisms in forest ecosystems. Such tools have become invaluable in diverse applications for detecting, assessing, and predicting environmental threats.
In recent years, molecular genetics has yielded a series of diagnostic tools that are essential for identifying, detecting, monitoring, and characterizing forest pathogens. These tools help to identify and monitor the spread of introduced, invasive, or evolving pathogens, and to determine their origins. Among introduced forest pathogens, molecular tools have been used to identify and/or detect Phytophthora ramorum (cause of sudden oak death), Discula destructiva (cause of dogwood anthracnose), Gremmeniella abietina (cause of Scleroderris canker of pines), and Fusarium circinatum (cause of pine pitch canker). Molecular markers have been used to distinguish aggressive races of forest pathogens (e.g., Sphaeropisis sapinea, the cause of diplodia tip blight of pines) and confirm interspecific hybridization among fungi causing poplar leaf rust, Dutch elm disease, Armillaria root rot, and Phytophthora disease of alder. Genetic markers can help identify virulence genes in forest pathogens and delineate pathogenic populations. Molecular genetic tools have been requisite for assessing disease threats, tracking epidemics, and monitoring pathogen change. This information is critical for effective disease management before and after a pathogen has invaded a forest. Similar approaches can be used to characterize arthropods, invasive plants, and nonpathogenic microorganisms associated with decomposition or biological control in forest ecosystems.
Molecular tools also provide essential information for assessing threats to forest trees. Various DNA markers can be used to characterize tree species, tree populations, and individuals. In genetic mapping, correlations between DNA markers and phenotypic traits are identified among progeny of crosses. With tree species, this allows identification of genetic loci controlling disease resistance or other phenotypic traits. At a broader level, genetic markers are useful to examine population structure and genetic diversity within forest tree species. Because genetically distinct tree populations can differ in their phenotypic responses, characterization of tree populations is necessary for meaningful assessment of abiotic and biotic environmental threats.
Recently, approaches that incorporate genetic marker technology, spatial modeling, and Geographic Information System data have been suggested for managing forest threats at the landscape level. Because population genetic structures vary across the environment and populations of forest trees and associated organisms often correspond to geographic features, the focus of management and threat response must be directed at the landscape level. Genetic structure and geographic distribution of pathogens, arthropods, invasive plants, beneficial organisms, and host-tree populations can be compared to site attributes such as temperature, moisture, soil properties, fire history, topographic characteristics, and management practices. Such analyses are critical in development of effective predictive models that will strengthen forest disease risk assessment.
For the near future, one can envision that the use of molecular genetic tools will be rapidly extended to many pathogens, arthropods, invasive plants, host trees, and beneficial microbes in forest ecosystems. Information derived from these molecular genetic tools will expand our understanding of threat assessment in forest management. One future challenge will be to integrate genetic, environmental, and landscape data in searchable databases that will provide end-users with valuable information for diverse applications.
corresponding author:
Ned Klopfenstein
USDA Forest Service
Rocky Mountain Research Station
1221 South Main Street
Moscow, ID 83843
208-883-2310
nklopfenstein@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p115
Eric L. Smith and Andrew J. McMahan
The basis of assessing and predicting threats to forest health lies in being able to relate site and forest conditions to the likelihood and intensity of disruption by organisms and events. One major class of disruption agents are insects and pathogens: “pests” when and where the disruption decreases socially desired forest resource benefits. Since site and stand conditions have long been observed to influence the likelihood and intensity of impacts of a wide range of pests, a number of rating systems, simulation models, and related studied have been developed to assist managers in evaluating conditions, prioritizing treatment areas, and selecting treatments to be applied.
These models, hazard and risk rating systems and others, represent a quantification of a significant portion of the academic and applied knowledge of the nation’s forest pests, and pest risk response to management. These products are potentially useful tools in broad scale threat assessments. They are based on empirical data, knowledge of biological relationships, or constructed by experts with significant experience and insight. Many have been improved through testing or use; and many have some level of acceptance by natural resource professionals. The knowledge represented by these studies and tools represent an investment in time and resources, so if existing studies are not used it is not likely results from new studies would be available soon.
On the other hand, there are statistical, decision analytic, and other quantitative issues to consider when considering the use of these tools for broad scale assessments. These systems have usually been developed and calibrated for a limited geographical region or range of forest conditions. The systems may have been constructed as decision tools with imbedded management assumptions, not appropriate to current conditions. The analysis used in their construction may have been flawed or inappropriate; at least the goodness of fit of statistically-based models needs to be considered. In any case, the original data and analytical details of their construction may no longer be available to verify or modify the analysis. To apply the systems in broad scale assessments, the data for the model variables need to be available and of sufficient quality. Issues regarding the spatial scale of the original analysis relative to that of broad scale assessments should also be considered.
We have identified almost 200 published North American forest pest hazard and risk systems, and related studies and models, which could be considered for use in threat assessments. In this paper, we classify the relevant features of these systems which are needed to evaluate their potential usefulness in broad scale assessments. These features include scope of the original system (pest and host species, geographic or ecological range of application), original purpose (descriptive statistics of a sample, treatment priority ranking, marking or thinning guide, and others); method of analysis or model construction (regression-type analyses, scoring systems, expert opinion or multi-criterion approaches, complex computer simulation models, others); and other relevant factors. The systems and their features will be catalogued in a relational database and summary tables will be presented in this paper. The scope and applicability of existing published systems for specific pests will be compared to the recent and projected activity of these pests.
Additional issues concerning the application of single pest rating systems in ecosystem assessments will be addressed. Many systems provide an ordinal classification of stand hazard (high, medium, low, for example), or an index system which provides an ordinal scoring of conditions. Such systems for individual pests are not easily integrated into an assessment of multiple pests. Where systems produce impact outputs in absolute terms (BA mortality per area), a difficulty arises in representing positive interactions between multiple pest organisms, and consideration of the additivity of the impacts, so that the same tree is not projected as being killed more than once. Although many would consider empirical probability based models (for tree mortality, for example) to be superior to ordinal classification systems, it may be inappropriate to apply a probability model developed at one time and place to a different time and place.
Monitoring Methods Session - Tuesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Eric L. Smith
USDA Forest Service
Forest Health Technology Enterprise Team
2150A Centre Avenue
Fort Collins, CO 80526-8121
970-295-5841
elsmith@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p127
Kenneth Stolte and David Darr
A variety of forces and influences has shaped forest ecosystems throughout the evolutionary history of trees and forests. Native insects and pathogens, extreme weather events, and cyclic fires are part of normal ecosystem structure and function that includes weakening, death, regeneration, recycling, and replacement of trees and forests. Forests are adapted to endemic levels of native insects and pathogens that periodically become epidemic and temporally cause greater effects that recede with time. Periodic extremes of weather or long-term shifts in climate are also natural occurrences and forests adapt in a variety of ways. Fire is also an essential component of forest ecosystems, and provides many beneficial effects when it occurs within normal cycles of frequency and severity.
When these normal processes interfere with human use of forests, the condition may be undesirable but is not ecologically unhealthy or unsustainable.
Evaluating risk to forest health and sustainability necessitates enumeration of the type and magnitude of major stressors (national or regional-scale stressors), and knowledge of the impacts of stressors on forest ecosystems. Understanding the mechanism and severity of stressor effects facilitates understanding the effects of multiple stressors acting additively or synergistically on forest ecosystems. Exotic invasive species (particularly insects, pathogens, and plants); fragmentation and land-use change; air pollution (gases, acids, fertilizers, and climate change); changes in ecosystem processes due to management activities such as fire suppression and selective harvests; and exacerbated populations of native species due to compositional or functional changes in forest ecosystem comprise one list of the top 5 stressors that have, or have potential to, affect tens of millions of acres of forest lands in the U.S.
This paper evaluates the magnitude of effects on forests by many of these major stressors, and area and percent of forests where key ecosystem processes have been altered but the causal agent(s) are unknown. These stressors and effects on forest ecosystems are delimitated by Criterion 3 of the Montreal Process Criteria and Indicators (MPCI). Criterion 3 contains the biotic and abiotic stressors (Indicator 3.a.), air pollution stressors (Indicator 3.b.), and changes in biological indicators of ecological processes or continuity (Indicator 3.c.).
Relatively large areas of forestland in the
Globally, the period 1996 to 2000 was part of the warmest decade (1991–2000) in the historical record, and 1998 was the warmest year since 1861. This observation suggests that temperatures in
The introduction and spread of exotic, invasive species (insects, pathogens, plants, and animals) currently threaten many forest ecosystems. Exotic insects and pathogens have decimated native tree species such as American chestnut, butternut, American elm, eastern hemlocks, dogwoods, American beech, white pine, and others. An estimated 117 exotic insect species have been introduced into the
Exotic pathogens have greatly altered the composition, structure, and function of some forests. Introduced, nonnative pathogens have devastated several native
Sudden Oak Death disease, European pine shoot beetle, and Asian longhorned beetle are other recently introduced pathogens and insects that are damaging trees or forests in the
Kudzu, tree of heaven, and empress tree are a few examples of introduced plants that kill or replace native trees in Eastern forests and cause a general change in forest composition and function. New exotic species that change forest composition, structure, and function continue to be introduced into the U.S. as a result of ever-increasing global commerce despite our knowledge that these damaging agents have been negatively affecting forest health and sustainability for more then a hundred years.
Air pollutants that affect forest health and are of greatest concern fall into three broad categories: (1) acidifying agents (nitrates, sulfates, and other anions), (2) fertilizing agents (N-based compounds, nutrient cations, etc.), and (3) oxidizing agents (primarily ozone). Decreases in the protective stratospheric ozone layer by chlorides, methane, and other gases cause an increase in ultraviolet-B (a type of radiation from the sun) that is a related concern because sparse data is available to evaluate the nature and severity of effects on forest ecosystems, and the area of forests affected.
The response of forest ecosystem processes to known or unknown stressors relies on biological indicators as surrogate measures of effects on these processes because it is difficult or impossible to directly evaluate ecosystem processes at large spatial scales. Thus defoliation and crown dieback gives an estimate of the essential process of photosynthesis, carbon fixation, and photosynthetic efficiency (related to growth) since the amount of foliage is a limit on the amount of carbon that can be fixed. Similarly, mortality volumes are related to key processes such as reproduction, carbon cycling, and seral development. Significant changes in tree crown conditions and mortality volume indicators related to key ecological processes were found over large areas of Western and Eastern forests. It was not possible to associate all observed negative effects with specific causal agents at this time.
Changes in ecological condition from altered fire regimes affect many ecological processes. Changes in historic fire cycles affected all regions, with moderate (condition 2) to substantial (condition 3) changes in historic fire regimes affecting large areas. The absence of fire from many forests for nearly 100 years has exacerbated forest health problems including dwarf mistletoe in many western forests, oak decline in the Ozark and
Fire is sometimes a damaging agent that adversely affects forest productivity with respect to human values. During much of the 20th century, fire prevention and fire suppression greatly reduced tree mortality and soil erosion that had formerly occurred on vast areas of southern and western forests. Such management preserved forests for many desirable uses and contributed to the increasing timber productive capacity of forests throughout the
Monitoring Methods Session - Tuesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Kenneth Stolte
USDA Forest Service
Southern Research Station
3041 E. Cornwallis Road
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
919-549-4022
kstolte@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p124
Frank H. Koch and William D. Smith
Historically,
Humans are increasingly the most important facilitator of forest pest introduction and spread, even at the landscape level. Moreover, with expanding global trade and interstate commerce, the number of potential forest invaders is likely to rise, making the analysis of human-mediated pathways particularly timely. In this synthesis, we present a number of spatial data sources that can be utilized to represent these human-mediated pathways. Collected by federal agencies and private companies for a range of purposes, these data sets can be manipulated to represent forest pest risks either directly or indirectly. Although general in nature, queries can often be used to tailor these data sets to address specific pests. Perhaps most importantly, the source data can usually be acquired for free or at negligible cost.
Using the sudden oak death pathogen (Phytophthora ramorum) and other pests as examples, we illustrate how some of these data sources can be used for mapping risks associated with human-mediated pathways. First, we demonstrate the use of foreign import cargo statistics, both marine and airborne, to assess the risk of introduction of new species at
While many of these data sets are imperfect depictions of human-mediated pathways, integration of several can add significant depth to early-detection/rapid-response projects. For instance, they can be used in conjunction with up-to-date climate and host species data to yield refined epidemiological maps, and as backdrops for simulated forest pest introductions. Furthermore, many of these data sets are applicable for forest threats other than pests. To facilitate further applications, we discuss current limitations, future information needs, and potential sources of additional data regarding human-mediated pathways.
Exotic Pests Session - Tuesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Frank H. Koch
Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources
North Carolina State University
2028 Biltmore Hall
Campus Box 8001
Raleigh, NC 27695
919-549-4006
fkoch@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p126
D.A. Weinstein and P. B. Woodbury
The USDA Forest Service has recognized a need to develop integrated approaches to assess the probable effects of multiple stresses. As part of this effort we conducted a state-of-the-science review of probabilistic regional risk assessment methodologies. The goals of this review were to: (1) Describe methodologies currently in use, identifying the methods that are capable of evaluating the threats to ecosystems from fire and fuels, invasive species, loss of open space, unmanaged outdoor recreation, and other key stresses; (2) Evaluate the usefulness of these methodologies for the Forest Service, including the advantages and disadvantages of each of these methods; and (3) Provide preliminary evaluation of the available databases as sources for these methodologies. This paper presents the conclusions of this analysis, highlighting methods useful for evaluating the risk to fire as an example. A companion paper presents the results of our survey of methods available for evaluating the risk of invasive species.
Much effort has gone into creating a capability of predicting fires throughout the region, both in their likely location and frequency. To create this capability, fire modeling systems have been established using a fine-scale grid of data on the landscape, such as fuel loads, vegetation, and climate trends. For example, LANDFIRE is a system that has been adopted by the Forest Service for assessing the risk of fire throughout the U.S. LANDFIRE depends heavily for this assessment on well-tested models such as FARSITE.
The great proliferation of fire modeling systems in different portions of the
Maintaining so many different types of models might be unwieldy and confusing to potential users. However, we strongly advocate that fire risk be estimated by a number of fire models run in parallel. If different models, especially those using different approaches and different data, predict similar patterns of risk, it will increase confidence in these predictions and make them more useful for management decisions.
corresponding author:
David Weinstein
Cornell University
Department of Natural Resources
8 Fernow Hall
Ithaca NY, 14853
607-351-4214
daw5@cornell.edu
Encyclopedia ID: p121
P.B. Woodbury and D.A. Weinstein
We conducted a state-of-the-science review of probabilistic regional risk assessment methodologies to identify the methods that are currently in use and capable of evaluating the threats to ecosystems from fire and fuels, invasive species, loss of open space, unmanaged outdoor recreation, and other key stresses. In a companion paper we highlight methods useful for evaluating the risk to fire. In this paper we give the results of our survey of methods available for evaluating the risk of invasive species.
The issue of invasive species is large and complex because there are thousands of potential invasive species, and there is constant movement of new and established plants, plant material, pests and pathogens. The most cost-effective approach is to control invasive species very early in the process of transport from the native range and entry. However, even a semi-quantitative “rule-based’ approach can help to identify locations that contain susceptible host species for specific pathogens or insect pests, and where propagules are more likely to enter based on the current locations of the invasive species, ports of entry, and methods of spread. Predicting long distance movement is much more difficult, as such events are rare, often poorly understood, and are often influenced by human behavior. Published methods to make probabilistic predictions of pest establishment could be expanded to provide quantitative estimates of spread beyond an initial port of entry. Many invasive species are transported along roads, and so road networks provide some information about the likelihood of introduction into a new region. Unmanaged recreation and land use change including forest fragmentation and ex-urban development are key interacting factors for assessing the risk of invasive species. .
Models based on fundamental biological and physical processes, such as population demographics and movement of organisms, are preferable to correlative statistical approaches. These may be useful to quantify the overlap in spatial distribution of stressors and ecological receptors. Process-based models may be extended with some confidence beyond the range of available data because they use predictor variables that represent physical and biological processes. The use of data on non-indigenous species to predict the occurrence of much rarer invasive species may be quite useful because the correlation is based on the key processes of human-influenced transport, establishment, reproduction, and dispersal of propagules. If the number of non-indigenous species in a region can be predicted based on some measure of the transportation network, or other environmental factor, one could extrapolate to future conditions with more roads or a higher traffic volume. Ecological niche modeling approaches are useful because they can use data from museum collections in other countries to make estimates of potential new range areas in the
As for any regional stressor, the use of multiple models and a weight of evidence approach would help to increase confidence in predictions of ecological risks from invasive species. Two approaches to predicting the risk of Asian long-horned beetle throughout
corresponding author:
P.B. Woodbury
Department of Crop and Soil Sciences
Cornell University
1017 Bradfield Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853
607-254-1216
pbw1@cornell.edu
Encyclopedia ID: p122
Brian W. Geils and Geral
Rocky Mountain Research Station
Managers of wildland ecosystems attempt to mitigate perceived risks, vulnerabilities and costs in the search for ecosystem sustainability. The science of risk analysis provides conceptual frameworks and assessment procedures for describing failure probabilities and consequences—usually with statistics and social-economic valuation. Risk analysis consists of three fundamental activities. On the basis of experience or expectation, a yet unrealized event is recognized as a potential threat to some management goal or value. When a warning from monitoring or research is received, event probability, extent, and severity are projected (e.g., a pest risk map). Concurrently, assessments are made of the values at risk and alternative costs of mitigation. For wildland managers values include such abstract goals as sustainability, forest health, resource productivity, and ecosystem integrity. The first challenge is to specified quantifiable objectives. Important considerations are estimation of uncertainty and the realization that intervention can modify but not completely determine the behavior of complex, natural ecosystems.
Although a diversity of users and context provides a rich source of ideas, all analysis is constrained by the world view of analysts and colored by their specific terminology (paradigm). Regarding management of wildland ecosystems, the extant world view favors equilibrium, historic conditions (or a range of reference conditions) and certainty of outcome. Ecological threats are viewed as those causing departures from the desired equilibrium and correction requires return the previous “natural” state. Management is perceived as an engineering problem of local and immediate control. An alternative view, however, recognizes that ecosystems are dynamic and connected—entrained by larger and slower systems of the hierarchy and resilient due to legacy structures and processes at the internal and lower levels. Ecosystem response after disturbance can be contingent on initial conditions and only predictable within a general (chaotic) or new (catastrophic) range. Ecological threats of special interest are those from eruptive populations (e.g., bark beetles and defoliators) and immigrant or emergent invasives (e.g., stem rusts or root diseases). The challenge of managers is how to facilitate the ecological and genetic accommodation of host and parasite populations with desirable outcomes. Promising new approaches for assessing risk are suggested from new multidisciplinary efforts under titles such as landscape genetics and landscape pathology.
In this synthesis, we present and support a conceptual framework for risk analysis based on the premise that system behavior (ecosystems or pathosystem) is determined by local conditions and specific historic and spatial connections. Spatial domains of various sizes are characterized by common environmental drivers such as temperature, rainfall, soil type, and insolation, Spatial domains are repeated across the landscape; their location can move with shifts of the environmental drivers (are sensitive to climate and land use changes). The biotic communities inhabiting these spatial domains have evolutionary histories influenced by varying time and spatial scales; and when perturbed, they exhibit the potential for multiple stable states. This new world view of ecosystems places a premium on an informed understanding of local dynamics and constraints. Certain forest insects, fungi, and other parasites or symbionts have an enduring, intimate association with their forest tree hosts (dominant vegetation and spatial domain partners). These associations have significant ecological and evolutionary significance that is meaningful for projecting the responses of wildland ecosystems to various disturbances.
We present evidence for the validity and utility of a model of evolutionarily significant units (ESU). These units represent long-term biotic interactions in a geographical location affecting ecological functions, resulting from persistent genetic discontinuities. We suggest these discontinuities are congruent over taxa, often form at geographic barriers, but can form in the absence of such barriers, and often have pervasive effects on host–parasite interactions. These zones may be demonstrated by changes in adaptive traits using techniques of landscape genetics (molecular makers). The ESU model provides an opportunity to more realistically map and project threats to wildland ecosystems from native and introduced forest pests. Specific examples are illustrated with white pine blister rust, fusiform rust, Armillaria root rot, budworm, and other disturbance agents.
corresponding author:
Brian W. Geils
USDA Forest Service
Rocky Mountain Research Station
2500 South Pine Knoll Drive
Flagstaff, AZ 86001
928-556-2076
bgeils@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p123
Kurt Riitters, James Wickham, Timothy Wade, and John Coulston
USDA
Advances in landscape ecology, remote sensing, and geographic information systems have enabled status and trends reporting of forest fragmentation and other aspects of landscape spatial pattern at national to global scales. Until now, the information has been used mainly for ecological monitoring and for indicator-based environmental “report cards,” for example in international reports by the Montréal Process and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, and national reports by Forest Health Monitoring, the
The first part of this paper provides a synthesis of the science and technology of landscape pattern analysis as it relates to large-area ecological risk assessment. A key element of landscape assessment is the availability of consistent maps at national to global scales and we summarize the available data and prospects for improvements. A brief review of pertinent theory in landscape ecology will set the stage for a synthesis of our research over the past decade that has focused on advances in large-area landscape assessment protocols. Because future risk is tied directly to current conditions, we also provide an overall summary of forest spatial patterns in the
The second part of this paper focuses on the plan for a forward-looking risk assessment of landscape patterns in the 2010 RPA Assessment. The approach is motivated partly by our pragmatic perspective because this is a real-world risk assessment that must be completed in less than two years without substantial funding. The plan makes the best use of the available data and does not rely on data or research results that will not be available. Motivation comes also from a top-down assessment perspective that is consistent with a multiple-scale landscape ecological view of risk to all ecological endpoints in forested ecosystems. A novel feature of our approach is that it focuses on pattern itself, rather than on the endpoints that depend on pattern; if a landscape-scale forest pattern changes substantially, then all of the pattern-dependent ecological processes embedded in the landscape are at risk, even if all of the fine-scale details cannot be predicted. The plan is to use relatively coarse-scale data and models to identify specific locations at highest risk, and which aspects of forest pattern are at risk. The expectation is that local to regional cases of interest will receive more detailed follow-up investigation, if warranted. In summary, our assessment is designed to identify specific locations for remediation or prevention, to suggest general strategies for landscape pattern management that will be most effective at those locations, and to assist in prioritization of efforts by national policy formulators and land management agencies. We will use examples drawn from the literature of biodiversity, water quality, and invasive species to demonstrate these concepts and contrast them with traditional bottom-up approaches to ecological risk assessment.
corresponding author:
Kurt Riitters
USDA
3041 E. Cornwallis Road
Research Triangle Park,
919-549-4015
kriitters@fs.fed.us
note: oral presentation only
Encyclopedia ID: p111
Deborah Page-Dumroese, Martin Jurgensen, Carl Trettin, Mike Curran , and Dan Neary
USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station (1,5) and Southern Research Station (3), Michigan Technological University (2), and British Columbia Ministry of Forests (4)
Maintenance of soil quality is an outcome government agencies and landowners strive to achieve after site management to maintain site productivity, hydrologic function, and ecosystem health. Soil disturbance resulting from timber harvesting, prescribed fire, or site preparation activities can cause declines, improvements, or have no effect on site productivity and hydrologic function. Soil resource information can be used to determine the stress level and ecosystem functions of stands and may be one method used to determine disease or insect outbreak risk. Soil physical properties, water regimes, and biogeochemical properties are key characteristics that can be affected by soil disturbance and in turn affect site quality and the susceptibility of stands to insects and disease outbreaks. In addition, overstocked stands, increased climatic variation, drought, type conversion, and susceptibility to wildfire can contribute to changes in soil quality that leads to outbreaks of insects and diseases in many ecosystems. For example, changes in ecosystem properties associated with changes in overstory properties alter the resilience of these stands. Similarly, loss of western white pine in the northwestern USA from blister rust infection has caused a type conversion to forest species that are not tolerant of root diseases, are not fire resistant and sequester nutrients in the surface mineral soil and tree crown that can later be lost through logging or fire. In the southwestern USA, overstocked ponderosa pine stands become water and nutrient stressed leading to insect outbreaks and catastrophic wildfires. These relationships and others can be used in conjunction with soil resource data bases to assess susceptibility to threats and to help develop management strategies to mitigate disturbances.
Land Session - Wednesday Afternoon
corrresponding author:
Deborah Page-Dumroese
USDA Forest Service
Rocky Mountain Research Station
1221 S. Main
Moscow, ID 83843
208-883-2339
ddumroese@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p131
Virginia H. Dale
Department of Energy Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Ecological risk assessment (ERA) has been practiced for approximately 20 years in a variety of environmental applications. At a recent workshop sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency, researchers and practitioners came together to discuss their cumulative experience, and suggest steps for improving the utility of ecological risk assessments in environmental decision-making. Workshop participants addressed ecological risk assessments in three decision-making contexts: product health and safety; management of contaminated sites, and natural resource protection. For each of the three decision-making applications, workshop participants evaluated four over-arching issues: problem formulation and hypothesis testing; spatial and temporal scale; biological scale; and decision-making in the presence of uncertainty. The workshop participants came to several conclusions. Problem formulation is a critical step in ERA and requires: improved communication between risk managers and risk assessors; careful consideration of critical ecological attributes; and moving beyond traditional null hypothesis testing and toward innovative analytical approaches (e.g., Bayesian analysis, causal argumentation). Current methods are available to conduct ERA’s at different spatial, temporal and biological scales. However, effective implementation of landscape level ERA’s requires more relevant data and explicit guidance to better integrate multiple lines of evidence for a range of biological responses. The utility of ERA’s for decision-making can also be increased by: probabilistic risk assessment methods that include quantitative uncertainty estimates. Finally, the uncertainty associated with ERA’s will also be assisted by systematic approaches in post-ERA monitoring, and data collection and storage.
corresponding author:
Virginia H. Dale
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Bethel Valley Road, Building 1505, Room 200
P.O. Box 2008
Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6036
865-576-8043
dalevh@ornl.gov
note: oral presentation only
Encyclopedia ID: p132
T.L. Shore, A. Fall, W.G. Riel, J. Hughes, and M. Eng
Several bark beetle species, mostly in the family Scolytidae, have the potential for dramatic population increases under favorable forest and climate conditions which can result in landscape scale mortality to the host tree species. For example, the mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopk.) has killed between 20% and 30% of mature lodgepole pine over 10 million ha in
Landscape-scale risk assessment of bark beetle infestation aims to quantify the spatial and temporal likelihood of attack extent and severity. We have developed and applied a range of methods from structural risk (i.e. strictly assessing patterns) to functional risk (i.e. assessing interactions and feedbacks between pattern and process).
Susceptibility and risk rating systems classify each stand or grid cell of a landscape according to local characteristics (e.g. stand age, distance to nearest attack). As such, these approaches are temporally static with limited spatial accounting, but have the benefit of limited data requirements and ease of application. Although likely pathways and interactions with management cannot be identified, the mountain pine beetle (MPB) susceptibility and risk rating system remains one of the most widely used tools.
Spatial connectivity assessment increases the spatial dimension from rating systems. Our approach to connectivity assessment uses spatial graphs to analyze scales at which patches of susceptible hosts are well-connected, in particular with existing attack. These methods are relatively easy to apply and data requirements are fairly modest (although information on movement cost/impedance is required). Although still static in nature, likely pathways can be identified, and large areas can still be processed efficiently.
Empirical information on infestation progression can be used to increase the temporal dimension with semi-Markovian projection models. These methods require moderate effort to develop and data requirements, requiring historical time series information. A key assumption is that future outbreak dynamics will mimic past trends. However, they allow trends to be identified and interaction with management scenarios to be explored.
Dynamic population models make a shift to a more process-oriented approach to modeling outbreak dynamics by explicitly capturing demographic changes in space and time with processes of mortality, birth, dispersal, etc. Such approaches require substantial effort to develop and have fairly high data requirements, in particular the need for a reasonable understanding of beetle biology and interactions with hosts at relatively fine scales. The advantage is a closer match with the ecological process, and greater ability to assess interactions with management.
Individual-based dispersal models allow more detailed exploration of how beetles may interact functionally with a landscape. However, such approaches are generally prohibitive at the landscape scale due to lack of sufficient data (both for details of landscape pattern and beetles) as well as computing power (especially for a large outbreak).
We have developed and applied the above methods, with the exception of the latter, for assessing MPB risk at landscape scales in pine forests of
corresponding author:
Dr. Terry L. Shore
Natural Resource Canada
Canadian Forest Service
506 W. Burnside Rd.
Victoria BC Canada V8Z 1M5
250 363-0666
tshore@pfc.forestry.ca
Encyclopedia ID: p114
Robert H. Beach, Erin O. Sills, Tzu-Ming Liu, and Subhrendu K. Pattanayak
RTI International, North Carolina State University, North Carolina State University and RTI International respectively
Severe weather events that bring high winds and/or heavy precipitation (e.g., hurricanes and ice storms) regularly cause major disturbances to U.S. forests, significantly impacting both ecological conditions and economic returns to forest landowners. Forest landowners may suffer from the loss of merchantable timber; increased risk of wildlife, disease, and pests in damaged stands; and depressed timber prices in the immediate aftermath of events that cause widespread damage. These risks have a substantial impact on the expected economic returns to forestry as well as leading to distributional impacts among producers and between consumers and producers. This has led to considerable interest in identifying factors that influence damage levels as well as ways to mitigate damages. Anecdotally, many forest managers associate damage with silvicultural activities such as thinning. However, previous studies have focused almost exclusively on biophysical properties of forest plots or individual trees to explain differences in damages without explicitly examining the role of landowners’ forest management decisions. Overlooking the impacts of management decisions on the risk of weather damages may lead to inefficient decision-making by policy-makers and private landowners.
Timberland throughout the U.S. South has been affected by a number of major hurricanes over the past century (Lutz 2005). Hurricane strength winds can cause severe defoliation and can directly damage and kill trees through uprooting, breakage and loss of minor and major branches, as well as stem breakage. For example, Hurricane Hugo damaged over one-third of South Carolina’s timberland in 1989. The damaged volume of timber was estimated to be 1.3 billion cubic feet (Remion, 1990). Major ice storms may also result in substantial damages or death for affected trees due to branch and stem breakage. In January of 1998, an ice storm hit southeastern Canada and the northeastern U.S. and damaged over 10 million hectares of forestland (Irland, 1998; Miller-Weeks, Eager, and Peterson, 1999).
The immediate loss of timber is not the only risk imposed by weather events. The increased number of broken and uprooted trees raises the risk of wildfires as well as disease and pest outbreaks for the surviving trees. Forest landowners also may be affected by depressed timber prices, at least in the short run. Production risk has an unambiguous negative impact on optimal rotation length, expected returns to forestland, and land value, although the effects of price risk are ambiguous (Prestemon and Holmes, 2000; Prestemon, Pye, and Holmes, 2001).
In this paper, we review and synthesize the literature on the risk of forest damages from severe weather, the factors that influence risk, and alternatives for mitigating risk. Damage severity depends on the interaction of numerous factors related to biological, topographical, and stand characteristics. For instance, although wind speed is the most important factor contributing to timber losses due to high winds, topography and soil conditions also determine a stand’s resistance to wind loading. From the perspective of forest managers, a key question is what they can do to decrease the risk to a given tract of timberland. Forest management can change susceptibility to wind damage through effects on stand characteristics such as tree species, tree height, tree diameter, crown area, rooting depth and width, and stand density (Kerzenmacher and Gardiner, 1998; Peltola et al., 1999; Peltola et al., 2000; Dunham and Cameron, 2000). Stand age and forest structure may also contribute to vulnerability of forest to high winds (Everham and Brokaw, 1996; Francis, 2000; Mitchell, 1995; Ruel, 1995). Similar factors have been related to the degree of ice damage to forests (Bragg, Shelton, and Zeide 2003). Thus, we can identify options for mitigating weather risk, including choices about tree species, silvicultural practices such as bedding and fertilization, and thinning regimes (Persson, 1975; Lohmander and Helles, 1987; Zeng et al., 2004; and Olofsson and Blennow, 2005).
To illustrate findings from the literature, we examine the impacts of Hurricane Fran on forests in North Carolina. Using Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data and a simulated wind field generated with the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s HAZUS-MH model, we estimate the influence of forest management decisions on the probability and magnitude of storm damages, controlling for other biophysical factors. This type of empirical analysis can inform forest management decisions and increase the efficiency of public policy that encourages timber stand management and compensates landowners for weather damages.
Air and Water Session - Thursday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Robert H. Beach
RTI International
3040 Cornwallis Road
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-2194
919-485-5579
rbeach@rti.org
Encyclopedia ID: p118
Alejandro A. Royo and Walter P. Carson
USDA Forest Service Northeastern Research Station and University of Pittsburgh Department of Biological Sciences
Exotic invasive plants are recognized as serious threats to forest ecosystems and have received considerable attention from the scientific community for decades. Less emphasized are the many native forest understory plants that rapidly increase their spatial distribution following multiple disruptions to an ecosystem’s natural dynamics. In many cases, these species expand and form persistent, monodominant thickets. No matter where these native plant invasions occur, they are characterized by one or more of the following: 1) The understory layer typically has greater vegetation cover and lower diversity than was common in forest understories in the past. 2) This layer can delay stand renewal and alter species composition by inhibiting tree regeneration. 3) Once this layer is formed it can resist displacement by other species and remain intact for decades. In this paper we evaluate the processes that trigger the expansion of several plant species native to temperate and boreal forests across North America and review their ecological characteristics to provide general guidelines in assessing native invasion risk in forest stands.
We argue that major anthropogenic changes to disturbance and browsing regimes bring about the monopolization of the forest understory by native plants. In all cases reviewed, aggressive understory plant expansion followed alterations in overstory disturbance regimes. Although these disruptions included predictable and manageable impacts such as tree harvesting, other less predictable overstory disturbance agents including catastrophic fires, insect outbreaks, and pathogens were involved. Assessing and managing risk from these alternative threats is challenging as their occurrence is often erratic, hard to control, and not limited by land ownership and administrative boundaries. In majority of the cases (>60%) the risk to forest understories was particularly acute if the effects of multiple stressors occurred in a stand, either in tandem or within a short period of time. Specifically, the synergy between overstory disturbance and uncharacteristic fire regimes or increased herbivory strongly controls species richness and leads to depauperate understories dominated by one or a few species.
We suggest that aggressive expansion by native understory plant species can be explained by considering their ecological requirements in addition to their environmental context. Some plant species are particularly invasive by virtue of having life-history attributes that match one or more of the opportunities afforded by multiple disturbances. Increased overstory disturbance selects for shade-intolerant species with rapid rates of vegetative spread over slower growing shade-tolerant herbs and shrubs. Altered fire regimes select for only those species that can survive the fire or resprout thereafter. Finally, overbrowsing selects for only those species that are well defended or tolerant to browsing. Ultimately, these processes create novel conditions that favor only a small subset of species that possess some combination of the following life-history characteristics: rapid vegetative growth, relatively shade-intolerant, fire-tolerant, and herbivore-tolerant. The result is a low diversity but dense understory that can persist for long periods of time even if the canopy closes.
The framework advanced by this review will help guide land managers in assessing the risk of native understory plant invasion within their stands. We suggest vigilant monitoring of stand conditions to ensure that alterations to the overstory and understory disturbance regimes do not operate concurrently, particularly when control over these factors falls under the purview of different management agencies (e.g. wild game vs. forestry management agencies). We caution that decisions regarding partial or complete overstory removals should consider a site’s understory conditions including inadequate advance regeneration, presence of clonal understory plants, fire history, and high herbivore impact. Finally, we suggest the implementation of management practices that more closely resemble natural disturbance levels.
Native Pests Session - Wednesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Alejandro A. Royo
USDA Forest Service
Northern Research Station
P.O. Box 267
Irvine, PA 16329-0267
814-563-1040
aroyo@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p117
Andrew Liebhold, Patrick Tobin, and Kurt Gottschalk
USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station
The process of biological invasion is recognized to be composed of three distinct phases: arrival, establishment and spread. In this review, we concentrate on spread which refers to the expansion of a newly established alien species into suitable portions of the exotic habitat. Understanding the processes that facilitate spread of an alien pest species is critical to the development of strategies for retarding or containing its expansion into new areas. Furthermore, prediction of spread may be of critical importance to development of forest management plans where the pest is expected to invade in the future. We present here a review of the literature on the population ecology of range expansion and provide a discussion, illustrated with examples, of how spread predictions can be integrated with landscape-level forest composition data to aid decision-making.
Most of our understanding of range expansion by alien species has it roots in two papers published in the 1950’s. The first of these was by Skellam who formed a simple reaction-diffusion model that combines exponential population growth with random (diffusive) dispersal. Around the same time, Fisher proposed a model for the spread of an advantageous allele by combining logistic growth with random movement. An elegant property that emerges from both of these models is that the asymptotic rate of radial expansion should be constant and can be predicted as 2 * sqrt(r * D), where r is the intrinsic rate of population growth and D is the diffusion coefficient. While these models greatly simplified many aspects of spread, they have performed remarkably well at capturing the dynamics of spread of many different types of organisms. They also provide an elegant representation of how spread is completely determined by either population growth or by movement; any characteristic of a species or a habitat that affect either of these will affect spread.
One feature of many alien species that has been found to greatly influence rates of spread is the mechanism of dispersal. Some species may be capable of more than one mode of dispersal (e.g., passive movement plus accidental movement by humans) and this feature, termed “stratified diffusion”, has been shown to greatly influence rates of spread. Instead of gradually expanding into contiguous areas, such species may “jump” ahead of the expanding population front and form isolated colonies that expand and coalesce. The movements that cause populations to “jump” ahead are thus of critical importance in determining where and how fast populations will spread. Furthermore, this population behavior provides opportunities for containing the spread of a species; any action that either diminishes jumping or retards the growth of isolated colonies may be an effective approach to limiting range expansion.
Without some understanding of the population biology of an organism, it is impossible to predict spread with any meaningful level of precision. In addition geographical variation in land use and forest composition may affect growth and dispersal of invading populations and thereby affect spread rates, but these effects may be complex and difficult to predict. Landscape-level data on forest composition may thus be of some value in predicting spread but may be even more useful for predicting impacts of pests once they have established in new areas. Bioeconomic models that incorporate geographical variability in forest composition may be of critical value in predicting pest impacts and identifying strategies for minimizing future impacts.
corresponding author:
Andrew Liebhold
USDA Forest Service
Northern Research Station
180 Canfield Street
Morgantown, WV 26505
304-285-1512
aliebhold@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p112
USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station
Over 1.5 million fires are set by arsonists each year in the
Research since the 1980s has shown some scope for interventions into wildland arson wildfire processes, in order to reduce their frequency and social impacts. A study by Donoghue and
We also contend that advances in our understanding of this phenomenon can be obtained by evaluating how wildland arson fits into the broader picture of crime. Until recently, wildland arson research has ignored recent findings that have documented spatial and temporal autocorrelation of criminal activities (hotspots) (e.g., Bowers and Johnson 2004). An understanding of wildland arson could also be enhanced by incorporating ideas regarding how crime is related to economic conditions (e.g., Burdett et al. 2003, Gould et al. 2002) and social phenomena and deviance (e.g., Surrette 2002, Jacob and Lefgren 2003).
The objectives of this paper are to (1) place wildland arson into the context of other sources of wildfire ignitions and wildfire damages in various parts of the United States and other countries; (2) place wildland arson into the context of crime, especially how wildland arson activity is related to and compares with other criminal activity; (3) outline recent empirical research and the methods used to describe wildland arson, with a particular focus on the timing and spatial relationships of arson ignitions and how ignitions are related to socioeconomic variables, drawing upon research in the
Fire Session - Thursday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Jeffrey P. Prestemon
USDA Forest Service
Southern Research Station
PO Box 12254
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
919-549-4033
jprestemon@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p119
Paul G. Schaberg, Eric K. Miller, and Cristopher Eagar
USDA Forest Service Northeastern Research Station (1,3) and Ecosystems Research Group(2)
Considerable evidence now indicates that hydrogen ion (H+), nitrogen (N) and sulfur (S) additions from anthropogenic pollutant sources contribute to the leaching and depletion base cations such as calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg) and potassium (K) from forest soils and ecosystems. Although the depletion of base cations can have varied and interacting influences on ecosystem function, it is the loss of Ca that may be particularly limiting to tree health and productivity. In contrast to other cations, Ca is not mobile in the phloem and is often immobilized in plant tissues in insoluble forms - processes that limit its biological availability and redistribution. In addition, Ca is often concentrated outside of cell membranes, uniquely increasing its vulnerability to direct leaching loss. Because Ca is an essential plant nutrient, Ca depletion raises important questions concerning the continued health and sustainability of forest ecosystems. Ca plays critical roles in plant cell function, including enhancing the stability of cell walls and membranes, and signal transduction processes that allow cells to sense and respond to stress. Considering these roles, Ca deficiency is expected to reduce tree growth and increase forest decline following exposure to even “normal” levels of stress that otherwise would pose no threat.
Controlled experiments with red spruce, sugar maple, and other species provide mechanistic support for theoretical expectations regarding the impacts of Ca depletion on tree health and productivity. For example, both H+ and N additions have been shown to reduce available Ca in red spruce foliage, simultaneously reducing foliar cold tolerance and increasing winter injury and crown degradation. New experimental evidence indicates that Ca depletion down-regulates another Ca-dependent process (stomatal closure), predisposing red spruce to drought damage. Data show that other tree species (eastern hemlock, balsam fir, and eastern white pine) experience the same mechanistic changes in Ca nutrition and physiology documented for red spruce. Importantly, many real-world examples for a variety of tree species (sugar maple decline, dogwood susceptibility to anthracnose, and hemlock susceptibility to the hemlock wooly adelgid) show that injury is often greater when Ca depletion and stress exposure co-occur.
Concerns about the influence of H+ and N deposition on Ca nutrition and forest health exist for industrialized regions around the world including eastern North America, Europe, and increasingly China. Indeed, especially in regions with low inherent soil fertility and/or high precipitation leaching, management options that either add Ca to systems or decrease its removal are being examined and sometimes employed. However, because not all tree species access, sequester or require Ca in equal levels, uniform standards for assessing thresholds in Ca depletion that require managerial actions remain elusive.
An alternative approach to defining plant-based thresholds for Ca deficiency is to model critical loads and exceedances in pollutant additions that likely disrupt ecosystem Ca cycles and lead to net losses in Ca pools within forests. For example, spatial associations of Ca cycling and loss to broad-scale data on forest health and productivity were recently conducted for portions of the northeastern United States. A steady-state ecosystem process model was coupled to extensive spatial databases and used to generate maps identifying forest areas likely to experience Ca depletion. Sustainable Ca supplies in forest ecosystems are functions of forest type, timber extraction intensity, prior land-use, atmospheric deposition rates, and site factors including climate, hydrology, and soil mineral weathering rates. Considering the unique vulnerability of Ca to leaching loss and its vital role in supporting tree stress response systems, the model focuses on how changes in Ca pools may influence forest health conditions. The model-based nutrient deficiency metric is a good predictor of independent “on-the-ground” indicators of current forest health and productivity. For oak and pine forests in Massachusetts, tree height and canopy transparency were significantly related to foliar Ca levels. A separate evaluation also showed promising results: a comparison of model results with multiple-year aerial surveys of forest damage in Vermont indicated that both the frequency of damage and size of damaged areas were related to modeled Ca deficiency. This model-based threat assessment identified 18-30% of NH and VT forests to be at risk of anthropogenic Ca depletion under current atmospheric deposition and harvesting rates.
Land Session - Wednesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Paul Schaberg
USDA Forest Service
Northeastern Research Station
705 Spear Street
Box 968
Burlington, VT 05402-0968
802-951-6771 x1120
pschaberg@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p130
Bernard R. Parresol
USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station
Uncertainties in models can be classified as natural, model, and data uncertainties. Environmental and biological systems are inherently stochastic. Some variables are random in principle, while other variables that are precisely measurable are modeled as random quantities as a practical matter due to the cost and/or effort involved with continuous measurement. Some quantities vary over time, over space, or across individuals in a population; this is termed variability. The differences in uncertainty and variability are relevant in decision making. The knowledge of the frequency distribution for variability can guide the identification of significant subpopulations which merit more focused study. In contrast, the knowledge of uncertainty can aid in determining areas where additional research or alternative measurement techniques are needed to reduce uncertainty. Mathematical models are simplified representations of the phenomena being studied. The structure of mathematical models used to represent biological systems is often a key source of uncertainty. Different sources of model uncertainties can be summarized as follows. (1) Model structure: uncertainty arises when there are alternative sets of assumptions for developing a model. (2) Model detail: often, models are simplified for purposes of tractability. (3) Extrapolation: models that are valid for one portion of input space may be completely inappropriate for making predictions in other regions of the parameter space. And (4) model resolution: selection of a spatial and/or temporal grid size often involves uncertainty. Uncertainties in data stem from a variety of sources. Some uncertainties arise from measurement errors such as random errors in analytic devices or systematic biases from imprecise calibration. Other potential sources of uncertainties include misclassification, estimation of parameters through a small sample, and estimation of parameters through non-representative samples. Uncertainty associated with model formulation and application can also be classified as reducible and irreducible. Reducible uncertainty can be lowered by better inventory methods, improved instrumentation, and improvements in model formulation.
Various approaches for representing uncertainty can be summarized as follows. (1) Classical set theory: uncertainty is expressed by sets of mutually exclusive alternatives in situations where one alternative is desired. This includes diagnostic, predictive and retrodictive uncertainties. (2) Probability theory: uncertainty is expressed in terms of a measure on subsets of a universal set of alternatives (events). The uncertainty measure is a function that assigns a number between 0 and 1 to each subset of the universal set. This number, called probability of the subset, expresses the likelihood that the desired unique alternative is in this subset. (3) Fuzzy set theory: fuzzy sets, similar to classical sets, are capable of expressing nonspecificity. In addition, they are also capable of expressing vagueness. Vagueness is different from nonspecificity in the sense that vagueness emerges from imprecision of definitions. In fuzzy sets, membership is a matter of degree. (4) Fuzzy measure theory: this theory considers a number of special classes of measures, each of which is characterized by a special property. Some of the measures used in this theory are plausibility and belief measures, and the classical probability measures. Fuzzy measure theory and fuzzy set theory are notably different. In fuzzy set theory, the conditions for the membership of an element into a set are vague, whereas in fuzzy measure theory, the conditions are precise, but the information about an element is insufficient to determine whether it satisfies those conditions. (5) Rough set theory: a rough set is an imprecise representation of a crisp set in terms of two subsets, a lower approximation and an upper approximation.
The aim of sensitivity analysis is to estimate the rate of change in the output of a model with respect to changes in model inputs. Such knowledge is important for evaluating the applicability of the model, determining parameters for which it is important to have more accurate values, and understanding the behavior of the system being modeled. Conventional methods for sensitivity analysis and uncertainty propagation can be broadly classified into three categories: (1) sensitivity testing, (2) analytical methods, and (3) sampling based methods. Sensitivity testing involves studying model response for a set of changes in model formulation, and for selected model parameter combinations. Some of the widely used analytical methods for sensitivity/uncertainty are: (a) differential analysis methods, (b) Green’s function method, (c) spectral based stochastic finite element method, and (d) coupled and decoupled direct methods. Sampling based methods involve establishing a relationship between inputs and outputs using the model results at the sample points. Some of the widely used sampling based sensitivity/uncertainty analysis methods are: (a)
Statistical Methods Session - Wednesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Bernard R. Parresol
USDA Forest Service
Southern Research Station
200 WT Weaver Boulevard
Asheville, NC 28804
828-259-0500
bparresol@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p125
Ralph J. Alig, Susan Stewart, David Nowak, David Wear, Susan Stein
Socio-economic forces drive forestland conversion, which is an issue because it results in substantial changes in ecosystem attributes. Landowners face increasing opportunity costs to keep land in forests as rising values for other land uses make forest ownership and return-on-forest investment less viable. When a forest is converted to a developed use, the loss of ecosystem services is direct and immediate, with some permanent habitat loss. For example, wildlife or fish species dependent on privately owned bottomlands at certain times of the year may disappear as these private lands are developed, regardless of quality of habitat remaining on adjacent public land.
Our synthesis paper examines trends in forest land conversions, use of theory in testing hypotheses and estimating models, empirical application of models in projections of forest land base changes, and policy implications of findings. Recent trends indicate the deforestation of more than one million
Land use theory guides research investigating determinants of forestland conversion. The conceptual model posits that landowners choose to develop land when the present value of the future stream of net returns generated by the land in a developed use exceeds the present value of the land remaining in forest use. Land markets demonstrate (via revealed behavior) what people are willing to pay to for alternative uses of land, such as for a developed use compared to forest use. With this economic theory as a foundation, impacts of population growth and rising personal incomes can be analyzed to model relationships between forest area change and other variables. Geo-referenced data now facilitates estimation of spatial land use change models.
Empirical applications of such models project land use change impacting forestry. The U.S. population is predicted to grow from 281 million in 2000 to 403 million by 2050, a major factor in projections that more than 50 million acres of nonfederal U.S. forests could be converted to urban and other developed uses in the next 50 years. In addition, tens of millions of acres of remaining private forests are projected to have increases in housing density. The Forests on the Edge project assessed threats to water quality and other forest benefits and impacts on nearby National Forests as more houses are built in private forests, and ranked watersheds by threat from development. Implications of these trends include greater edge effects that increase the risk of fire ignition, exotic species invasion, loss of wildlife habitat, and other disturbances.
We compare alternate projections to determine their sensitivity to model type and major assumptions; to assess uncertainty; and to compare them across spatial and temporal dimensions. From this we construct a composite outlook projecting near-term and long-term threats of forestland conversion, including identification of at-risk forests.
Policy implications and challenges include maintaining a robust suite of forest-based benefits (e.g., open space) in the face of continuing population growth. We discuss use of research-based findings to inform policy deliberations regarding risk mitigation alternatives pertaining to land use and forest benefits. Risk management involves intersectoral considerations; forestry is one of many possible land uses. Drivers of change such as urbanization affect many measures of resource condition, as examined in Renewable Resources Planning Act Assessments. Solutions to address conversions of forest land must be multi-faceted and should include improved valuation of forest-based environmental services. Land values provide important signals to land managers, and can be enhanced by wise management and by emerging markets for services such as carbon sequestration. Improving awareness and understanding of land values and their key role in the land conversion process is a goal of this research.
corresponding author:
Ralph Alig
USDA Forest Service
Pacific Northwest Research Station
3200 SW Jefferson Way
Corvallis, OR 97331
541-750-7267
ralig@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p113
Shefali V. Mehta, Robert G. Haight, and Frances R. Homans
University of
Invasive species management relies considerably on assessing and managing risk. This arises from the inherent uncertainty of the invasion process, or the population dynamics of the invasive species. Managers face a daunting task as they incorporate the dynamic, spatial and stochastic aspects of invasive species into their decision making process. Numerous researchers have analyzed various components of risk and invasive species. Owing to the breadth of the issue, experts from many disciplines, including ecology, biology, economics, statistics and policy, have contributed to this extensive body of literature. This synthesis attempts to provide a comprehensive review and comparison the theory, evidence and application of risk analysis and invasive species management.
By its nature, risk analysis is the study of uncertainty and the attempt to qualify it, whether qualitatively or quantitatively. The uncertainty contributes to the lack of empirical evidence. In lieu of data, risk analysis literature often involves theory and numerical simulations. Additionally, the various disciplines propose different theories and applications. Understanding and reducing risk entails the study of these varied approaches and their interactions. Analyzing the interaction of ecological and biological knowledge, statistical analysis, and the allocation of limited resources, precipitates an understanding of risk analysis and its applications. However, the scope of this issue necessitates a narrower focus of risk analysis for invasive species.
Risk assessment and risk management are two different aspects of addressing risk. Often, these two are closely entwined. While this synthesis is not about risk assessment per se, the reliance of decision makers on risk assessment and its outcomes demands the inclusion of some aspects of risk assessment. As such, this synthesis discusses the major risk assessment outcomes and the methods for integrating risk assessment into the framework used by decision makers to mitigate risk.
This diverse literature requires a cohesive synthesis to unify these approaches. The invasion process provides a clear framework to present this synthesis. While the stages of the invasion process can be characterized in many ways, a widely accepted categorization divides the process into three main stages: introduction, establishment and spread. The accompanying management decisions are grouped into three main categories: exclusion, detection and management. Even though agencies engage in additional activities, these categories provide an adequate system with which to examine the decisions facing managers. Thus, the synthesis is arranged according to the chronological order of the stages of the invasion process. This provides an insightful comparison of the different approaches and applications of risk management at each stage. It also provides a sense of how these methods can be integrated to achieve effective outcomes.
For each invasion stage, the synthesis presents the key factors contributing to a species’ successful advance to each stage. These factors are determined by risk assessment using a variety of methods. The methods themselves are not explicitly discussed, but the relevant outcomes of the risk assessment are included. The synthesis then discusses the methods for incorporating the identified risk factors into a decision model for risk management. While the theory behind the risk management models is discussed, the emphasis is on the potential outcomes. After covering the simulated and empirical evidence, extant policies and applications are presented to illustrate the efficacy, or lack of, in the applications of the risk management theory and practices.
The dynamic nature of the invasion process frequently forces these management decisions to be taken simultaneously. Existing literature often analyzes the relationship between the management choices. Economics literature, for example, considers the optimal allocation between exclusion and management activities for the same species. The synthesis also integrates this literature into the framework; it provides the theory, and when available, the empirical evidence and applications of the theory.
By collecting and integrating the various approaches to risk management, this synthesis attempts to provide an in-depth review and comparison of current theory and its effective applications. Through the juxtaposition of various approaches, the synthesis also hopes to motivate further applications based on merging different strategies.
corresponding author:
Shefali V. Mehta
Department of Applied Economics
University of Minnesota
218d Classroom Office Building
1994 Buford Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55108
612-625-7242
meht0038@umn.edu
Encyclopedia ID: p129
Jay O’Laughlin
This synthesis paper provides guidance managers can use to conduct environmental analysis to support fuels treatment projects designed to reduce post-wildfire risks to ecological attributes. Wildfires burning in the uncharacteristic fuel conditions now typical of much of the western US pose risks to ecosystems and the valuable goods and services they provide, including aquatic and terrestrial habitats for fish and wildlife. One goal of the National Fire Plan (NFP) is hazardous fuel reduction. Fuels treatment can modify uncharacteristic wildfire behavior and the subsequent severity of post-wildfire effects, thereby providing benefits by reducing risks to firefighters, ecosystems, and structures. Implementation of fuels treatment projects also poses risks to ecosystems. Unless systematically analyzed and compared to risks of not doing treatments, project implementation risks can inhibit fuel treatment implementation, especially in areas inhabited by species protected by the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). According to the US Government Accountability Office (2004), agencies recognize the need to better analyze the risk of acting to reduce fuels versus not doing so, but neither the NFP nor National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) provide guidance specifying how to do this. How then can land managers determine whether the risk of actively treating fuels is greater than the risk posed by no action? The Environmental Protection Agency’s Guidelines for Ecological Risk Assessment (EPA 1998) can be adapted for this purpose. The key to analysis supporting fuel treatment decisions is the incorporation of the risk-reduction benefits of fuels treatment into a framework that facilitates comparison of alternatives. The resulting analysis can be used in NEPA environmental analysis documents to evaluate management alternatives, including no action. Comparing risks from uncharacteristically severe wildfire effects to potentially less severe net effects resulting from fuel treatments is consistent with NEPA’s requirement for public land managers to analyze short- and long-term environmental effects. Formulating the problem as a temporal comparison of adverse effects, however, often results in decisions to reject fuels treatment projects near imperiled species habitat. Adverse effects from fuels treatment are certain in the short term, whereas wildfire occurrence is uncertain. An alternative problem formulation focuses on the relative magnitude of adverse and beneficial effects from wildfire burning under different fuel conditions. By selecting a long-term planning horizon corresponding to fire return interval, wildfire and its effects become certainties. Instead of trying to confront the landscape-level uncertainties of if, when and where an uncharacteristically severe wildfire will occur, the environmental analysis question in the project area simply becomes, which pre-fire condition produces the more desirable post-fire effect: fuel treatment or no fuel treatment? Managers may accept the fuels treatment hypothesis: The adverse effects of short-term project implementation actions will result in substantial long-term net benefits from reduced severity of wildfire effects that outweigh the implementation risks. However, they need evidence to convince others who may be skeptical about this. A process developed from the EPA’s ecological risk assessment guidelines proceeds as follows. Risk problems are first formulated in a conceptual model comparing the relative magnitude of risks. This requires identifying a specific ecological entity to serve as the risk assessment endpoint, and the cause-and-effect relationships of various threats (i.e., hazards or stressors) that adversely affect the endpoint. The EPA cautions against using vague endpoints like integrity or sustainability, thus risk assessment enhances the clarity of objectives and transparency of decision processes. For example, fish are a risk assessment endpoint, and one stressor adversely affecting them is sediment from logging and/or wildfire burning under different conditions that vary according to fuel loadings. The model compares short-term sediment effects of implementing fuels reduction treatments to the longer-term post-wildfire sediment pulse effects with and without fuel treatments, including risk reduction benefits. The analytical model graphically answers the question: Which is worse for fish, wildfire burning under untreated conditions, or the treatments designed to reduce wildfire risks? Used quantitatively or qualitatively, this conceptual model may contribute to sustainable resource management decisions by improving communication among interested publics, risk managers in land and resource management agencies, and risk assessors in agencies responsible for enforcing the ESA.
corresponding author:
Jay OLaughlin
College of Natural Resources
University of Idaho
PO Box 441133
Moscow, ID 83844-1134
208-885-5776
jayo@uidaho.edu
Encyclopedia ID: p128
Jeffrey P. Prestemon and Thomas P. Holmes
USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station
The United States is experiencing a period of higher hurricane frequencies and intensities, affecting the largest single timber producing region in the world. Recent large hurricanes, including Katrina and Rita in 2005 and the Florida hurricanes of 2004, have resulted in timber mortality of several tens of millions of cubic meters. The effects of such large events are to swamp timber markets in the short run with salvable timber and reduce available timber inventories in the long run. Prestemon and Holmes (2000, 2004) trace the timber market impacts of such storms, particularly on prices and consumer and producer welfare. Research there shows how consumers may be benefited in the short-run but harmed in the long run, while producers of undamaged timber are harmed in the short-run and potentially benefited in the long run. Other research has examined the timber harvest timing impacts of hurricanes, considering timber salvage (Haight et al. 1996). Our paper consists of three main sections. First is a description of the biophysical risk process. Second is an overview of the timber market dynamics following hurricanes. Third is a discussion of what private and public decision makers should do to mitigate the negative economic effects of catastrophic wind storms given alternative management objectives.
The hurricane risk process is described for the U.S. South using information provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with a focus on intense storms, which apparently cause most of the damage from hurricanes. This section includes a review of multiple risk interactions, such as the impact of hurricanes on the risk of wildfires, the impact of hurricanes on different forest types in the South, and research that may hint at trends and future risks. Timber market impacts from hurricanes are based on recent experience with three intense storms: Hugo (1989), Katrina (2005), and Rita (2005), for which substantial information exists, with emphasis on timber damages. This section quantifies their timber damages in physical and economic terms, placing them into perspective compared to the timber market overall. It describes the timber price dynamics and welfare effects following hurricanes. It also lays out what we know about mitigating the impacts of such storms through timber salvage. In our final section, we focus on the implications of existing research to improve management decision-making for governments, non-industrial private landowners, and the timber industry. We discuss the relative benefits from prioritizing salvage, the equity considerations of government assistance, optimal behavior for owners of undamaged timber and restoration options for private and public managers. This section contains results and information relevant not just to hurricanes but also to many kinds of large-scale natural disturbances involving extensive timber damage (ice, fire, insects and disease outbreaks), which involve salvage and consideration of timber decay (e.g., deSteiguer et al. 1987, Holmes 1991, Lowell et al. 1992), resulting salvage price depressions, and inventory loss-related long-run market price enhancements (e.g., Butry et al. 2001, Prestemon et al. [in press]).
corresponding author:
Jeffrey P. Prestemon
USDA Forest Service
Southern Research Station
PO Box 12254
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
919-549-4033
jprestemon@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p120
S. Hummel, G. Donovan, M. Hemstrom, T. Spies, and A. Youngblood
USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station
Summary: This paper contributes to the science of risk analysis by synthesizing the theoretical basis for its role in biodiversity management strategies. It contributes to the application of risk analysis in forest policy decisions by summarizing the current state of knowledge on estimating uncertainty at varying spatial and temporal scales in ways useful for simulation modeling. By considering both theoretical and applied aspects of risk analysis, the paper advances understanding of its strengths and limitations in forest ecology and management.
Approach: We summarize the key economic and ecological theories that underlie how risk is incorporated into contemporary strategies for managing biodiversity. By explaining the rationale for assessing risks to biodiversity associated with rare but severe disturbance events, the paper clarifies how these risks may change as the frequency and magnitude of the events change in different forest types. We use forest reserves in the interior northwestern US as an example to explore the implications of this change for land management. Reserves are one strategy for mitigating risks to biodiversity and in our example we explore the potential influence of altered fire regimes on the effectiveness of this strategy in interior, mixed-conifer forests.
Background: Risk analysis focuses on the problem of estimating the probabilities of rare events and the magnitude of their associated effects. One use of risk analysis is familiar to anyone who pays insurance premiums. Some types of insurance can be mandatory (malpractice, automobile), while other types are voluntary (life), and yet others subject to availability (flood, earthquake). Insurance doesn’t prevent loss. Instead, insurance spreads the risk of loss among members of a self-selected group who pool their funds so that compensation can be made to a member if an insured loss does occur. Funds come from premiums, which members pay based on calculations of the likelihood and damage of a specified future event and on their own personal risk factors. Insurance provides a way to manage risks that can be priced. The economic literature is replete with articles about risk management and ecologists have begun to borrow concepts from insurance when studying the contribution of biodiversity to ecosystem stability. Although no consensus has emerged, the ecological literature refers to biodiversity as a form of insurance. The insurance hypothesis proposes that ecosystems are insured against functional declines by the presence of many species, whose redundancies guarantee that some species will maintain key functions even if others fail. If this is true, then managing ecosystems to conserve biodiversity should help alleviate the deleterious consequences of natural and human-caused environmental threats. Many biodiversity conservation strategies are based – either implicitly or explicitly – on an assumption that the weight of evidence supports the insurance hypothesis. This paper examines the implications for biodiversity management if this assumption is wrong or if the frequency and severity of potential losses change with time and space.
Example: Forest reserves embody a biodiversity management strategy based on the insurance hypothesis. A decade ago, a network of reserves was established in the Pacific Northwest to conserve and develop a network of old-growth forests on federal land. Since then, increases in the amount of old forests in moist areas of the region have been documented. However, in drier areas east of the Cascade Range the amount of old forest is declining. We examine evidence for the adequacy of a reserve strategy to conserve the biodiversity of old forests in these drier areas, where changes in fire regimes and thus the probability of severe events directly affect key assumptions of the insurance hypothesis and calculations of risk. By reviewing the available literature on the variability of probabilities for disturbances like wildfire or insect epidemics at differing spatial scales we provide a summary that is of immediate value to anyone using simulation models for risk analysis.
Outcome: This paper will advance knowledge on the links among four of the conference topics: risk management across spatial and temporal scales, risk mitigation alternatives, uncertainty estimation and representation, and simulation modeling. It will show why this advance is important for contemporary land management decisions and environmental threat assessment by using forest reserves in the interior west as an example.
corresponding author:
Susan Hummel
USDA Forest Service
Pacific Northwest Research Station
620 SW Main Street, Suite 400
Portland, OR 97205
503-808-2084
shummel@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p116
Encyclopedia ID: p25
Paul F. Hessburg, Keith M. Reynolds, Robert E. Keane, Kevin M. James and R. Brion Salter
Wildland fuels have been accumulating in western forests of the United States (US) for at least the past 70 years due to 20th century settlement and management activities, and changing climatic conditions. As demonstrated by recent wildland fires, additional fuels are contributing to more intense fire behavior and increasing fire resistance to containment and control. Consequently, property and natural resources have been destroyed, costs of fire management have escalated, fire-dependent forest and rangeland ecosystems have deteriorated, and risks to human life and property continue to escalate.
Historically, fires of varying size, frequency, and intensity maintained spatial patterns of forest vegetation, as well as temporal variation in those patterns. In fact, many agents interacted to shape vegetation patterns and their spatio-temporal variation, including forest insect outbreaks, forest diseases, fires, weather and longer term climate events, and intentional aboriginal burning. The result was characteristic landscape patterns and variation in forest structural attributes, species composition, and habitats that resonated with the dominant disturbance processes.
Circumstances are quite different today. Human and climatic influences have created anomalous vegetation patterns, and these patterns support fire, insect, and disease processes that display uncharacteristic duration, spatial extent, and intensity. In this paper, we present a decision-support system for evaluating existing vegetation and fuel conditions and potential fire impacts, and for prioritizing subwatersheds for vegetation and fuel treatment. Fire danger is evaluated as a function of three primary topics: fire vulnerability, potential wildfire severity, and risk of ignition. Each primary topic has secondary topics under which data are evaluated. We demonstrate use of the application with an example from the
corresponding author:
Paul F. Hessburg
USDA Forest Service
Pacific Northwest Research Station
1133 N. Western Avenue
Wenatchee, WA 98801
phessburg@fs.fed.us.
Encyclopedia ID: p98
David M. Theobald, Alisa Wade, and Grant Wilcox
Colorado State University Natural Resource Ecology Lab
A framework that organizes natural and protected areas is often used to help understand the potential risks to natural areas and aspects of their ecological and human dimensions. The spatial (or landscape) context of these dynamics is also a critical, but rarely considered, factor. Current frameworks commonly used include the USGS GAP stewardship coding scheme, the IUCN Protected Area Management Categories, and the American Planning Association Land-based Classification Standards. The GAP and IUCN framework are coarse classifications (4-6 categories), while the APA focuses primarily on private land uses, but the landscape context remains ignored. To address these limitations, we extended the human modification framework to develop a comprehensive, hierarchical classification based on two dimensions: the degree to which natural processes are free or controlled, and the degree to which landscape patterns are natural or artificial. Three primary factors or activities are used to establish the position of a parcel of land along the process or pattern gradient: urban/built-up, recreation, and production/extraction. Common surrogate data and metrics for each of these factors have been developed. We illustrate our risk analysis by presenting results for
Land Session - Wednesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
David M. Theobald
Nautral Resource Ecology Lab
Colorado State University
1231 East Drive
Fort Collins, CO 80523-1499
davet@nrel.colostate.edu
Encyclopedia ID: p89
Minocha, Rakesh
USDA Forest Service Northeastern Research Station
Our focus is to identify metabolites or “cellular markers” that predict the impact of environmental pollution as well as biotic factors on health of forests by examining the foliage of visually asymptomatic trees. Our goal is to relate these markers to long term forest productivity. Environmental issues of concern include acidic deposition (especially N deposition) and heavy metals. Atmospheric deposition of nitrogen (N) may cause forest decline or enhance forest productivity depending on the initial N status of soils, and the rate and duration of N deposition. Heavy metals (Hg, Cd, Zn, Pb, and Cu) are toxic to plants and may decrease productivity when accumulated beyond threshold levels in soils. Our research has identified useful markers like putrescine (an aliphatic diamine), arginine (a common amino acid), and phytochelatins (metabolites produced by cells in response to heavy metal exposure) as cellular indicators. Foliar putrescine is a reliable and easily measurable marker of stress in visually healthy trees. It has also been shown to ameliorate some of the effects of soil Ca deficiency as its concentrations increase in response to decreasing soil Ca. Foliar putrescine was shown to be present in higher levels in hemlock trees that were resistant to hemlock wooly adelgid compared to the susceptible trees. Free amino acids, especially arginine, also increase in response to chronic N input at several hardwood and conifer sites and can indicate too much N availability or N saturation. In a study on the Harvard Forest Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site, these changes were also accompanied by lower site productivity in red pine. In another project with red spruce, we observed that phytochelatins and their precursor accumulate in response to heavy metal exposure.
Land Session - Wednesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Northeastern Research Station
P. O. Box 640
271 Mast Road
Durham, NH 03824 USA
603-868-7622
rminocha@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p105
Randy Hamilton, Kevin Megown, Jim Ellenwood, Henry Lachowski, and Paul Maus
USDA Forest Service Remote Sensing
In recent years, unprecedented tree mortality has occurred throughout the National Forests due to insect infestations and disease outbreaks. The magnitude and extent of mortality, coupled with the lack of routine monitoring in some areas, has made it difficult to assess the damage and associated ecological impact and fire hazard in a timely and cost effective manner. To aid forest managers in assessing the damage, a cost effective multistage sampling method, using high-resolution digital aerial photography, was developed to estimate overall mortality across large areas. The method was tested within a 332,000-acre piñon/juniper woodland west of
Monitoring Methods Session - Tuesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Randy Hamilton
Remote Sensing
randyhamilton@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p82
D.N. Appel and K.S. Camilli
Texas A&M University Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology and Texas Forest Service Forest Resource Development
The oak wilt fungus, Ceratocystis fagacearum Bretz Hunt, has been described as the most dangerous pathogen to threaten forests in
Our goal is to provide natural resource managers with the information needed to contend with oak wilt. In central
Native Pests Session - Wednesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
David Appel
Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77843
979-845-8273
appel@ag.tamu.edu
Encyclopedia ID: p72
Steven P. Norman, Sandra Jacobson, Christine Damiani, and Danny C. Lee
The tradeoffs that surround forest management are inherently complex, often involving multiple temporal and spatial scales. For example, conflicts may result when fuel treatments are designed to mediate long-term fuel hazards, but activities could impair sensitive aquatic habitat or degrade wildlife habitat in the short term. This complexity makes it hard for managers to describe and communicate the conditional nature of risk and to justify planned activities to stakeholders. In addition, our understanding of how proposed activities will affect resources of concern is often limited due to informational shortcomings and imprecise models. To be robust and transparent, a risk assessment framework needs to reveal these limitations while quantifying the probable outcomes of project effects to multiple resources of concern. In this paper, we describe the effects of fuel treatments using such a planning framework, called CRAFT (Comparative Risk Assessment Framework and Tools). CRAFT provides a platform from which diverse ancillary models and other relevant information can be transparently integrated and evaluated.
We conducted our case study in a portion of the Hayfork Adaptive Management Area of the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, California. As is typical of other mixed-conifer forests of
corresponding author:
Steven P. Norman
USDA Forest Service
Pacific Southwest Research Station
1700 Bayview Drive
Arcata, CA 95521-6013
stevenorman@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p102
Mary M. Rowland,
The sagebrush ecosystem is one of the most imperiled in the
Biodiversity Session - Thursday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Mary M. Rowland
USDA Forest Sevice
Pacific Northwest Research Station
1401 Gekeler Lane
La Grande, OR 97850
541-962-6582
mrowland@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p78
Fred May
Cascading hazard models depict either potential threat (threat model) sequences or document historic ones (consequence model). Wildfires and associated flashfloods produce a numerous array of potential threat sequences, too numerous to recall. Threat models developed using computer software designed to capture cascading and branching threat sequences enable mitigation workers to anticipate complex sequences, identify critical threats or consequences, and develop mitigation and response strategies and to determine systematic education or training needs.
Credible cascading threat models are developed by multi-agency teams of specialists. They are updated as events provide additional insights. Threat models are powerful analytical tools useful in regional planning and for detailed and systematic local hazard and risk assessments. These models have been used successfully for hazard and risk assessment with Federal, State and local planning teams coming together to analyze threat or consequence sequences for specific geographic areas. The systematic approach leaves “no stone unturned” in analyzing threat and risk and in determining mitigation or response strategies. The approach is efficient, allowing for a complete analysis in a couple of hours; updates for analysis conducted on an annual cycle require less time and are more complete than fragmental approaches based on limiting lists or tables of considerations. As analyses are conducted, the software allows for easy updating to include additional threats or consequences encountered during actual analysis sessions.
Cascading models are understood with a unique nomenclature beyond the typical primary and secondary hazards, and with threat and consequence/impact nomenclature, threat tree geography, linkage, and pathway and branch analysis. An effective analog is cascading (toppling) dominoes, arranged in branching sequences, depicting how a wildfire can threaten community or government resources. These are based on the combined experience of planning teams. Envisioning a single domino (part of a cascading sequence), one sees two numbers. For the purpose of cascading hazard and risk analysis, the top number refers to the degree of damage for a particular asset, while the bottom number refers to the degree of consequence if that asset is lost, or damaged. As dominoes tip over, they tip over in a sequence analogous to the cascading of threats in a wildfire, or post-burn flashflood. The first to topple is called the primary threat (anticipated) or consequence (historic), the second is the secondary threat, the third are tertiary threats, the fourth are quaternary threats, etc., in branching sequences. The computer depicts the branching sequences as a branching tree structure – a cascading threat or consequence model – also known as a hazard tree. In reality, what is observed are cascading degrees of damage and associated cascading degrees of consequence. The analysis process ultimately exposes the anticipated cascading wildfire and post-burn flash flood damages (losses) and consequences. It then serves as a realistic justification tool for mitigation. It also identifies highly-dangerous threats that may otherwise go undetected but can now be factored into decision making for development of mitigation strategies. Rather than developing mitigation plans for single point threats, as is often done, the strategies are developed for sequences of events, where some mitigation can be performed at each node between threats (dominoes).
This paper explains both generic (anticipated) and historic (consequence) cascading threat models for wildfire and post-burn flashflood. On August 18 through
Fire Session - Thursday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Institute for Emergency Preparedness
Jacksonville State University
700 Pelham Road
Jacksonville, AL 36265
Encyclopedia ID: p75
Danny C. Lee
USDA Forest Service, Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center
Many current forest and rangeland management issues are inherently complex and broad-scale, involving multiple components interacting in space and time. The combination of system complexity, natural variation, and ignorance ensures that attempts to project future conditions or trends are inherently uncertain. At the same time, various goods and services provided by ecological systems are differentially valued by stakeholders. This leaves managers no option but to choose tradeoffs between competing values and uncertainties. Informed public management demands a rigorous means of incorporating stakeholder values and perspectives, and analyzing and displaying the consequences of alternative actions. To this end, comparative risk assessment (CRA) provides a candid and rigorous quantification of the risk (defined as expected loss) associated with alternative courses of action.
Despite its advantages, comparative risk assessment has not reached the stature that it seemingly deserves within natural resource management. There are many reasons why, but five excuses commonly given include 1) lack of expertise in either implementing or interpreting CRA, 2) lack of data and information, 3) daunting system complexity, 4) reluctance to express uncertainty, and 5) perception that CRA often is irrelevant to the final management decision. These are not insurmountable obstacles, as evidenced by this conference. Experienced practitioners of CRA and mangers that integrate CRA into their decisions can aptly demonstrate the utility and practicality of the CRA process. Remaining challenges include further advances in technology, education, and leadership.
corresponding author:
Danny C. Lee
Director, EFETAC
P.O. Box 2680
Asheville, NC 28802
828-257-4854
dclee@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p109
Rebecca S.H. Kennedy, Thomas A. Spies, Melinda Moeur, and Miles A. Hemstrom
Sustaining late-successional forest and associated wildlife habitat is one of the primary goals of the Northwest Forest Plan, and is currently addressed through the implementation of late successional reserve areas throughout the Plan area. In disturbance-prone landscapes such as the dry physiographic provinces of the Plan area (e.g., Eastern Cascades, Klamath Mountains, etc.), achieving this goal involves addressing the risk of loss of old forest to stand-replacing disturbances resulting from fuels buildup and altered future climatic regimes. Managers and planners need better information about historical and potential future fire regimes and their effects on vegetation patterns to increase the likelihood of success of forest planning efforts. Under altered climatic regimes, shifts in potential vegetation types and modifications to fire regimes may have dramatic effects on potential future old forest amounts and their distribution across landscapes. We developed an approach that integrates spatial simulation modeling, probabilistic risk analysis, and geospatial technologies to characterize the historical range of variability and the potential future range of variability of fire regimes and resulting vegetation patterns, in the
Biodiversity Session - Thursday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Rebecca S.H. Kennedy
USDA Forest Service
Pacific Northwest Research Station
3200 SW Jefferson Way
Corvallis, OR 97331
541-750-7262
rebeccakennedy@fs.fed.us
note: oral presentation only
Encyclopedia ID: p84
Stephen Cook and Karen Humes, Ryan Hruska, and Christopher Williams
University of Idaho Department of Forest Resources (1), Department of Geography (2) and Division of Statistics (4), and Idaho National Laboratory (3)
The balsam woolly adelgid, Adelges picea, and hemlock woolly adelgid, Adelges tsugae (Homoptera: Adelgidae), are invasive pests of coniferous forests in both the eastern and western
Exotic Pests Session - Tuesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Stephen Cook
Department of Forest Resource
University of Idaho
PO Box 441133
Moscow, ID 83844-1133
208-885-2722
stephenc@uidaho.edu
Encyclopedia ID: p70
Jennifer Pontius, Richard Hallett, Mary Martin, and Lucie Plourde
USDA Forest Service Northeastern Research Station (1-2) and University of
Hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae Annand) (HWA) is an invasive insect pest that is causing widespread mortality of eastern hemlock. However, some stands remain living more than a decade after infestation. Susceptibility models were created from variables including soil and foliar chemistry and landscape position, and were validated against detailed, yearly, post-infestation decline measurements (including pre-visual symptoms). The most effective model was used to predict hemlock susceptibility to HWA infestation (post infestation rate of decline) at a landscape scale using variables derived from hyperspectral remote sensing imagery and digital elevation models (DEM). Our previous work has shown that hyperspectral remote sensing technology can be used to map the location of the host resource (hemlock abundance), hemlock health, and foliar chemistry (Nitrogen) and create continuous, spatially accurate, landscape scale coverages of these variables. We demonstrate this modeling technique by integrating these data layers into ARC GIS and creating a landscape scale model to map relative hemlock susceptibility to HWA in the Catskills region of NY. These techniques are applicable to HWA infestation across the Northeastern U.S. and will provide a basis for forest land management agencies to focus biological control efforts and make management decisions as HWA continues to spread.
Exotic Pests Session - Tuesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Jennifer Pontius
USDA Forest Service
Northeastern Research Station
P.O. Box 640
Durham, NH 03824
603-868-7739
Jennifer.Pontius@unh.edu
Encyclopedia ID: p65
Ronald F. Billings, L. Allen Smith, Jin Zhu, Shailu Verma, Nick Kouchoukos, and Joon Heo
Texas Forest Service (1-3) and Forest One, Inc. (4-6)
The objective of this research project was to develop and validate a method for using satellite images and digital geospatial data to map the distribution of southern pine beetle (SPB) habitats across the pinelands of East Texas. Our approach builds on the widely accepted work of Billings & Bryant, who used discriminant analysis of color infrared aerial photographs to identify and rank environmental conditions suitable for SPB infestation. Because current implementations of Billings & Bryant’s method by the Texas Forest Service (TFS) use manual photo interpretation, they are relatively costly, labor intensive, and require sampling. Satellite imagery and GIS technology present possible means to reduce operational costs and improve accuracy. Here we report the principal results of our work in a pilot area of East Texas, specifically: 1) development and integration of satellite and digital inputs into the Billings & Bryant model, 2) accuracy assessment of model inputs, 3) validation of the model adaptation through comparison of satellite-derived SPB hazard maps to operational maps produced by TFS, and 4) Re-validation of the model through comparison of satellite-derived SPB hazard maps to known locations of SPB infestations.
Native Pests Session - Wednesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Nick Kouchoukos
Forest One, Inc.
300 Park Boulevard, Suite 425
Itasca, IL 60143
630-250-1428
nkouchoukos@lanworth.com
Encyclopedia ID: p86
John W. Coulston, William D. Smith, Frank H. Koch, and Frank J. Sapio
North Carolina State University Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources (1,3)
USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station (2)
USDA Forest Service Forest Health Technology Enterprise Team (4)
Every year, a large number of non-native insects and diseases affecting forest tree species are intercepted at U.S. ports of entry from shipments of live plants, solid wood packing materials, logs and raw wood products, and other commercial goods. Pests that evade the inspection process may be accidentally introduced into nearby forests or, via interstate shipment, into other locations across the country. Potentially serious exotic pests that have recently made inroads into U.S. forested landscapes include sudden oak death (caused by Phytophthora ramorum), detected in coastal California in 1995, emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis) in 2002 and the sirex woodwasp (Sirex noctilio), which was first detected in upstate New York in 2005. For these three pests and others, national-scale early detection/rapid response survey protocols were implemented soon after their discovery. The purpose of such surveys is to substantiate that areas outside initial invasion zones remain free of the pest of interest. Typically, the statistical reliability of such surveys has not been defined, nor has a desired level of statistical reliability been used in designing the surveys. Here, we adapt techniques used in preventative veterinary medicine for substantiating freedom from disease in animal herds to the spatial domain for forest pests. To accomplish this, we use a bootstrap approach to estimate the conditional probability of survey success in the spatial domain. The techniques may be applied in two different ways. First, they may be used to determine optimal sample sizes for new surveys given a desired level of confidence as well as acceptable pest detection probability and prevalence thresholds. Alternately, the techniques may be used to determine the detection probability and prevalence thresholds or the level of confidence based on sample size of existing surveys. We also discuss techniques to adapt the bootstrap estimation when the sensitivity or specificity of the insect trap or disease test is imperfect. The implementation of these techniques for future regional or national-scale surveys allows for optimal allocation of sample plots for maximizing reliability given limited funds to support future survey efforts.
Exotic Pests Session - Tuesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
William D. Smith
Southern Research Station
3041 E. Cornwallis Road
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
(919) 549-4067
bdsmith@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p107
Everett Hinkley, Tom Zajkowski, and
Aerial sketchmapping is the geo-locating of features that are seen on the ground below the aircraft, and the subsequent recording of those features. Traditional aerial sketchmapping methods required hand-sketching on hardcopy maps or photos, and the translation of that information to a digital file. In 1999, the
After a great deal of testing and evaluation, two systems have emerged and are in common use today; a two screen system and a pen tablet system. Advantages to the D-ASM system include automatic tracking of the aircraft’s position on a map base through a link to a GPS receiver and a significant reduction in the time spent digitizing data into a Geographic Information System (GIS). Now a mature system, the D-ASM has been widely accepted by the sketchmapping community.
Following initial system development, a D-ASM was shown to wildfire Air Attack crews who liked the concept, but wanted the system to be smaller, and for it to include a means to get the information down to the incident command in real time. Two technological developments solved these requirements; commercially available touch-screen pen tablet computers and the NASA developed long-range high speed data link named RIPCom. The Remote Internet Protocol Communications System (RIPCom) culminated from a successful two-year collaboration between NASA-Goddard and RSAC.
The integration of the D-ASM and RIPCom systems enable fire fighting experts to collect pertinent information about an incident and rapidly disseminate this information to the incident’s command through wireless devices. Possible customers within the wildfire community include; Air Attack, Helitack, Situation Unit Leaders, Operations Chiefs, and Incident Commanders.
Monitoring Methods Session - Tuesday Afternoon
corresponding authors:
Everett Hinkley
USDA Forest Service
Remote Sensing Applications Center
2222 West, 2300 South
Salt Lake City, UT 84119
801-975-3752
ehinkley@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p62
Brian Schwind, Brad Quayle, Ken Brewer, and Jeff Eidenshink
There is a need to provide agency leaders, elected officials, and the general public with summary information regarding the effects of large wildfires. Recently, the Wildland Fire Leadership Council (WFLC), which implements and coordinates National Fire Plan (NFP) and Federal Wildland Fire Management Policies (National Fire Plan, 2004), adopted a strategy to monitor the effectiveness and effects of the National Fire Plan and the Healthy Forests Restoration Act (HFRA). One component of this strategy is to assess the environmental impacts of large wildland fires and identify the trends of burn severity on all lands across the
To that end, WFLC has sponsored a six year project, Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS), which requires the USFS and the USGS to map and assess the burn severity for all large current and historical fires. Using Landsat data and the differenced Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR) algorithm, the USGS/EROS Data Center and USDA-FS/
The MTBS project will generate burn severity data, maps, and reports which will be available for use at local, state and national levels to evaluate trends in burn severity and help develop and assess the effectiveness of land management decisions. Additionally, the information developed will provide a baseline from which to monitor the recovery and health of fire affected landscapes over time. Spatial and tabular data quantifying burn severity will augment existing information used to estimate risk associated with a range current and future resource threats. As an example, fire severity data along with associated biophysical characteristics provide an analytical basis for assessing risk from invasive species as well as native insects and pathogens. All data and results will be distributed to the public via an internet interface.
Fire Session - Thursday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Brian Schwind
USDA Forest Service
Remote Sensing Applications Center
2222 W. 2300 South
Salt Lake City, UT 84119
801-975-3765
bschwind@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p76
Kenneth W. Stolte
The Montreal Process Criteria and Indicators (MPCI) are a platform for the collection, analyses, and interpretation of data that directly affects the health and sustainability of forest ecosystems. Even with a focused list of Criteria and associated Indicators to address health and sustainability, it can be difficult to define key words or phrases, and difficult-to-impossible to obtain all desired datasets to fulfill information needs. It can be conceptually problematic for land owners and land managers facing an array of 67 Indicators within 7 Criteria, but can be clarified by the development of models of the interaction of MPCI Criteria, and models of Indicators within Criterion (C). This paper presents a systems model for understanding the primary relationships among the seven Montreal Process Criteria, and a systems model for understanding the relationships among the 3 Indicators of Criterion 3 (Forest Health and Vitality). Terminology of the 3 Indicators had to be clarified and defined, and approaches for analyses constructed, so that available but disparate data sets could be analyzed to determine the area and percent of forests affected in the
Monitoring Methods Session - Tuesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Kenneth W. Stolte
USDA Forest Service
Southern Research Station
3041 E. Cornwallis Road
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
919.549.4022
kstolte@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p67
Mee-Sook Kim, Ned B. Klopfenstein, Raini C. Rippy, Jane E. Stewart, Paul J. Zambino, Joanne M. Tirocke, and Walter G. Thies
USDA Forest Service – Rocky Mountain Research Station (1-6) and Pacific Northwest Research Station (7)
Long-term fire exclusion, introduced pests, selective timber harvesting, and selective planting have caused dramatic changes in forest-stand composition in much of the western
Root diseases are among the most understudied and underestimated sources of mortality that cause buildup of wildland fuels. Historically, root diseases apparently played a predominantly beneficial role in many forests by favoring ecological processes of succession, decomposition, and stand renewal through fire. In most natural stands, native root diseases do not typically cause irreparable, large-scale damage to ecosystems or threaten the loss of any host species. Recently, shifts in stand composition resulting from natural and human-caused disturbances have contributed to increased damage from root-rot diseases. At sites with increased risk of root rot disease, changes in root-disease dynamics have the potential to influence forest growth and succession for centuries. Thus, it is prudent to critically consider the potential impacts from root disease before selecting management activities, including fuels treatments.
Various fuels treatments are available, but treatments routinely involve mechanical treatments and/or prescribed fire. Mechanical treatments, such as thinning, can remove fuels as forest products, including biomass for energy. Thinning can be selective for species and size class. Other mechanical treatments may involve removing fuels ladders, placing fuels on the forest floor, and/or reducing the size of downed fuels to accelerate decomposition. Prescribed fire is also commonly used to reduce fire risk; however, its effects on resulting stand structure are less predictable than mechanical treatments. Long-term success of fuels treatments in lowering the risk of severe wildfire depends in part on the long-term impacts on root diseases that contribute to subsequent fuels accumulation. Thus, fuels treatment should be selected to match the overall objectives for a stand, while addressing potential impacts of root disease dynamics.
Fuels management requires an ecosystem-level approach, because root disease (and other causes of tree mortality) result from complex ecological interactions. For example, tree thinning can increase the inoculum potential of root-rot pathogens that colonize stumps, residual root systems, and/or slash. New opportunities for root disease can also be created by thinning-associated wounds on remaining trees. Also, thinning treatments that select against seral tree species (e.g., pine or larch) may result in stands dominated by tree species that are more susceptible to root rots (e.g., true firs or Douglas-fir). Fuels treatments that cause physiological stress to host trees may also increase the likelihood of root-rot problems. Although slash burning may vary in its effects on root disease caused by different pathogens, superficial burning appears to have little long-term impact on the physical distribution of some pathogens (e.g., Armillaria species, Phellinus weirii, and Heterobasidion annosum) that occupy protected areas within structural roots. However, some measures may reduce root-rot risk by limiting or removing substrate that would be available for colonization by root pathogens. Thus, appropriate fuels treatments should be selected to reduce current and future levels of fuels, while avoiding undesirable increases in root disease. Also, some pathogens are specific to certain tree species. For these reasons, an essential step in selecting appropriate fuels treatments is an on-site evaluation for the presence and distribution of each root disease likely to be present in an area proposed for fuels treatment. Root disease surveys include observing signs and symptoms on living trees, with additional examinations of snags, stumps, and overturned trees.
Currently, fuels reduction treatments are a prominent national issue; however, relatively few research studies have specifically addressed fuels-treatment effects on root diseases. This is of particular concern because the consequences of fuels treatments on root disease may not be readily apparent until decades after treatment. Long-term studies are critically needed to provide more precise information about the complex interrelationships among specific fuels treatment and root diseases in diverse environments. This paper explores concepts, technologies, and research needs to provide a better understanding of interactions among root pathogens, fuels treatments, and fire. A general synthesis of this information is essential for forest managers. Such information helps provide decision tools and guidance for developing fuels treatments prescriptions and root-rot management. In addition, the recent development of a web-based decision tool for evaluating fuels treatments on root disease will be presented and discussed.
Native Pests Session - Wednesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Mee-Sook Kim
USDA Forest Service
Rocky Mountain Research Station
1221 South Main Street
Moscow, ID 83843
208-883-2362
mkim@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p69
Patricia L. Winter and Heidi Bigler-Cole
USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station (1) and Pacific Northwest Research Station (2)
For complex situations, such as prediction of fire weather, there is a degree of uncertainty (Derby and Keeney 1981). How that uncertainty is addressed can be tailored to meet information users’ needs and preferences. Involving the users of predictive services in the design of messages, including the types of information delivered, format, and approach to risk, fits with Fischoff’s (1995) recommendation for involving the recipients of risk information in the crafting of the risk message. Johnson’s (2004) research suggests that risk statements should take into account variations in target audiences. Tolerance for risk has been outlined as an essential aspect of understanding management decisions (Gregory and Keeney 2002).
In this paper we describe a study conducted of recipients of risk-related information. We contacted users and potential users of National Predictive Services, including those who might receive services such as briefings, and those who might use their products, such as those offered through the various Geographic Coordination Center websites. Each potential user was a member of the fire management community, including fire management officers, meteorologists, information officers or public affairs personnel, and members of various fire-management teams. These individuals came from Federal, State, and more local fire agencies, though the majority were within Federal agencies. Respondents completed a self-administered survey via a web-based service.
Findings examine the types of information users reported needing, preferred formats for information delivery and likelihood of applying information from Predictive Services in decisions made about fire. Of interest to the risk management/risk communication focus are the reported views on acceptability of risk and tolerance for errors, how risk is viewed and addressed (through the view of Protection Motivation theory), and trust and confidence in the information delivered through Predictive Services. Barriers to utilization of Predictive Services are illuminated.
Fire Session - Thursday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Patricia L. Winter
USDA Forest Service
Pacific Southwest Research Station
4955 Canyon Crest Drive
Riverside, CA 92507
951-680-1557
pwinter@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p80
Mark A. Hatfield and Ronald E. McRoberts
USDA Forest Service North Central Research Station
Traditionally natural resource managers and users of natural resource data have asked the question “How much?” and have received sample-based estimates of totals or means for large areas such as counties, regions, or states. Increasingly, however, the same managers and users are now asking the additional question “Where?” and are expecting spatially explicit answers in the form of maps. Fortunately, the recent development and widespread availability of natural resource databases, moderate resolution satellite imagery, image classification techniques, statistical software, and geographic information systems (GIS) have facilitated construction of the required maps. Unfortunately, the relevance of the uncertainty associated with these maps has not been sufficiently emphasized, techniques for estimating it are either not known or are not taught, and systems for portraying and analyzing it are generally not available. When scientists who estimate and analyze uncertainty decry the lack of map uncertainty estimates, managers and users often respond that it doesn’t matter because the map itself is still useful and, besides, there are no other alternatives. Thus, it behooves uncertainty scientists to articulate the consequences of ignoring uncertainty and to describe and demonstrate to user communities the techniques for estimating and analyzing it.
This presentation illustrates the use of analytical, Monte Carlo, and sensitivity techniques for assessing uncertainty in three categories: (1) individual maps, (2) maps constructed by combining underlying maps using GIS techniques, and (3) maps constructed using models that accept input from underlying maps. In the first category, the emphasis is on estimating the precision of predictions for individual mapping units using analytical techniques associated with the particular map construction technique or Monte Carlo techniques when the analytical techniques are intractable or unavailable. In the second category, the emphasis is on estimating the precision of mapping unit predictions resulting from the GIS intersection of underlying maps. In the third category, the emphasis is on estimating the precision of mapping unit predictions when underlying map information is integrated via an application-based model. Examples and illustrations are drawn from map-based analyses of the potential threat to forest land in Michigan, USA, from the Emerald Ash Borer.
Statistical Methods Session - Wednesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Mark Hatfield
Forest Inventory and Analysis
North Central Research Station
1992 Folwell Avenue
St. Paul, MN
651-649-5169
mahatfield@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p104
Miles Hemstrom, Xiaoping Zhou, R. James Barbour, and J. Merzenich
USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station (1-2) and Pacific Northwest Region (4)
We used state and transition models to integrate natural disturbances (wildfire, insect epidemics, and others) with management activities to project potential future conditions of forest composition, structure, timber products, wildlife habitats, and disturbance probabilities in portions of the upper
Fire Session - Thursday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Miles A. Hemstrom
503-808-2006
Encyclopedia ID: p79
Bryce A. Richardson, Marcus V. Warwell, Mee-Sook Kim, Ned B. Klopfenstein, Paul J. Zambino, and Geral I. McDonald
USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station
To assess threats and/or predict responses to disturbance, it is essential that the population structures of forest species are recognized and characterized in relation to changing environments. Adequate management of these genetic resources into the future will require: 1) understanding the existing genetic diversity and population structure of forest trees and associated organisms, 2) understanding climatic change and its potential impacts on forest species and 3) development and use of new tools to identify populations at risk and areas suitable as future habitat.
Currently, plant-climate modeling suggests that climate change may represent a tremendous threat to forest ecosystems. Predictions indicate dramatic shifts in the future distributions of entire forest species (i.e., Picea spp.), under even conservative estimates of future climate change. Patterns of adaptive variation exhibited by most western species are also likely to undergo extensive redistribution resulting in large scale maladaptaion within species. These maladapted populations will likely face increased risks associated with catastrophic wildfire, attack by insect and pathogen pests, and losses in productivity.
Integrating existing population genetic structure with landscape-based, plant/climate modeling could provide the ability to assess threats to unique conifer populations and predict new and potentially disjunct locations of suitable habitat under warming climates. These tools will enable genetic resource managers to focus current and future species management efforts on populations at highest risk. Our ability to define populations and predict the effects of climate change on biogeographic displacement of forest trees is closely linked to future forest health. The developments in population genetics, ecological genetics and climate modeling of whitebark pine and western white pine will be presented and discussed. Similar approaches could be developed for other forest organisms.
Air and Water Session - Thursday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Bryce A. Richardson
USDA Forest Service
Rocky Mountain Research Station
1221 S. Main Street
Moscow, ID 83843
brichardson02@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p73
Ronald F. Billings and William Upton
Texas Forest Service
A practical and reliable system to forecast population trends and infestation levels of the southern pine beetle (SPB), Dendroctonus frontalis, has been implemented throughout the range of this forest pest in the southern
Native Pests Session - Wednesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Texas Forest Service
301 Tarrow, Suite 364
College Station, TX 77840-7896
rbillings@tfs.tamu.edu
Encyclopedia ID: p85
J. Brenner, D. Carlton, S. Mclellan, A. Dozier, T. Spencer, R. Jones and A. Ralowicz
Florida Division of Forestry (1,3)
Fire Program Solutions LLC (2)
Georgia Forestry Commission (4)
Texas Forest Service (5)
Sanborn Map Company Inc. (6)
MDA Federal Inc. (7)
Summary: We define wildfire risk as the probability of a wildfire occurring at a specified location and under given circumstances and its impacts on the affected objects e.g., homes, powerlines, plantations, etc (A. Bachmann et al 2001). Florida’s Wildland Fire Risk Assessment (FRA), completed in 2002, is a statewide effort to develop a comprehensive suite of standardized, spatial data layers needed to support implementation of a statewide fuels management strategy. By maintaining focus on fire/fuel dynamics and scientifically credible local-to-statewide applications, the FRA builds on a statewide surface fuels map, fire history data from many agencies, and weather data collected over a period of 20 years. Change detection is currently being utilized to update the statewide surface fuels layer. The process used in the FRA builds on a process first applied in the Lake Tahoe Basin Land Management Unit. Subsequent application with some modifications has recently been applied to thirteen Southern States (Southern Fire Risk Assessment).
Approach: FRA integrates several methodologies for predictive landscape modeling including remote sensing and fuels modeling into a comprehensive process for mapping vegetation, fire, and fuel characteristics. FRA methodologies are based on many years of successful scientific research and are grounded in the expertise of Mr. Don Carlton and his 30+ years of experience in the field of wildland fire behavior. FRA creates maps that characterize vegetation condition, potential fire behavior and effects. These maps may be used for prioritizing areas for fire prevention and fuels mitigation measures, as well as landscape rehabilitation and ecological restoration projects. They have also been used strategically to reduce wildfire costs, losses, and damages by assessing community risk from catastrophic wildfire.
On June 9th, 2004 the Commissioner of Agriculture for the State of Florida announced to the Florida press the completion of Florida’s Wildland Fire Risk Assessment. This announcement directed the public to two versions of the FRA application known as FRAS (Florida’s Wildland Fire Risk Assessment System). The first is a standalone application that requires additional software, e.g., ESRI’s ArcView 3.x, Flammap, and the Spatial Analyst Extension if one plans on making fire occurrence or fuel map changes and view the impacts resulting from fuels management or fire prevention efforts.
The second version of the application is the Web-FRAS. This application can be found on the Internet at the URL of: http://flame.fl-dof.com/risk/. The release of the Wildland Fire Risk Assessment on the Internet has made it available to anyone in Florida. In this way, individuals anywhere in the state can view the relative risk to their home/community by simply going on line and specifying what particular sets of data they want to see. The program presents that information immediately on request. The application is user friendly, and to date has received over twenty thousand requests for information. The two indices that can be displayed in both versions include the Wildland Fire Susceptibility Index (WFSI), which displays the potential for an area to burn, and the Level of Concern (LOC), which displays the potential impact or “risk” as defined in the Summary above.
We believe that we have managed to accomplish the original goals set out in the application for the Wildland Fire Risk Assessment. These goals included:
Outcome: This presentation will touch on several of the conference themes including: risk management across spatial and temporal scales, status of immediate and long-term threats, remote sensing and geospatial technologies, risk characterization and communication, decision making under risk, risk mitigation and alternatives, and simulation modeling. It will show why this system is important for today’s wildland fire manager.
corresponding author:
Jim Brenner
Fire Management Administrator
Florida Division of Forestry
3125 Conner Blvd.
Tallahassee, FL 32399-1650
850-488-6480
brennej@doacs.state.fl.us
Encyclopedia ID: p110
James Lenihan, Raymond Drapek, Ronald Neilson, Christopher Daly, and Dominique Bachelet
USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station (1-3,5), and
For nearly a decade the Mapped Atmosphere-Plant-Soil System (MAPSS) team from the USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station in
The fire forecasting requires monthly updating of the observed climate across the
The fire forecasts begin by simulating ecosystem and fire dynamics over the
After three seasons of fire forecasting, comparisons to observed fire data have shown MC1 fire forecasts to be reasonably accurate in terms of predicting both total area burned across the
The MAPSS team’s fire risk forecasting activities are supported by funding from the National Fire Plan, and serve all four elements of the National Fire Plan goals. At the beginning of each fire season, the MC1 fire forecasts are presented to fire managers from all nine western Geographic Area Coordination Centers (GACCs) attending the Western National Seasonal Assessment Workshop (NSAW) sponsored by the Predictive Services Group of the National Interagency Coordination Center (NICC), and are routinely incorporated into NICC’s seasonal weather/climate/fuels outlooks for the western GACCs. And currently over 160 land managers from various resource agencies are alerted each month to new fire forecasts posted on the MAPSS web site via an ever-growing email list.
Fire Session - Thursday Afternoon
corresponding author:
James Lenihan
USDA Forest Service
Pacific Northwest Research Station
3200 SW Jefferson Way
Corvallis, OR 97331
541-750-7432
jlenihan@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p63
Marcus V. Warwell, Gerald E. Rehfeldt, and Nicolas L. Crookston
USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station
The Random Forests multiple regression tree was used to develop an empirically-based bioclimatic model for the
Biodiversity Session - Thursday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Marcus V. Warwell
USDA Forest Service
Rocky Mountain Research Station
1221 S. Main
Moscow, ID 83843
208-883-2322
mwarwell@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p90
Frank H. Koch and John W. Coulston
Current information on broad-scale climatic conditions is essential for assessing potential distribution of forest pests. At present, sophisticated spatial interpolation approaches such as the Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model (PRISM) are used to create high-resolution climatic data sets. Unfortunately, these data sets are based on 30-year normals and rarely incorporate recent data. Furthermore, because they are constructed on a monthly rather than a daily time step, they do not directly measure simultaneous occurrence of multiple climatic conditions (e.g., days in the past year with appropriate temperature and adequate precipitation). Yet, the actual number of days—especially consecutive days—where multiple conditions are met could be significant for pest dispersal or establishment. For the sudden oak death pathogen (Phytophthora ramorum), we used National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) daily weather station data to create current, national-scale grids depicting co-occurrence of multiple climatic conditions.
For each station, we constructed two count-based variables: the total number of days and the greatest number of consecutive days in a year where the station met several conditions (temperature, rain/fog, relative humidity). We then employed gradient inverse distance squared (GIDS) interpolation to generate grids (4-km2 resolution) of these variables for five years (2000-2004). The GIDS technique weights standard inverse distance squared interpolation using coefficients based on geographic location (x, y) and a spatial covariate such as elevation. We determined the GIDS coefficients for each output grid cell via Poisson regression on the 30 closest stations using these variables, performing model selection to ensure only significant variables contributed to the GIDS coefficients.
We compared the output grids to maps assembled from the PRISM data depicting the probability all conditions were met in a given year. Expectedly, we found differences in areas highlighted as suitable for P. ramorum establishment by the two methods. We suggest that using current climatic data and calculating the variable of interest directly will provide more practical information for mapping forest pest risk.
Statistical Methods Session - Wednesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Frank H. Koch
Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources
North Carolina State University
2028 Biltmore Hall
Raleigh, NC 27695
919-549-4006
fkoch@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p92
Louis R. Iverson, Anantha Prasad, Jonathan Bossenbroek,
The emerald ash borer (EAB, Agrilus planipennis) is threatening to wipe out native ashes (Fraxinus sp.) from the North American continent, and is so far doing this well across large sections of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Ontario. We are attempting to model its future movement by adapting a model developed for the potential movement of tree species over a century of climate change. We have two model variants, an ‘insect-flight’ model and an ‘insect-ride’ model to assess potential movement.
With the ‘flight’ model, probability of movement is dependent on EAB abundance in the source cells (270 m cells), the quantity of ash in the target cells, and the distances between them. There is a low-level ‘background’ probability of long distance transport via storms, etc. To estimate abundance, we assume an 11-year cycle along a normal curve with maximum abundance at year 6 and minimum abundance at the initial colonization time as well as after the ash trees have died within the cell. For initial conditions of EAB abundance, we estimated zones of infestation each year from 1998-2005 via known EAB location and other data.
With the ‘insect-ride’ model, we have utilized GIS data to weight factors related to potential human-assisted movements of EAB-infested ash wood or just hitchhiking insects: roads, urban areas, tree nurseries, various wood products industries, and especially campgrounds. With campgrounds, we are developing a gravity model which considers traffic volumes and routes between EAB source areas and various distances to campgrounds. Each layer has buffer weights, which when combined results in a map of zones of enhanced probability of EAB colonization. We also intend to apply various ‘slow the spread’ efforts to see how these may affect spread so that various management strategies can be evaluated.
Exotic Pests Session - Tuesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Louis R. Iverson
USDA Forest Service
Northeastern Research Station
740-368-0097
liverson@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p83
Marla C. Downing, Thomas Jung, Vernon Thomas, Markus Blaschke, Michael F. Tuffly, and Robin Reich
USDA Forest Service Forest Health Technology Enterprise Team; Consultant for forest and tree diseases; Information and Technology Experts, Inc. (ITX); Bavarian State Institute of Forestry; ERIA Consultants, LLC; and Colorado State University
Increases in anthropogenic transportation of commodities in the last 200 years have led to the international spread of Phytophthora pathogens. For example, the European species Phytophthora ramorum has recently caused tremendous damage and mortality to Quercus and Lithocarpus trees in California. To address concerns and gain information about the potential spread of additional Phytophthora species, the USDA Forest Service, Forest Health Technology Enterprise Team (FHTET), in Fort Collins, Colorado, is assessing the risk of introduction and establishment of Phytophthora alni into the U.S. P. alni is a water-borne disease that is currently known to occur only in Europe on alder (Alnus) trees. It has spread throughout Europe via rivers, a natural dispersal mechanism for the pathogen, and through the common nursery practice of irrigating field stock with river water. The P. alni pathogen can adhere to the bare roots of non-host nursery stock and is capable of surviving transportation to the U.S. Therefore, to assess the risk of introduction of P. alni to the U.S., FHTET has developed a model that considers the importation of European nursery stock to U.S. wholesale nurseries and the natural dispersal mechanisms for the motile zoospores: streams and rivers. FHTET is currently developing an establishment model. First by assessing the presence or absence of P. alni in Germany using climate, elevation, slope, aspect, landform, soil, river, flood, and satellite data in a classification tree, a non-parametric statistical technique. Then the German model will identify the parameters that will be used to model the potential establishment of P. alni in the U.S. The product of the introduction and establishment surfaces will describe the overall national susceptibility.
Exotic Pests Session - Tuesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Marla C. Downing
USDA Forest Service
Forest Health Technology Enterprise Team
2150 Centre Avenue, Bldg. A., Suite 331
Fort Collins, CO 80526-1891
970-295-5843
mdowning@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p88
Ken Pierce, Ken Brewer and Janet Ohmann
One of the most fundamental informational needs in environmental risk assessment is consistent and continuous existing vegetation data. These data must be of sufficient accuracy and precision to address the complex and often uncertain ecological relationships necessary to understand risk factors and management options. Where these data do exist they are normally based on a sampling inference procedure rather than “wall to wall” inventory data. This is particularly true when the risk assessment covers large geographic extents and multiple ownerships. Despite the capability of simulation models and decision support tools comprehensive large area risk assessment is still difficult to implement because the inventory data are rarely complete and/or current. It would be convenient to be able to operate as if detailed inventory information were available for all units in the risk assessment area.
As an alternative to historically common statistical approaches (e.g., regression estimates or stratum averages) to populating unsampled units with data, imputation can be used. Imputation involves estimating values for variables of interest (Y variables) by supplying realistic measurements from one or more sampled units to unsampled units with similar characteristics in auxiliary (X) variable-space. Imputation of inventory data from sampled areas to similar unsampled areas produce datasets that function like “wall to wall” data for risk assessment purposes. The Gradient Nearest Neighbor (GNN) imputation method developed by Ohmann and Gregory has been implemented successfully over large geographic areas to characterize existing vegetation and fire and fuels characteristics. As currently implemented, this method develops 30 meter raster surfaces of inventory data that can then be readily analyzed for characterizing risks.
The USFS Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program has shown that it is possible to derive national mapping products using moderate resolution remote sensing images and GIS data layers (e.g. forest biomass, forest types/type groups). These maps were produced for the continuous US and
The current work (sponsored by the
Statistical Methods Session - Wednesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Ken Pierce
USDA Forest Service
3200 SW Jefferson Way
Corvallis, OR 97331
541-750-7393
kpierce@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p96
Jack D. Rogers, Ned B. Klopfenstein, Lori M. Carris, Mee-Sook Kim, Paul J. Zambino, Raini C. Rippy, John R. Goetz III, and Paul F. Hessburg
Washington State University Department of Plant Pathology (1,3,7), USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station (2,4,5,6) and Pacific Northwest Research Station (8)
Forest biologists have long investigated the ecological roles of pathogenic, mycorrhizal, and wood-decay fungi, but key contributions of other fungi and fungus-like organisms (e.g., non-pathogenic ascomycetes, basidiomycetes, zygomycetes, fungi imperfecti, and straminipiles) to forest ecosystems have been largely overlooked. Previously, such fungal species have been inadvertently overlooked because of difficulties in surveying/identification and preoccupation with obvious pathogens, mycorrhizal species, and wood decay fungi. Currently, coupled molecular and morphological characterizations of fungal cultures are allowing the survey of two groups of nonpathogenic, fungal communities that were previously poorly characterized: wood decomposers and root endophytes. These inconspicuous fungal groups may play critical roles in regulating forest response to disturbances.
Fungal decomposers are essential for nutrient recycling, bioremediation, and soil structure formation. They play key roles in balancing fuel deposits and woody residue decomposition, so knowledge of their activity is critical to understanding fire risk due to fuels buildup. In addition, some fungal decomposers strongly compete with root pathogens for woody substrates. Their presence and long-term viability can reduce root disease incidence and severity by direct antagonism or by competition for specific niches. Current studies are identifying fungi associated with decomposition in forest stands in various habitat types, soil types, and under different fertilization regimes. In ongoing surveys of fungi associated with wood decomposition in forest soil, over 1,100 isolates of nonpathogenic fungi from 16 families have been identified; many are in genera having species active in natural biological control of forest diseases. Our results suggest that inconspicuous and generally overlooked fungi are prevalent among the initial colonizers of fresh woody substrates in forest soil. These fungi could be playing important roles in moderating fire and disease threat to forests and facilitating recovery after disturbances.
The ecological roles of endophytic fungi in woody roots are not well understood. Our continuing studies have recovered over 500 unique isolates of endophytic fungi representing approximately 30 genera from living woody roots of ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) and Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) in the Inland Northwest, USA; many belong to genera with species that exhibit relatively high tolerance to soil heating and/or provide known biological control of fungal pathogens or insects. Current studies are underway to determine the ecological roles of these endophytic fungi in various environments, by monitoring their presence in interactions with fire and fuels treatments.
Knowledge of the occurrence and ecological roles of nonpathogenic and nonmycorrhizal fungi could aid prediction and management of forest disturbance regimes, especially under shifting climatic and management scenarios. We synthesize new scientific information to help forest managers understand the role of these inconspicuous fungi in relation to threats to western forests. As far as we are aware, no other programs are underway to inventory or determine the ecological roles of nonpathogenic and nonmycorrhizal fungi in forest ecosystems of the
Native Pests Session - Wednesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Ned Klopfenstein
USDA Forest Service
Rocky Mountain Research Station
1221 South Main Street
Moscow, ID 83843
208-883-2310
nklopfenstein@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p68
Patricia L. Winter and George T. Cvetkovich
USDA
A series of studies conducted on natural resource management issues surrounding risk to habitat, species, and humans has informed our understanding of the role of perceived similar salient values and trust (Cvetkovich and Winter 2002, 2003, 2004; Cvetkovich Winter and Earle 1995; Winter 2003; Winter and Cvetkovich 2000; Winter and Cvetkovich in press). Trust has continued to be highlighted as an essential element of fire management and communication (Shindler, Brunson and Cheek 2004; Winter, Vogt and Fried 2002; Winter, Vogt and McCaffery 2004) and risk management and communication in general (Covello and others 1986; Frudenberg and Rursh 1994; Johnson 2004; Slovic 1999 and 2000). However, the functions of salient values similarity and trust have not been explored in the context of the experience of residing within a fire prone community.
The risk and impact of fires have been significant on the
To examine these issues, 200 residents from fire prone communities surrounding an urban National Forest participated in focus group discussions and completed self-administered surveys. Results demonstrate the key influences that salient values similarity and trust have in perceptions of, and reactions to fire risk, personal actions taken, and responses to management actions. Implications for communication and collaboration, education, and management actions are discussed in light of the role of salient values similarity and trust in a risk environment.
Fire Session - Thursday Afternoon
corresponding author:
USDA Forest Service
Pacific Southwest Research Station
4955 Canyon Crest Drive
Riverside, CA 92507
pwinter@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p97
Haiganoush K. Preisler, Alan A. Ager, Charles McHugh, Jane L. Hayes, and David R. Brillinger
USDA
Building probabilistic risk models for highly stochastic forest disturbances like wildfire and forest insect epidemics is a challenging problem. Even more difficult is modeling the synergistic relationships that often exist among disturbances. In the case of bark beetles and wildfire, of interest is the conditional probabilities of a fire given a beetle outbreak in some prior year, and the probability of of post-fire beetle outbreaks following wildfire. This study used a probabilistic model of wildfire occurrence built by the authors (HKP, DRB) and considers the additional influence of prior bark beetle infestations. The study used historic data (1980 – 2005) on fire occurrence and bark beetle outbreaks collected in
Fire Session - Thursday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Alan Ager
USDA Forest Service
Pacific Northwest Research Station
1401 Gekeler Lane
La Grande, OR 97850-3368
541-278-3740
aager@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p93
Frank J. Krist Jr.
The construction of the 2005 – 06 National Insect and Disease Risk map, compiled by the USDA Forest Service, State and Private Forestry Area, Forest Health Protection Unit, resulted in the development of a common GIS-based multi-criteria approach that can account for regional variations in forest health concerns. This framework, utilized by all nine Forest Service regions and 49 states, provides a consistent, repeatable, transparent process through which dynamic spatial and temporal risk assessments can be conducted at various levels to aid in decision making. The national framework consists of a five step process which can be a highly iterative process utilizing input from subject area experts:
1. Identify a list of risk agents and target host species.
2. Identify, rank, and weight criteria that determine the susceptibility (risk of introduction and establishment) and vulnerability (risk of mortality if an agent is established) to each risk agent. In some cases susceptibility to a pest approximates vulnerability and therefore represents risk of tree mortality. This is true for pests such as emerald ash borer and oak wilt.
3. Standardize risk agent criteria values and combine the resultant maps using a weighted overlay(s).
4. Convert modeled values for each risk agent to predicted Basal Area (BA) loss over a 15 year period.
5. Identify regions at risk of encountering a 25% or greater loss of total basal area or volume in the next 15 years. This potentially dynamic threshold was set by the National Risk Map Oversight team for the national risk map product.
Following these five steps models are individually run and dynamically assembled into a National Map on a central server located at the Forest Health Technology Enterprise Team (FHTET) in
This paper will briefly outline the risk map framework demonstrating how risk maps can be easily constructed at both the local, regional, and national levels using Southern Pine Beetle as an example. Model validation and updating are discussed along with a new ArcGIS toolset that has been developed to allow seamless transfer of GIS technology to resource managers engaged in risk assessments. Lastly, an internet based geospatial portal will be demonstrated which places dynamic risk map products directly in the hands of state, private, and federal resource managers.
corresponding author:
Frank J. Krist, Jr.
USDA Forest Service
Forest Health Technology Enterprise Team
2150 Centre Avenue, Bldg. A., Suite 331
Fort Collins, CO 80526-1891
970-295-5845
fkrist@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p66
Jennifer Juzwik, Jane
USDA
Native Pests Session - Wednesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Jennifer Juzwik
USDA Forest Service
North Central Research Station
1561 Lindig Ave.
St. Paul, MN 55108
651-649-5114
jjuzwik@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p94
Tricia L. Wurtz, Matt Macander, and Blaine T. Spellman
USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station, ABR Inc.--Environmental Research & Services, and
Exotic Pests Session - Tuesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Tricia L. Wurtz
Boreal Ecology Cooperative Research Unit
University of Alaska, Fairbanks
PO Box 756780
Fairbanks, AK 99775-6780
907-474-5994
twurtz@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p99
Jim Ellenwood, Arpad Lazar, and Everett Hinkley
USDA Forest Service Forest Health Technology Enterprise Team (1,2) and Remote Sensing Applications Center (3)
Introductions of invasive non-indigenous species and the ensuing negative ecological and economic consequences are increasing with escalating global trade. As global markets expand, the threat of species introductions into new habitats becomes greater. Tools that allow for the rapid assessment of invasive species need to be refined to allow for the efficient and accurate assessment of impacted resource conditions. Two recently established invasive insects, Asian Longhorn Beetle and Emerald Ash Borer, were investigated by FHTET utilizing different approaches to map host type and assess the ensuing damage. A broad scale detection of Asian Longhorn Beetle utilized SPOT V, high-resolution airborne imagery, and traditional aerial photography to map potential host and mortality. A finer scale approach was utilized for the Emerald Ash Borer that utilized Hyperspectral imagery, high-resolution airborne imagery, and LIDAR. Each of these projects had encountered a number of technical, procedural, and contractual issues which need to be considered for future applications. A framework to focus developmental effort to refine the application of existing remotely sensed technologies is proposed.
Monitoring Methods Session - Tuesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Jim Ellenwood
USDA Forest Service
FHTET
2150 Centre Ave., Bldg. A, Ste. 331
Fort Collins, CO 80526
970-295-5842
jellenwood@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p108
Michael H. Rauscher and John M. Pye
USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station
The Forest Threat Encyclopedia Project is using this conference to attract the initial content of an online resource on risk assessment as applied to forests and other wildlands. The encyclopedia will be the sixth on the Forest Encyclopedia Network but is the first to extend the collections spatial scope beyond the Southern U.S. to cover all of North America. Content from case studiy papers will appear in itheir own section, with each paper appearing as a linear sequence of HTML pages. The content from synthesis papers will be rearranged hierarchically to form a logical information architecture that helps visitors navigate through the content to the subject of interest. Early exchange of paper outlines has allowed authors to cross reference and coordinate their content beyond most ordinary proceedings. No single conference can cover all the subjects in this rich and expanding field, but the papers from this conference will form the nucleus for what we hope becomes an ongoing process of expansion and updating of content.
corresponding author:
John M. Pye
Forestry Sciences Laboratory
3041 E. Cornwallis Road
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
919-549-4013
jpye@fs.fed.us
note: oral presentation only
Encyclopedia ID: p103
Michael J. Furniss
Road networks are strongly related to most threats facing public forest and rangelands. Roads route people, vehicles, water, large wood and sediment, pathogens, and invasive propagules. Roads can fragment and connect aquatic and terrestrial habitats in complex ways. The capacity for fuel treatments and fire suppression depend, in part, on the location and condition of roads.
The threats themselves and the capacity to respond to them are strongly related to past and future road networks, so the consideration of threats often must consider roads and their potential and anticipated changes through time. Recent advances in the large-scale analysis of road networks have demonstrated practical approaches to interdisciplinary planning of future road networks that are responsive to modern and projected issues and needs.
Exotic Pests Session - Tuesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Michael J. Furniss
mfurniss@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p74
Darmawan Prasodjo, Jianbang Gan, and Bruce A. McCarl
Texas A&M University Department of Agriculture Economics (1,3) and Department of
One of the major challenges in assessing the impact of natural threats such as weather extremes, wildfire, and pest/disease outbreaks is how to take into account the stochastic nature of these threats in terms of both time and spatial dimensions and to incorporate both direct and indirect impacts. Probabilistic risk modeling is an effective tool for risk characterization, and a multiregional and multisectoral stochastic programming model is capable of incorporating spatial uncertainty as well as interregional and intersectoral linkages. Combining the strengths of these two modeling methods appears to be a promising tool for threat assessment.
This paper will first offer an extensive review of probabilistic risk modeling and stochastic programming and their applications in risk analysis and decision-making under uncertainty. Their advantages and disadvantages as well as suitability for threat assessment will be discussed. Drawing on this synthesis, we will then attempt to integrate these two modeling approaches and demonstrate its applicability using the case of the southern pine beetle (SPB), the most detrimental insect of southern pines. Using the probabilistic modeling approach, the risk of SPB outbreaks will be characterized. This will provide input (the stochastic component) to the
This paper will not only describe the modeling approach and demonstrate its applicability in threat assessment, but also offer empirical results on the characterization of SPB outbreak risk, economic impacts of SPB outbreaks under various scenarios (e.g. representing the historical trends and global climate change), and mitigation strategies. The impact will be measured in terms of output, price, and welfare. The mitigation options will include species mix, land-use change, salvage harvest, and improved management practices, among others. The model developed can be applied to assessing the threats of other natural and anthropogenic disturbances, and the empirical findings will provide guidelines for mitigating future SPB damage and supporting healthy forest management.
Native Pests Session - Wednesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Darmawan Prasodjo
Agriculture Economics
Texas A&M University
113 Jack K. Williams Administration Bldg.
College Station, TX 77843-2142
979-845-8224
dprasodjo@ag.tamu.edu
Encyclopedia ID: p95
Susan M. Stein and Ronald E. McRoberts
The Forests on the Edge project, sponsored by the USDA Forest Service, has conducted a comprehensive, national assessment of the contributions of private forest land to water quality and timber production and an assessment of the threats to these lands due to urbanization, fire, and ozone. The objective has been to identify and rank watersheds across the
The presentation focuses on two aspects of the study: first, a synthesis of the methodological lessons learned, and second, specific spatial results. First, because the study is national in scope, construction of nationally consistent maps was crucial. This requirement necessitated locating such maps in a format that could be easily imported for GIS analyses. If maps were not available, then it was necessary to construct them from data having the scope, breadth, consistency, and uniformity necessary for the application. In most cases, the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program of the USDA Forest Service was the only source of such data. Because of time and resource limitations, map construction entailed imputing sample means to spatially regular polygons. Multiple GIS techniques for integrating maps depicting a combination of natural resource, political, and abiotic attributes were considered with the simple GIS intersection technique being selected. Finally, comments are provided on the efforts necessary to coordinate the cross-agency, multiple location effort.
The second aspect addresses the specific spatial assessment results. The analyses suggest the possibility of serious threats to contributions of private forest land to water quality from urbanization in the Southeast and
Land Session - Wednesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Susan M. Stein
Cooperative Forestry Staff
Mail Stop 1123
sstein@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p64
Don Evans
Remote sensing provides perhaps the best means to assess changes over time. In particular, aerial photography provides an invaluable record of land use and land cover conditions—frequently dating back to the 1930’s! Most forests have repeat photography on approximately a ten year cycle. This rich photo record can indicate changing threat conditions thru time including threats such as: insect damage, fuels buildup, unmanaged off-highway vehicle use, and loss of open space.
We’ve long recognized and valued the quality information content of photos; however, we’ve also long struggled with how to get our photos into our GIS. Current technologies have converged within the Forest Service that allow us to get our photos into a GIS rather easily. Within the GIS we can evaluate, analyze and document important changes.
This paper discusses historical photo data sources, software solutions and techniques for historical photo orthocorrection—along with examples of using historical imagery to document selected changing threat levels over time in several locations.
The methods described in this paper are available in all areas and provide the most consistent and objective method for detecting, assessing and monitoring changes through time.
Monitoring Methods Session - Tuesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Don Evans
USDA Forest Service
Remote Sensing Applications Center
2222 West 2300 South
Salt Lake City, UT 84119
801-975-3757
dtevans@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p77
Curtis A. Collins, David L. Evans, H. Alexis Londo, Patrick A. Glass, and Keith L. Belli
Mississippi State University College of Forest Resources (1 and 3), Mississippi State University College of Forest Resources (2 and 5), and Mississippi Institute for Forest Inventory (4)
In the wake of the landfall and passage of hurricane Katrina through South Mississippi on August 29, 2005, thousands of hectares of forestland were damaged or destroyed prompting massive salvage, cleanup, and assessment tasks. An initial assessment by the Mississippi Forestry Commission estimated that over one billion dollars in raw wood material was downed by the storm with county-level damaged forest percentages ranging from 60% to 50% across Mississippis three coastal counties. While this assessment was rapidly performed through aerial viewing using expert approximation, a more definitive and continuous damage assessment model was sought, leading to the acquisition and analysis of remotely sensed data taken before and after hurricane Katrina. By mapping this impact in a more accurate and continuous form, future economic and environmental policies can be influenced by the information produced so that the mitigation of present and future losses, due, for example, to the weakened state of residual forests (e.g., insects, fires, and secondary storm), can occur in an adequate manner. Beyond this characterization of post-Katrina resource damage, model development to predict the likely scope and severity of damage from future hurricanes, given the state of the forest resources that may be impacted, will also be explored.
In employing remotely sensed data to better grasp the damage inflicted by Katrina, low (250 - 500 m resolution), moderate (56 - 30 m resolution), and high (4 - 0.3 m resolution) resolution data were acquired from spaceborne and airborne platforms in panchromatic and MultiSpectral (MS) formats. With regard to the MS data, bands were captured across the three visible (blue, green, and red) as well as from various sections of the near- and mid-infrared portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. In addition to these data, transformed data such as Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Normalized Difference Moisture Index (NDMI) layers were also to be used as variables in the modeling process.
In preliminary work, moderate resolution (56 m) MS data transformed into NDMI layers was used in a strata definition exercise for allocating damaged assessment plots in the field. This was done by heuristically setting an NDMI threshold value that appeared to visually fit the expected distribution of damaged forest areas by timber type using state-wide forest type and age thematics that were created previously for the Mississippi Institute for Forest Inventory (MIFI). With these rough damaged and undamaged areas delineated, points were randomly allocated so that fifth-acre (0.08 ha) plots could be sampled to determine measured damage levels in the field. This measurement process is presently underway through support from MIFI.
Storm track, speed, and wind data (both from FEMA using their HAZUS software, and from NOAAs Hurricane Research Center) were also available for Katrina. From storm track and speed data it is expected that wind direction, duration, and stability can be derived, or at least accounted for, while wind data from FEMA and NOAA, in both sustained and gust forms, can provide for valuable predictive variables alone. Additional information, such as storm surge extent, is presently being sought to serve as another possible variable of interest related to current damage, not to mention future effects from the introduction of salt into freshwater environments.
Although field sampling of storm damage is in process, interpretation of high resolution imagery was performed yielding damage classification as well as crown closure differences between pre- and post-storm imagery in GIS-generated fifth-acre (0.08 ha) plots, which were intended to match field sampling plots. The purpose here was to create a bank of training and validation data for use in the model construction and testing phases of this project.
The modeling of more complex predicted damage estimates is presently being investigated using various maximum likelihood and least-squares fitting procedures in the hopes that categorical or continuous values may be derived using storm attribute and remotely sensed data. Modeling results are expected to be good as the rough mapping results performed using the moderate resolution NDMI procedure outlined above appeared visually correlated with anticipated damage regions. In fact, photo-interpretive class comparisons show ~71% agreement between located and interpreted photo plots and damage/undamaged classed forested pixels. The hope is that with more repeatable, less interpretative modeling procedures, more consistent and precise results can be obtained.
Air and Water Session - Thursday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Curtis A. Collins
Box 9681
Mississippi State, MS 39762
662-325-3540
ccollins@larsonmcgowin.com
Encyclopedia ID: p100
Gretchen Moisen, Raymond L. Czaplewski, Ken Brewer, Sean Healey
USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station (1,2,4) and Remote Sensing Applications Center (3)
Continuous improvement in risk assessment requires monitoring to directly detect and assess the extent and severity of realized disturbances relative to the predicted risk of those disturbances. The Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program, conducted by the Research and Development branch of the USDA Forest Service, is well suited for monitoring all
Monitoring Methods Session - Tuesday Afternoon
corresonding author:
Raymond L. Czaplewski
USDA Forest Service
Rocky Mountain Research Station
2150 Centre Avenue, Bldg. A
Fort Collins, CO 80526
970-295-5973
rczaplewski@fs.fed.us
note: oral presentation only
Encyclopedia ID: p101
Thomas Perry and Jeremy S. Wilson
University of Maine Department of Forest Management
Wind damage influences forest management throughout the world and the forests of
Air and Water Session - Thursday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Jeremy S. Wilson
Department of Forest Management
University of Maine
5755 Nutting Hall
Encyclopedia ID: p71
Jeffrey K. Stone, Leonard B. Coop, and Daniel K. Manter
Swiss needle cast disease of Douglas-fir is caused by the ascomycete fungus Phaeocryptopus gaeumannii. Symptoms of the disease are foliage chlorosis and premature needle abscission due to occlusion of stomata by the ascocarps of the pathogen, resulting in impaired needle gas exchange. Severe defoliation and growth losses of 20-50% due to Swiss needle cast have been reported for about 150,000 ha of Douglas-fir plantations in western
Exotic Pests Session - Tuesday Afternoon
[note that Swiss needle cast disease is not an introduced pest in the Pacific Northwest, it is native there]
corresponding author:
Jeffrey K. Stone
Department of Botany and Plant Pathology
Oregon State University
Cordley Hall 2082
Corvallis, OR 97331-2902
stonej@science.oregonstate.edu
Encyclopedia ID: p81
N.E. Grulke, R.A. Minnich, T. Paine, A. Dunn, and D. Chavez
USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station (1,5)
University of California Department of Geography (2) and Department of Entomology (3)
USDA Forest Service San Bernardino National Forest (4)
Many factors increase susceptibility of forests to wildfire in California. Among them are increases in human population, changes in land use, increased fire starts, fire suppression, and frequent droughts. These factors have been exacerbating forest susceptibility to wildfires over the last century in southern California. Here we report on the significant role that air pollution has on increasing forest susceptibility to wildfires. Air pollution, specifically ozone and wet and dry deposition of nitrogenous compounds from fossil fuel combustion, has significantly increased since industrialization of the region after WWII. Ozone and elevated nitrogen deposition cause specific changes in forest tree carbon, nitrogen, and water balance that enhance individual tree susceptibility to drought, bark beetle attack, and combined, and these changes contribute to whole ecosystem susceptibility to wildfire. For example, elevated O3 and N deposition increase leaf turnover rates, N content of leaf litter, and decrease decomposability of litter. Uncharacteristically deep litter layers develop in mixed conifer forests affected by air pollutants. Elevated O3 and N deposition decrease the proportion of whole tree biomass in foliage and roots, the latter effect increasing tree susceptibility to drought and beetle attack. Because both foliar and root mass is compromised, overwinter carbohydrates are stored in the bole, perhaps contributing to increased beetle fecundity. Elevated O3 increases drought stress by significantly reducing plant control of water loss. The resulting increase in canopy transpiration, combined with [O3 + N deposition]-induced decreases in root mass significantly increase tree susceptibility to drought stress, and when additionally combined with increased bole carbohydrates, contribute to success of bark beetle attack. Phenomenological and experimental evidence is presented to support the role of these factors contributing to the susceptibility of forests to wildfire in southern California.
Native Pests Session - Wednesday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Nancy E. Grulke
Pacific Southwest Research Station
4955 Canyon Crest Drive
Riverside, CA 92507
951-680-1556
ngrulke@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p106
Alan Ager and Mark Finney
USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station and Rocky Mountain Research StationA number of wildfire risk systems have been developed in recent years to provide land managers with tools to examine potential wildfire impacts. However, few of these efforts use well-established concepts and definitions of risk from the actuarial sciences, and none are sufficiently detailed for watershed-scale fuels treatment planning. In the context of wildfire, risk is the expected loss from a fire, calculated as the product of (1) probability of a fire at a specific intensity and location, and (2) the resulting financial or ecological damage. The process of wildfire risk assessment is concerned with changes in expected loss in response to fuel treatments, suppression, structure improvements, and assumptions about fire weather. We developed a wildfire risk model based on the expected loss concept and tested it on 16,000 ha wildland-urban interface in
corresponding author:
Alan Ager
USDA Forest Service
Pacific Northwest Research Station
1401 Gekeler Lane
La Grande, OR 97850-3368
541-278-3740
aager@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p91
Kerry Overton
USDA Forest Service R1/R4/RMRS Technology Transfer Program
A web-based decision support tool was developed to assist aquatic practitioners in managing fisheries and watershed information. The Framework was designed to support resource assessments and planning efforts from the broad scale to the fine scale, document procedures, and link directly to relevant research. The Framework is a hierarchical-hyperlinked template that is readily updateable. The Framework products consist of tabular and spatial displays of: 1) current aquatic resource condition and distribution; 2) desired aquatic resource future conditions; 3) aquatic resource risks and threats; 4) analysis approaches; 5) a conservation & restoration strategy; and, 6) a monitoring, inventory and research strategy. The Framework provides a logical template for developing, tracking and documenting aquatic information; hierarchical for summarizing available information at various scales associated with universally coded true watersheds (e.g. basin, subbasin, watershed, subwatershed); transparent and defensible; links management questions and data to best available science and procedures; and, helps define and display information assumptions and gaps. Different analysis approaches with supporting science or case studies are directly linked and downloadable from the Framework (e.g. extinction risk matrix table, influence diagrams, probabilistic networks). The Framework is designed to support USFS Regional species status overviews, subbasin assessments, watershed analysis, cumulative effects assessments, and project NEPA and consultation. Spatially explicit outputs are used to define and display risks and threats associated with fish, fish habitats, stream-riparian environments and watershed conditions. Broad scale summaries provide context for fine scale projects to help prioritize management actions for addressing risks and threats. The transparent design helps step down data and priorities for field unit implementation. The Framework is currently being utilized to support the aquatic portion of Forest Plan Revision in Region 1 and 4, and in implementing completed
Biodiversity Session - Thursday Afternoon
corresponding author:
Kerry Overton
Boise Aquatic Sciences Lab
322 E Front St., Suite 401
Boise, ID 83702
208-373-4357
koverton@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p87
*Corresponding author in bold
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Encyclopedia ID: p26
Nathan W. Seward, Michael J. Lavelle, Justin W. Fischer, and Kurt C. VerCauteren
USDA APHIS Wildlife Services
High densities of elk (Cervus elaphus) can result in concentrated herbivory that may cause the degradation of stands of quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides). A means to restrict elk from aspen stands and alleviate associated damage without impeding the movements and ecological function that other wildlife provide is needed. Therefore, we designed, constructed, and evaluated a simple fence exclosure at MacGregor Ranch in
corresponding author:
Nathan W. Seward
USDA APHIS Wildlife Services
National Wildlife Research Center
4101 LaPorte Avenue
Fort Collins, CO 80521-2154
Nathan.W.Seward@aphis.usda.gov
Encyclopedia ID: p29
T. M. Rice, J. E. Stewart, M.-S. Kim, and G. I. McDonald
Habitat typing of forest stands provides a functional basis for development of tools to assess landscape-level potential threats to forest health. Habitat types (associations of plant species) are well-accepted indicators of general site conditions such as temperature and moisture; however, traditional assignment of habitat types at the landscape level lacks the resolution to discover important process-level parameters requisite to effectively assess diverse environmental threats posed by disease, insect attack, invasive weeds, fire and global climate change. While these threats tend to function across a wide range of plant communities, their behaviors differ within narrower ranges of site conditions influenced by interactions of topography, soil, temperature and precipitation patterns, as well as past disturbance and management practices. Environmental variations occurring within sites must be recognized and used along with broader-scale characteristics to create appropriate management strategies specific to the threat being addressed. For example, data from numerous sites throughout the western
Geographic Information System (GIS) tools provided the ability to design an unbiased plant community classification system from terrain and climate analyses of a forested area in
corresponding author:
T.M. Rice
USDA Forest Service
Rocky Mountain Research Station
1221 S. Main Street
Moscow, ID 83843
208-883-2308
trice@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p34
Mee-Sook Kim, Geral I. McDonald, Thomas M. Rice, David E. Hall, Jane E. Stewart, Jonalea R. Tonn, Philip D. Tanimoto, Paul J. Zambino, and Ned B. Klopfenstein
When selecting fuels treatments to reduce the threat of catastrophic wildfire, impacts on root-rot disease, such as Armillaria root rot, warrant careful consideration. Armillaria species are widely distributed and their contribution to disease and mortality can increase greatly after natural and human-caused disturbances. Although some Armillaria species are beneficial decomposers of woody substrates, Armillaria ostoyae is a major pathogen of conifers in the western
corresponding author:
Mee-Sook Kim
USDA Forest Service
Rocky Mountain Research Station
1221 S. Main Street
Moscow, ID 83843
208-883-2362
mkim@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p36
John R. Withrow, Jr. and Jose F. Negron
SI International, Inc. and USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station
The Douglas-fir beetle (Dendroctonous pseudotsugae Hopk.) is a major mortality agent of Douglas-fir (Pseudotsugae menziesii Mirbel Franco) across the western
corresponding author:
John R. Withrow, Jr.
SI International, Inc.
2629 Redwing Road, Suite 110
Fort Collins, CO 80526
johnwithrow@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p45
R. Hylton, T. R. Simons, and K. Franzreb
USGS North Carolina Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit (1,2) and USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station
Atmospheric pollution remains a critical environmental problem in the high elevation forests of North America, however we have a limited understanding of the long-term, landscape-level effects of acid precipitation on high elevation populations in terrestrial systems. The objectives of our research are to quantify the effects of acid deposition and calcium depletion on high elevation songbird and snail populations both spatially and temporally. Snails are of particular interest as they are the primary source of calcium for songbirds, and are sensitive to environmental contaminants. We are comparing the calcium content of eggs and the nesting success of songbirds, and abundance, species richness, calcium content, and shell thickness of terrestrial land snails across a gradient of acid deposition in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, an area which faces some of the highest levels of air pollution in North America. We are also conducting a retrospective study using museum specimens to determine if snail shell size, thickness, and calcium content have declined over time. In subsequent years we will manipulate the availability of environmental calcium for songbirds at experimental study sites to examine the extent of calcium deficiency. We anticipate expanding this research into adjacent high elevation sites on National Forest lands in subsequent years. Our goal is to improve understanding of the connections between human-induced atmospheric pollution and the ecology of wild songbird and snail populations in the Southern Appalachians, and provide recommendations for environmental conservation and management.
corresponding author:
Southern Appalachians Cooperative Ecosystems Studies Unit
Department of Forestry
Wildlife and Fisheries
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 37996
865-974-0932
kfranzreb@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p55
John Waldron, Robert Coulson, David Cairns, Charles Lafon, Maria Tchakerian, Weimin Xi, and Andrew Birt
Texas A&M University, Knowledge Engineering Laboratory
The southern pine beetle, Dendroctonus frontalis (Zimn) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) (SPB) is an indigenous invasive species that infests and causes mortality to pines (Pinus spp.) throughout the southern US. The hemlock woolly Adelgid, Adelges tsugae (Annand) (Homoptera: Adelgidae) (HWA), is a non-indigenous invasive species that infests and causes mortality to Eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis), and Carolina hemlock (T. caroliniana) throughout their range in eastern North America. These species occur in the southern Appalachians. Herbivory by both species is of concern to forest managers, but for different reasons. In the case of the SPB emphasis centers on forest restoration strategies and in the case of the HWA the concern is on predicting the impact of removing hemlock from the forest environment. Both of these issues can be investigated using a landscape simulation modeling approach. LANDIS II is a simulation modeling environment developed to predict forest landscape change over time. It is a modular, spatially explicit, landscape-scale ecological simulation model that incorporates disturbance by fire, wind, biological disturbance (insects & pathogens) and harvesting. Because of its modular design, it has the capacity to allow for future disturbance components such as ice storms. Herein, we present a framework for using LANDIS II to evaluate the impact of herbivory by the SPB and HWA on forest landscapes in the southern Appalachians.
corresponding author:
Robert Coulson
Knowledge Engineering Laboratory
Department of Entomology
Texas A&M University, MS-2475
College Station, TX 77843-2475
979-845-9725
r-coulson@tamu.edu
Encyclopedia ID: p56
W.J. Otrosina and P. Spaine
Recent management activities and various land uses have dramatically altered edaphic and environmental conditions from those under which forest tree species and ecosystems have evolved. For example, fire suppression in fire-dependent Sequoia giganteum stands has resulted in increased mortality due to Heterobasidion annosum. One hypothesis is that fire suppression results in increased encroachment of true firs, readily infected by S group H. annosum, thereby transferring the disease via root contacts with S. giganteum. Also, the existence of a hybrid between the S and P groups of H. annosum may be evidence for anthropogenic influences on evolutionary pathways in this pathogen. In other ecosystems, such as Pinus palustris (longleaf pine) in the southeastern
corresponding author:
W.J. Otrosina
USDA Forest Service
320 Green Street
Athens, GA 30602
706-559-4295
wotrosina@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p46
Ben E. Machin, Daniel P. Ruddell, Dale R. Bergdahl, Christina Marts
Redstart Forestry, Inc. (1,2), University of
Non-native invasive species (NNIS) represent an increasing challenge to management and stewardship of natural and cultural resources that extends across traditional political and ownership boundaries. A
The model incorporated a literature search, interviews, and historical documentation in identifying: 1) factors associated with the risk of HWA introduction and establishment (“susceptibility”); and 2) potential impact of HWA infestations (“vulnerability/ resistance”). Modeled “susceptibility” factors included: a) climate interaction (cold hardiness zones revised to account for effects of latitude and elevation); b) dispersal potential (distance to documented sources of HWA introduction); and c) host range (
Information from the
corresponding author:
Ben E. Machin
Redstart Forestry, Inc.
211 Joe Lord Road
Corinth, VT 05039
redstart@sover.net
Encyclopedia ID: p40
Tessa Bauman, Kier Klepzig, and Robert Rabaglia
USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station (1,2)
USDA Forest Service Forest Health Protection (3)
Early Detection and Rapid Response is a critical component of the USDA Forest Service invasive species program. We have collected, processed, and identified thousands of samples from funnel traps baited with ethanol (to capture ambrosia beetles), Ipslure (to capture scolytine engravers), and pinene-ethanol (to capture turpentine and other secondary beetles) and placed in urban forests and near port facilities and wood-handling facilities. We have recovered Xylosandrus compactus, Xylosandrus crassiusculus, Xylosandrus germanus, Gnathotrichus materiarius, Monarthrum fasciatum, and M. mali - beetles which are known to occur within the USA. In addition, we continue to check samples for any new or recent introductions. Current efforts focus on the following target species: Hylurgops palliatus, Hylurgus ligniperda, Tomicus piniperda, Scolytus schevyrewi, Ips sexdentatus, Ips typographus, Orthotomicus erosus, Pityogenes chalcographus, Xyleborus glabratus, Xyleborus similis, and Trypodendron domesticum. This program is a targeted detection and response effort that supports efforts to effectively detect high-risk exotic species early enough to pursue control and/or eradication actions. Future goals of our participation in the effort include additional training of field personnel and students, development of new trapping, screening and identification methods, and cooperation with the Forest Health Technology Enterprise Team and Threat Assessment Centers on risk-rating for species and ecosystems.
corresponding author:
Kier Klepzig
Forest Insect Research
2500 Shreveport Hwy
Pineville, LA 71360
318-473-7238
kklepzig@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p57
Charlie Luce, Bruce Rieman, Paul Hessburg, Carol Miller, and Anne Black
USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station (1,2,4,5) and Pacific Northwest Research Station (3)
Hazardous fuels projects designed to mitigate large wildfires can conflict with habitat protection needs for threatened, endangered, and sensitive aquatic species. Conflict emerges from uncertainty over whether large wildfires or the fuels management activities represent a greater threat to the long-term persistence of sensitive species and the quality and extent of their habitats. Managers need to identify where goals of fuels management, ecological restoration in both terrestrial and aquatic systems, and sensitive species management conflict or converge with one another. Both cases exist, but the relative risks may vary dramatically with landscape and ecological context. To meet multiple demands of watershed/habitat protection and improvement and hazardous fuels reduction, managers must assess tradeoffs among vulnerability and isolation of aquatic species and habitats, hydrologic connectivity between hill slopes and critical habitats, and the likelihood of damaging events. We propose a framework for a spatially explicit decision analysis that organizes knowledge of aquatic species and habitat issues, watershed processes, and the management objectives of terrestrial vegetation, wildfire, and fuels. Our framework can be directly integrated with the Fire Effects Planning Framework (FEPF), an existing tool that helps managers spatially identify and track where wildfire may provide ecological and social benefits and where it may pose significant risks to management goals and socioeconomic values. FEPF is used at a variety of planning scales to assist in land management plan revision, Fire Management Plan updates, landscape scale fuels treatment planning, and incident support. FEPF currently defines benefits based primarily on vegetative stand condition and considers watershed and fisheries as constraints. The proposed decision support model instead will allow the potential benefits to both terrestrial and aquatic systems to be considered. Our preliminary results suggest a significant opportunity exists for strategic placement of fuels treatment to simultaneously resolve both terrestrial and aquatic issues.
corresponding author:
Charlie Luce
USDA Forest Service,
Rocky Mountain Research Station
322 E Front St., Suite 401
Boise, ID 83702
208-373-4382
cluce@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p37
R. Talbot Trotter, Michael Montgomery and Kathleen Shields
USDA Forest Service Northeastern Research Station
Outside the issues of host specificity and non-target effects, the effective and efficient use of biological control methods depends on two specific pieces of information: 1) knowing where (and when) the biocontrol agent is needed; and 2) knowing where (and when) it can establish. Over the last few decades, the hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA) has become a prime target for biological control programs, as chemical controls have proven to be impractical at landscape scales because of both ecological and logistical problems. To date, at least ten species of arthropods have been imported to the U.S., and several have been released in the eastern U.S. for the control of HWA. To date however, successful establishment of the species in varying locations has been erratic.
Risk mapping and climate/landscape modeling offer opportunities to improve our understanding of factors related to successful establishment of invasive pests and their biocontrols. Previous HWA risk mapping has focused on the distribution of the host species, providing the critical baseline estimate for the potential maximum distribution of the species. However, the expressed distribution may differ as a result of both biotic and abiotic factors such as temperature limits. The spread of HWA populations in the late 1990s provides a possible example of temperature acting as a limiting factor in pest establishment. Prior to 1998, HWA populations were largely limited to the eastern aspect of the Appalachian Mountains. Estimation of minimum January temperatures across the landscape using data from ~1600 weather stations (available from NOAA NCDC) in combination with county infestation records suggests the high altitudes of the Appalachians produced a cold barrier to establishment of HWA. However, regional weather data shows that around 1998, warmer-than-average winter temperatures may have provided a temporal window in this barrier, allowing the HWA to expand rapidly west. Patterns such as these provide insight into the dynamics of species movements across the landscape, and provide a starting point for the prediction of the expected limits of establishment for the invasive species - a key to understanding where biological control is likely to be needed.
corresponding author:
R. Talbot Trotter III
Northeastern Center for Forest Health Research
51 Mill Pond Road
Hamden CT 06514
203-230-4312
rttrotter@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p59
Frank J. Krist Jr. and Randall J. Schaetzl
USDA Forest Service Forest Health Technology Enterprise Team (1)
Michigan State University (2)
With the widespread availability of published Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) maps in digital format, resource managers can now begin to incorporate soilscape analysis into risk assessment exercises. Recent work, including the compilation of the National Insect and Disease Risk map by the USDA Forest Service, State and Private Forestry Area, Forest Health Protection Unit, has demonstrated the significance of soils and soil patterns in risk analysis. In particular, patterns related to soil moisture content are often a primary factor related to tree stress, and thus to insects and diseases. Current measures available from the NRCS soils data, such as available water holding capacity of the various soil series, do not adequately describe natural soil wetness and are difficult to interpret. In order to address this data gap, a soil drainage index (DI), initially developed by Schaetzl (1986) and elaborated upon in this work, was used in the construction of the National Insect and Disease Risk map. The DI ranges from 0 (for bare rock) to 99 (for open water) and is based on soil and topographic characteristics, including drainage class, slope, texture, and profile thickness, all of which can be easily gleaned from the taxonomic family of each soil series, as indicated on county soil surveys. The DI has the advantage of being based on natural soil wetness or dryness, which is unaffected by climate variation or irrigation. As a result, soils with high water holding potentials can be identified, even in desert regions, and evaluated in an unbiased manner against soils in wetter locations. The USDA Forest Service, in cooperation with Michigan State University, is currently developing an algorithm that can be used to calculate the DI value of any soil series in the USA, and in so doing is developing a national map of DI values. This poster briefly outlines the process used to develop this layer and how this soil DI layer can play a key role in dynamic risk assessments. The poster will also compare the resultant DI map to a national map of available soil water holding capacity.
corresponding author:
Frank Krist
Forest Health Technology Enterprise Team
2150 Centre Ave., Bldg. A., Suite 331
Fort Collins, CO, USA 80526-1891
970-295-5845
fkrist@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p27
Terry A. Kaplan-Henry, Joshua G. Courter, and Sarah E. Martin
USDA Forest Service Sequoia
During the summers of 2000, through 2005 stream channel geometry relationships were surveyed in tributary streams to the
Since the 2002 McNally fire, we have documented the response of watersheds in the fire to both winter and summer storm events to validate discharge estimates predicted as a result of the fire. Watersheds studied include Rattlesnake Creek,
corresponding author:
Terry A. Kaplan-Henry
tkaplanhenry@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p49
Carlos Fabián Vargas, Yolanda Salinas, Gerardo Zúñiga, Alan A. Ager, and Jane L. Hayes
Instituto Politecnico Nacional Biological Variation and Evolution Laboratory, Mexico City, Mexico (1-3) and USDA
Bark beetles in the genus Dendroctonus are significant causes of mortality for over half of the more than 40 species of pines (Pinus) that occur in
corresponding author:
Jane L. Hayes
USDA Forest Service
Pacific Northwest Research Station
1401 Gekeler Lane
La Grande, OR 97850-3368
541-962-6549
jlhayes@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p42
Gerald E. Rehfeldt, Nicolas L. Crookston, Marcus V.Warwell, and Jeffrey S. Evans
USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station
The Random Forests multiple regression tree was used to develop bioclimatic models of 25 biotic communities of western
corresponding author:
Marcus V. Warwell
USDA Forest Service
Rocky Mountain Research Station
1221 S. Main
Moscow, ID 83843
208-883-2322
mwarwell@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p41
Helen Maffei, Alan Ager, Becky K. Kerns, and Ken Boucher
USDA Forest Service, Forest Health Protection (1); USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station (2,3); USDA Forest Service, Central Oregon Fire Management Services (4)
We describe a prototype risk assessment framework to analyze the effects of fuel reduction treatments on multiple, interacting forest threats in the lodgepole pine and mixed conifer forests of central Oregon. The framework links a number of forest simulation and GIS models to simulate the effects of fuel reduction treatments on forest succession, potential bark beetle mortality, wildfire probability, and the spread of invasive plants. As a study and test case area, we are using a high priority landscape located in the Davis Late Successional Reserve (LSR) in central Oregon on the Deschutes National Forest. In this LSR, disturbances like wildfire and bark beetles pose a threat to key habitat for the northern spotted owl and other wildlife species. The spread of invasive plants is also a potential threat as understory species contribute virtually all the plant biodiversity in these forests, regulate many processes, and provide critical wildlife habitat. We are simulating a range of management scenarios over time to examine interactions among competing threats, specific types of management activities, and their associated risk. In this poster we describe our modeling approach and outputs from preliminary application of the models to the Davis Late Successional Reserve and other study areas.
corresponding author:
Helen Maffei
USDA Forest Service
Forest Health Protection
Deschutes National Forest
1001 SW Emkay Drive
Bend, Oregon 97702
541-383-5591
hmaffei@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p61
Jeffrey A. Hicke and Jesse A. Logan
Colorado State University and
Insect outbreaks are significant forest disturbances in the
corresponding author:
Jeffrey A. Hicke
1499 Campus Delivery
jhicke@nrel.colostate.edu
Encyclopedia ID: p44
A. Davidson, A. Hudak, J. Evans, W. Gould, G. González, and T. Hollingsworth
USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station (1-3) International Institute of Tropical Forestry (4,5) and Pacific Northwest Research Station (6)
Land cover conversion, forest harvest and road construction have fragmented forests and rangelands across the
corresponding author:
Andrew T. Hudak
USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station
ahudak@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p28
Nick Salafsky, Alison Stattersfield, Daniel Salzer and Craig Hilton-Taylor
Foundations of Success/Conservation Measures Partnership (1), Birdlife International/IUCN Species Survival Commission (2), The Nature Conservancy/Conservation Measures Partnership (3), IUCN Species Survival Commission
There is growing interest in promoting more systematic information
sharing and learning between conservation practitioners in and across
different organizations. Ultimately, these efforts are about trying to
develop a body of knowledge and practice about how to make conservation
more effective - to create a science of conservation. An unglamorous
yet essential foundation of any science is a standard nomenclature. If
we want to create general principles for conservation work, we need a
common language. In recent years, the IUCN Species Survival Commission
and the Conservation Measures Partnership have each independently
developed standard classifications for direct threats and for
conservation actions. Over the past year, we have been working to bring
together these separate efforts to produce one unified set of
classifications. Here we present the results of this work. It is our
hope that these standard classifications will help field project teams
identify threats and design appropriate actions. More importantly,
these taxonomies will allow practitioners to search a database of
conservation projects and find projects facing similar threats or using
similar actions and thus to learn how, why, and when certain actions
succeed in abating particular threats - to facilitate cross-project
learning and ultimately develop a full-fledged science of conservation.
The classifications are available at www.conservationmeasures.org.
corresponding author:
Nick Salafsky
Foundations of Success
4109 Maryland Ave
Bethesda MD 20816 USA
301-263-2784
Nick@FOSonline.org
Encyclopedia ID: p60
Steven G. McNulty
The federal agencies of the United States (US) are currently developing guidelines for critical nitrogen load limits for US forest ecosystems. These guidelines will be used to develop regulations designed to maintain pollutant inputs below the level shown to damage specified ecosystems. By traditional definition, an ecosystem is considered to be at risk when nitrogen loads exceed a critical level. The excess over the critical load is termed the accedence, and a larger accedence is often considered to pose a greater risk of damage to an ecosystem. This definition of critical loads applies to acute or chronic individual stress impacts, but does not work well when an ecosystem is subjected to multiple environmental stresses. For example, the southeastern US mountains of western North Carolina received some of the highest rates of nitrogen deposition in the eastern US, but these nitrogen deposition levels are still considered to be below the critical load rate. The area experienced a moderate three year drought from 1999-2002. In 2001, white pine and spruce trees began to die in large numbers in the area. The initial evidence confirmed that the affected trees were killed by the southern pine beetle (SPB). This insect species is not normally successful at colonizing these tree species because heavy oleoresin production exudes the boring beetles from impacted trees. Subsequent investigations revealed that the relative ratio of above ground to below ground biomass was high compared to ratios of same species from lower nitrogen deposition areas. I believe that elevated nitrogen deposition reduced the root biomass, reduced the tree water uptake potential, reduced oleoresin production, and caused the trees to become more to susceptible to insect colonization during the drought period. If climate variability (and change) impacts are included, then the forests in this area were in accedence of their critical nitrogen threshold. Recent advances in ecosystem modeling of climate change stress impacts on forest ecosystems allow for more complex analysis of multiple stress scenarios. This poster explores how climate change stress impacts can be assessed using computer models to determine variable critical load limits. The implications for improved forest management and pollutant regulation will also be presented.
corresponding author:
Steven G. McNulty
USDA Forest Service
Southern Research Station
Southern Global Change Program
920 Main Campus Dr.
Raleigh, NC 27606
919-515-9489
steve_mcnulty@ncsu.edu
Encyclopedia ID: p51
Yushun Zhai and Ian A. Munn
Mississippi State University Forestry Department
Factors influencing the probability of fire occurrence in the south central
corresponding author:
Ian A. Munn
imunn@cfr.msstate.edu
Encyclopedia ID: p35
Jason B. Grogan,
Satellite imagery and other forms of remote sensing currently are more easily available, affordable and increasing in resolution and quality. However, most hazard rating systems were developed long before these data were readily available. As new data and technologies have become increasingly available most risk/hazard assessment researchers have attempted to extract data needed for existing hazard rating systems, rather than developing new methods capturing the full potential of the data. Research was conducted to explore ways of using these data and technologies in innovative new systems, rather than attempting to mold data into old methods. Weights of Evidence (WofE) spatial analysis was used to predict the probability of Southern Pine Beetle (SPB) (Dendroctonus frontalis Zimmermann) infestation in Angelina,
corresponding author:
Jason B. Grogan
Encyclopedia ID: p53
Randy Hamilton, Vicky Johnson, Henry Lachowski, Paul Maus
USDA Forest Service Remote Sensing
Invasive weeds are a major threat to the health of the nation’s forests and rangelands. The ever-increasing number and spread of weeds require new tools and techniques for effective management. Geospatial technologies such as remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) offer new tools to resource managers. However, many resource managers are not familiar with or have unrealistic expectations of these technologies. To help resource managers appropriately integrate geospatial technologies into their weed management programs, the
corresponding author:
Randy Hamilton
Remote Sensing
randyhamilton@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p47
Mark Schultz and Ann Lynch
USDA Forest Service Alaskan Region and Rocky Mountain Research Station
Spruce aphid (Elatobium abietinum
corresponding authors:
Mark Schultz
USDA Forest Service, Alaska Region
3301 C Street, Suite 202
Anchorage, AK 99503-3956
907-586-8883
mschultz01@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p48
Pauline Spaine and William J. Otrosina
USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station
There are two Sudden Oak Death (SOD) risk maps available for Georgia and South Carolina. The potential SOD host list has been rapidly expanding in areas where optimal temperature and humidity may exist for suitable periods for SOD infection outside the areas indicted on the risk map. We monitored Ericaceous habitat areas in Georgia and South Carolina for temperature, dew point and humidity ranges throughout the year. Data loggers in these locations recorded on an hourly basis. In lower elevations, two locations had a greater than 50 percent correlation with temperature risk parameters for SOD. In two higher elevation locations there was greater than 50 percent agreement for temperature risk parameters for two months at one location and for 8 months at another. One high elevation site had temperatures that fell within criteria from February through November. The other site met criteria only during May and October. This data suggests risk may be more wide spread in various microclimates than current risk maps indicate.
corresponding author:
Pauline Spaine
Research Eco-Plant Pathologist
USDA Forest Service
320 Green Street
Athens, Georgia 30602
706-559-4278
pspaine@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p54
Sandra L. Jacobson
USDA
Highways wind through all the nation’s public lands, including national forests, parks and wildlife refuges, yet these lands are indisputably the best remaining wildlife habitat.
Two types of highway-caused impacts to wildlife are vehicle-caused mortality and movement barriers. Highways can cause barrier effects without mortality because some species will refuse to approach as volume increases. A highway will become a complete barrier to movement due to the risk of mortality at a threshold volume, varying by species’ movement type, highway width and configuration, traffic speed, and the proportion of traffic at night. Research on turtles, a representative slow species, has shown a total barrier to movement threshold of 15,000 Annual Average Daily Traffic volume. Many highways crossing National Forest System lands are either at this threshold or will increase to this level in the next 15 years. Sample AADT’s are over 16,000 on I-40 across the Tonto NF and 26,000-30,500 on I-80 across the Tahoe NF.
This paper characterizes the probability of a highway becoming a complete movement barrier for several movement categories of wildlife, and provides a coarse filter map of highways across public lands meeting or projecting threshold traffic volumes posing a barrier threat to wildlife. Recommended refinements in the suggested methodology can yield predictions on high priority sites for mitigation.
corresponding author:
Sandra L. Jacobson
USDA Forest Service
Pacific Southwest Research Station
Redwood Sciences Laboratory
1700 Bayview Dr, Arcata, CA 95521
707-825-2985
sjacobson@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p52
A.W. Schoettle, K.S. Burns, B. Howell,
USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station (1),
High-elevation white pines define the most remote alpine-forest ecotones in western
corresponding author:
Anna W. Schoettle
USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Sttion
240 West Prospect Street
Fort Collins, CO 80526-2098
970-498-1333
aschoettle@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p38
Andrew Liebhold, Laura Blackburn, Eugene Luzader, Kurt Gottschalk
USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station
Alien forest pest species represent one of the most formidable challenges to forest ecosystem stability. As such, there is tremendous demand by forest managers, forest resource specialists, homeowners and the general public for information on the biology, management and impacts of these species. Over the last 8 years we have maintained a site on the World Wide Web that serves as a hypermedia clearinghouse for information on the gypsy moth in
Increasingly, users are demanding geospatial data on alien forest pest species. Both forest managers and homeowners are searching for information that details the location of invading populations in relation to their own holdings. We have developed a tool, “Alien Forest Pest Explorer” using Arc/IMS to provide a clearinghouse for geospatial on forest pest species. To date this site provides detailed map data on predicted and past spread, forest susceptibility and historical damage by three exotic forest pests: gypsy moth, beech bark disease and hemlock woolly adelgid. Despite our efforts, there remain many unfulfilled needs in delivering geospatial data on alien forest pest species. Some of these deficiencies are due to the lack of regimented survey data for specific organisms. Future efforts by the USDA to coordinate collection and management of survey data will greatly contribute to the delivery of more useful geospatial data to the public.
In August 2006 the site became available to the public at: http://www.fs.fed.us/ne/morgantown/4557/AFPE/
corresponding author:
Andrew Liebhold
USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station
180 Canfield Street
Morgantown, WV 26505
304-285-1512
aliebhold@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p30
E. P. Ott, B. T. Sullivan, and K. D. Klepzig
LSU Agcenter Department of Entomology (1) and
Despite typically being weak mortality agents in their native environments, exotic bark and ambrosia beetles (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae) may cause significant tree damage upon introduction into the
corresponding author:
E.P. Ott
Department of Entomology
Louisiana State University Agcenter
404 Life Science Building
Baton Rouge, LA 70803
EOtt@agcenter.lsu.edu
Encyclopedia ID: p31
Mary M. Rowland, Matthias Leu, Cameron A. Aldridge, Sean P. Finn, Steve Hanser, Steven T. Knick,
corresponding author:
Mary M. Rowland
USDA
Encyclopedia ID: p33
W. Henry McNab and David L. Loftis
Oriental bittersweet, a shade-tolerant, twining, rapidly-growing exotic vine, is a serious threat to hardwood silviculture in the eastern
The study reported in this poster had two objectives: (1) validate the preliminary model for predicting the occurrence of bittersweet over a larger area and (2) devise an operational method for applying the model. Forty-three plots were installed in a uniform grid throughout the 6,000 ac watershed surrounding the 100 ac study area. Application of the model resulted in prediction accuracy of 79 percent; false positives were 19 percent, but more importantly, false negatives were only 2 percent. These results suggest the preliminary model is applicable over a broader area.
The topographic components of the model can be applied using a geographic information system (GIS) to determine land surface concavity, but a satisfactory method to predict occurrence of Kalmia is not available. Kalmia, however, is readily visible on dormant season, color infrared aerial photography; therefore the extent of this species should be accurately detected and mapped with image processing software. We will develop an operational risk assessment model that utilizes classified imagery during the upcoming winter and test it during spring 2006. We are relatively confident that a satisfactory model utilizing a combination of GIS and aerial photography can developed for assessing risk of the occurrence of oriental bittersweet on forested landscapes in the southern Appalachians.
corresponding author:
W. Henry McNab
Southern Research Station
hmcnab@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p32
Stephen W. Fraedrich, Thomas C. Harrington, and Robert J. Rabaglia
USDA Forest Service,Southern Research Station (1) and Forest Health Protection (3) and Iowa State University Department of Plant Pathology (2)
Extensive mortality of red bay (Persea borbonia (L.) Spreng) has been observed in maritime forests of the southeastern United States since 2003. Trees exhibit wilt-like symptoms and a black discoloration of the sapwood. A fungus has been consistently isolated from the discolored xylem of symptomatic trees throughout the range of the problem. This fungus has been identified as an Ophiostoma sp. based on sequences of the ribosomal DNA and its tolerance of cycloheximide, and the anamorph of the fungus is similar to the genus of ambrosia beetle symbionts, Raffaelea. Field and growth chamber studies have determined that the fungus is pathogenic to red bay and causes a vascular wilt. A recently-introduced exotic ambrosia beetle, Xyleborus glabratus (Eichhoff), also has been consistently found in dead and dying red bay trees, and the Ophiostoma species has been isolated from the beetle. The beetle is native to Asia, where it is associated with plant species in the family Lauraceae.
As of February 2006, the disease has been confirmed in ten coastal counties of South Carolina and Georgia. The disease was also discovered near Jacksonville, Florida in the spring 2005. Most red bay trees are now dead in areas around Hilton Head Island, South Carolina where the disease has been recognized since 2003. Dead and dying sassafras Sassafras albidum (Nutt.) Nees) with similar wilt symptoms have also been found in some Georgia counties affected by the wilt of red bay. The affected sassafras were infested with X. glabratus, and the Ophiostoma sp. was isolated from symptomatic sapwood. Pathogenicity tests have confirmed that sassafras and other members of the Lauraceae (swamp red bay, P. palustris (Raf.) Sarg. and spicebush, Lindera benzoin (L.) Blume) are susceptible to wilt caused by the Ophiostoma sp.
corresponding author:
Stephen Fraedrich
USDA Forest Service
Southern Research Station
320 Green St.
Athens, GA 30602
706-559-4273
sfraedrich@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p50
Dan Miller and Chris Crowe
USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station
In 2002-2004, the effects of ethanol and (–)-alpha-pinene (released at high rates) on catches of ambrosia beetles (Scolytidae) in eight-unit multiple-funnel traps were determined in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. We found that some species such as Xyleborus pubescens preferred traps baited with the combination of ethanol and (–)-alpha-pinene. Other species such as Xyleborus crassiusculus, X. affinis and Xyleborinus saxesenii preferred traps baited solely with ethanol with little, if any, effect by (–)-alpha-pinene. Attraction of some species such as Monarthrum mali to ethanol-baited traps was interrupted by (–)-alpha-pinene. Exotic ambrosia beetles were more common than native species of ambrosia beetles with the percentage of exotic beetles ranging from 53% to 91% of all ambrosia beetles captured in the study.
corresponding author:
Dan Miller
Southern Research Station
320 Green Street
Athens GA 30602-2044
706-559-4247
dmiller03@fs.fed.us
Encyclopedia ID: p58
Chuck Rhoades, Kelly Elder, Rob Hubbard and Mark Dixon
USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station
It is estimated that more than 30 million ha of pine forest are at risk of bark beetle attack in the
corresponding author:
Chuck RhoadesEncyclopedia ID: p43
K.S. Camilli, D.N. Appel, T. Kurdyla, R.F.
University of Nevada-Reno (1), Texas A&M University Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology (2,3), Texas Forest Service Forest Pest Management(4), City of Houston, Texas (5)
Giant Asian dodder (GAD), Cuscuta japonica, is an exotic, parasitic vine that is listed as a noxious, dangerous weed by the USDA APHIS. This plant is native to
corresponding author:
Kim S. Camilli
Dept. of Natural Resources & Environmental Science
Mail Stop (186)
University of Nevada
1000 Valley Road
Reno, Nevada 89512
775-784-1732
k_camilli@yahoo.com
Encyclopedia ID: p39