Fire

Climate-driven forest disturbances, particularly drought-induced tree mortality and large high-severity fires from increasingly warm and dry conditions, are altering forest ecosystems and the ecosystem services society depends on (e.g., water supplies) in the Southern Rockies and across the Western U.S. We will combine unique, long-term place-based ecological data, diverse methods (e.g., paleo...

Federal agencies manage wildland fire in many ways, including broad-scale fire management planning and site-specific fire and fuels management actions. Federal policy requires agencies to use science in fire management planning and environmental effects analyses. However, fire managers have limited time to compile and synthesize science. The USGS is collaborating with fire management staff across...

USGS researchers are using remote-sensing and other broadscale datasets to study and predict recovery of sagebrush across the sage-grouse range, assessing influence of disturbance, restoration treatments, soil moisture, and other ecological conditions on trends in sagebrush cover. The results will be used to inform conservation prioritization models, economic analyses, projections of future...

In partnership with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and other partners, scientists from USGS Fort Collins Science Center are working to create a suite of prioritization scenarios that will inform adaptive management for Gunnison sage-grouse.

Sagebrush ecosystems represent one of the most imperiled systems in North America and face continued and widespread degradation due to multiple factors including invasive species and increased human development. Effective sagebrush management must consider how to best conserve and restore habitats to stem the decline of species that rely on them, especially given limited conservation resources. To...

As part of a broader USGS project on Post-fire Hazards and Impacts to Resources and Ecosystems (PHIRE): Support for Response, Recovery, and Mitigation, the PHIRE social science team convenes stakeholders involved in post-fire hazard science and decision-making to identify potential consequences resulting from post-fire hazard scenarios along with strategies to reduce the likelihood or severity of...

Many revegetation projects are intended to benefit focal wildlife species. Yet, few scope the ability of revegetation efforts to yield habitat. To investigate the ability of alternative sagebrush planting strategies to recover habitat conditions for wildlife like sage-grouse,  USGS and Colorado State University scientists developed a spatial vegetation-habitat recovery model. Scientists combined...

To support strategic ecosystem management across the imperiled sagebrush steppe in Wyoming, USA, we developed an extension of the Prioritizing Restoration of Sagebrush Ecosystems Tool (PReSET). Our expanded tool leverages emerging spatial data resources to provide a structured but customizable set of scenarios that can guide landscape-scale planning efforts by prioritizing conservation and...

Tree-ring science is a component of our interdisciplinary ecological research program that focuses on the effects of drought and human land use on forest ecology, fire ecology, and ecohydrology.

The New Mexico Landscapes Field Station is a place-based, globally connected, ecological research group that studies ecosystem and wildlife dynamics, working with land managers, community leaders, and Tribes to deliver solutions that foster the linked health of human and natural systems. For over three decades, we have focused on shifting research needs from forest watershed health to wildlife...

Below are ongoing or completed research projects related to forest ecosystems at the New Mexico Landscapes Field Station.

Below are ongoing or completed research projects related to fire at the New Mexico Landscapes Field Station.