Publications

On the Western Slope of Colorado, variable climate and precipitation conditions are typical. Periods of drought—which may be defined by lack of water, high temperatures, low soil moisture, or other indicators—cause a range of impacts across sectors, including water, land, and fire management.The Western Slope’s Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB) was one of the first pilot areas in which the Nationa

Structured decision making is a systematic, transparent process for improving the quality of complex decisions by identifying measurable management objectives and feasible management actions; predicting the potential consequences of management actions relative to the stated objectives; and selecting a course of action that maximizes the total benefit achieved and balances tradeoffs among objective

AimsIn many mixed grass-shrub ecosystems, increased shrub biomass tends to promote overall carbon storage, but the distribution of carbon pools may be complicated by disturbances such as wildfires. We investigated the spatial distribution of surface soil organic carbon (SOC) and its relative contribution from grasses and shrubs after fires in a grass-shrub transition zone in the northern Chihuahua

State and federal agencies have reported fire causes since the early 1900s, explicitly for the purpose of helping land managers design fire-prevention programs. We document fire-ignition patterns in five homogenous climate divisions in California over the past 98 years on state Cal Fire protected lands and 107 years on federal United States Forest Service lands. Throughout the state, fire frequenc

Following a wildfire, flooding and debris- flow hazards are common and pose a threat to human life and infrastructure in steep burned terrain. Wildfire enhances both water runoff and soil erosion, which ultimately shape the debris flow potential. The erosional processes that route excess sediment from hillslopes to debris-flow channels in recently burned areas, however, are poorly constrained. I

AimsUnderstanding the conditions associated with dryland vegetation recovery after restoration treatments is challenging due to a lack of monitoring data and high environmental variability over time and space. Tracking recovery trajectories with satellite‐based vegetation indices can strengthen predictions of restoration outcomes across broad areas with varying environmental conditions.LocationSou

Natural resource managers sow grass, forb, and shrub seeds across millions of hectares of public lands in the western United States to restore sagebrush‐steppe ecosystems burned by wildfire. The effects of post‐fire vegetation treatments on insect communities in these ecosystems have not been investigated.We conducted the first investigation of insect community responses to post‐fire seeding on pu

Contemporary climate change in Alaska has resulted in amplified rates of press and pulse disturbances that drive ecosystem change with significant consequences for socio‐environmental systems. Despite the vulnerability of Arctic and boreal landscapes to change, little has been done to characterize landscape change and associated drivers across northern high‐latitude ecosystems. Here we characteriz

Wind turbine-induced fires at a wind energy facility in California, USA, provided an opportunity to study the before and after effects of fire on a population of protected Agassiz’s desert tortoises (Gopherus agassizii) in the Sonoran Desert, a species and ecosystem poorly adapted to fire. We compared annual activity areas (AAs) of tortoises in 2011 and 2013, before and after two 2012 fires, with

Burning and grazing are natural processes in native prairies that also serve as important tools in grassland management to conserve plant diversity, to limit encroachment of woody and invasive plants, and to maintain or improve prairies. Native prairies managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) in the Prairie Pothole Region of the northern Great Plains have been extensively invaded by no

The application of fire is prescribed for management of habitats for many plant and animal communities, but its effects on herpetofauna are diverse and remain poorly understood. To date no studies have examined the effects of prescribed fire on endangered San Francisco gartersnake (Thamnophis sirtalis tetrataenia) populations, despite a call for prescribed fire in the recovery plan for the species

Climate change is expected to alter the composition, structure, and function of forested ecosystems in the United States (Vose et al. 2012). Increases in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (e.g., carbon dioxide [CO2]) and temperature, as well as altered precipitation and disturbance regimes (e.g., fire, insects, pathogens, and windstorms), are expected to have profound effects on biodi