North, M. P., J. T. Stevens, D. F. Greene, M. Coppoletta, E. E. Knapp, A. M. Latimer, C. M. Restaino, R. E. Tompkins, K. R. Welch, R. A. York, D. J. N. Young, J. N. Axelson, T. N. Buckley, B. L. Estes, R. N. Hager, J. W. Long, M. D. Meyer, S. M. Ostoja, H. D. Safford, K. L. Shive, C. L. Tubbesing, H. Vice, D. Walsh, C. M. Werner, and P. Wyrsch. 2019. Tamm Review: Reforestation for resilience in dry western U.S. forests. Forest Ecology and Management 432:209-224. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2018.09.007
Jens T Stevens, Ph.D.
Biography
Jens Stevens is a research ecologist at the New Mexico Landscapes Field Station, a Fort Collins
Science Center facility in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Jens has a M.S. in Plant Biology from the
University of Vermont, where he studied fire-invasive plant interactions in the Florida Everglades,
and a Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of California Davis, where he studied interactions
between fire, climate and forest management in the Sierra Nevada of California. Jens has conducted
diverse research on forests of California and elsewhere in western North America, which seeks to
understand the causes and ecological consequences of forest disturbance at multiple spatial and
temporal scales.
Education
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Ph.D. Ecology, University of California Davis, 2014
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M.S. Plant Biology, University of Vermont, 2008
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B.S. Biology, Carleton College, Minnesota, 2006
Professional Experience
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2018 - present, Research Ecologist, USGS New Mexico Landscapes Field Station, Fort Collins Science Center, Santa Fe, NM
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2016-2018, Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California Berkeley
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2014-2016, Postdoctoral Scholar, John Muir Institute of the Environment, University of California Davis
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2008-2009, Research Technician, Dartmouth College, Hanover New Hampshire
Science and Products
Date published: April 15, 2019
Status: Active Effects of disturbance and drought on the forests and hydrology of the Southern Rocky Mountains
Climate-related 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). Our research combines long-term place-based ecological data, diverse methods (e.g., paleo, remote-sensing), and networking approaches to...
Attribution: Ecosystems, Climate Research and Development Program
Date published: September 23, 2016
Status: Active The New Mexico Landscapes Field Station
The New Mexico Landscapes Field Station is a place-based, globally-connected, ecological research group that studies and interprets ecosystem and wildlife dynamics, working with land managers and community leaders to deliver solutions that foster the linked health of human and natural systems.
Our partnerships, and co-location, with land management agencies provide us with opportunities...
Contacts: Craig D Allen, Ph.D., Ernie Valdez, Ph.D., Ellis Q Margolis, Ph.D., Jens T Stevens, Ph.D., Kay Beeley
Year Published: 2021
Forest restoration and fuels reduction: Convergent or divergent?
For over 20 years, forest fuel reduction has been the dominant management action in western US forests. These same actions have also been associated with the restoration of highly altered frequent-fire forests. Perhaps the vital element in the compatibility of these treatments is that both need to incorporate the salient characteristics that...
Stephens, Scott L.; Battaglia, Mike A.; Churchill, Derek J.; Collins, Brandon M.; Coppoletta, Michelle; Hoffman, Chad M.; Lydersen, Jamie M.; North, Malcolm P.; Parsons, Russell A.; Ritter, Scott M.; Stevens, JensAttribution: Fort Collins Science Center, Ecosystems
Year Published: 2020
The Fire and Tree Mortality Database, for empirical modeling of individual tree mortality after fire
Wildland fires have a multitude of ecological effects in forests, woodlands, and savannas across the globe. A major focus of past research has been on tree mortality from fire, as trees provide a vast range of biological services. We assembled a database of individual-tree records from prescribed fires and wildfires in the United States. The Fire...
Cansler, C. Alina; Hood, Sharon M.; Varner, J. Morgan; van Mantgem, Phillip J.; Agne, Michelle C.; Andrus, Robert A.; Ayres, Matthew P.; Ayres, Bruce D.; Bakker, Jonathan D.; Battaglia, Michael A.; Bentz, Barbara J.; Breece, Carolyn R.; Brown, James K.; Cluck, Daniel R.; Coleman, Tom W.; Corace, R. Gregory; Covington, W. Wallace; Cram, Douglas S.; Cronan, James B.; Crouse, Joseph E.; Das, Adrian; Davis, Ryan S.; Dickinson, Darci M.; Fitzgerald, Stephen A; Fule, Peter Z.; Ganio, Lisa M.; Grayson, Lindsay M.; Halpern, Charles B.; Hanula, Jim L.; Harvey, Brian J.; Hiers, J. Kevin; Huffman, David W.; Keifer, MaryBeth; Keyser, Tara L.; Kobziar, Leda N.; Kolb, Thomas E.; Kolden, Crystal A.; Kopper, Karen E.; Kreitler, Jason R.; Kreye, Jesse K.; Latimer, Andrew M.; Lerch, Andrew P.; Lombardero, Maria J.; McDaniel, Virginia L.; McHugh, Charles W.; McMillin, Joel D.; Moghaddas, Jason J.; O'Brien, Joseph J.; Perrakis, Daniel D. B.; Peterson, David W.; Pritchard, Susan J.; Progar, Robert A.; Raffa, Kenneth F.; Reinhardt, Elizabeth D.; Restaino, Joseph C.; Roccaforte, John P.; Rogers, Brendan M.; Ryan, Kevin C.; Safford, Hugh D.; Santoro, Alyson E.; Shearman, Timothy M.; Shumate, Alice M.; Sieg, Carolyn H.; Smith, Sheri L.; Smith, Rebecca J.; Stephenson, Nathan L.; Stuever, Mary; Stevens, Jens; Stoddard, Michael T.; Thies, Walter G.; Vaillant, Nicole M.; Weiss, Shelby A.; Westlind, Douglas J.; Woolley, Travis J; Wright, Micah Charles
Year Published: 2020
Biogeography of fire regimes in western US conifer forests: A trait-based approach
Aim Functional traits are a critical link between species distributions and the ecosystem processes that structure those species’ niches. Concurrent increases in the availability of functional trait data and our ability to model species distributions present an opportunity to develop functional trait biogeography, i.e. the mapping of functional...
Stevens, Jens; Kling, Matthew M.; Schwilk, Dylan W.; Varner, J. Morgan; Kane, Jeffrey M.
Year Published: 2020
Forest vegetation change and its impacts on soil water following 47 years of managed wildfire
Managed wildfire is an increasingly relevant management option to restore variability in vegetation structure within fire-suppressed montane forests in western North America. Managed wildfire often reduces tree cover and density, potentially leading to increases in soil moisture availability, water storage in soils and groundwater, and streamflow...
Stevens, Jens; Boisramé, Gabrielle F. S.; Rakhmatulina, Ekaterina; Thompson, Sally E.; Collins, Brandon M.; Stephens, Scott L.
Year Published: 2020
Fire history across forest types in the southern Beartooth Mountains, Wyoming
Fire is a critical ecosystem process that has played a key role in shaping forests throughout the Beartooth Mountains in northwestern Wyoming. The highly variable topography of the area provides ideal conditions to compare fire regimes across contiguous forest types, yet pyro-dendrochronological research in this area is limited. We reconstructed...
Brown, Sabrina R.; Baysinger, Ashley; Brown, Peter M.; Cheek, Justin L.; Diez, Jeffrey M.; Gentry, Christopher M.; Grant III, Thomas A.; St-Jacques, Jeannine-Marie; Jordan, David A.; Leef, Morgan L.; Rourke, Mary K.; Speer, James H.; Spradlin, Carrie E.; Stevens, Jens; Stone, Jeffery R.; Van Winkle, Brian; Zeibig-Kichas, Nickolas E.
Year Published: 2019
Fire severity and changing composition of forest understory plant communities
QuestionsGradients of fire severity in dry conifer forests can be associated with variation in understory floristic composition. Recent work in dry conifer forests in California, USA, has suggested that more severely burned stands contain more thermophilic taxa (those associated with warmer and drier conditions), and that forest disturbance may...
Stevens, Jens; Miller, Jesse E.D.; Fornwalt, Paula J.Attribution: Fort Collins Science Center, Ecosystems
Pre-USGS Publications
Hagmann, R. K., J. T. Stevens, J. M. Lydersen, B. M. Collins, J. J. Battles, P. F. Hessburg, C. R. Levine, A. G. Merschel, S. L. Stephens, A. H. Taylor, J. F. Franklin, D. L. Johnson, and K. N. Johnson. 2018. Improving the use of early timber inventories in reconstructing historical dry forests and fire in the western United States: Comment. Ecosphere 9: e02232.
Earles, J. M., J. T. Stevens, O. Sperling, J. Orozco, M. P. North, and M. A. Zwieniecki. 2018. Extreme mid‐winter drought weakens tree hydraulic–carbohydrate systems and slows growth. New Phytologist: 219: 89-97. dx.doi.org/10.1111/nph.15136
Stevens, J. T., B. M. Collins, J. D. Miller, M. P. North, and S. L. Stephens. 2017. Changing spatial patterns of stand-replacing fire in California conifer forests. Forest Ecology and Management 406: 28-36.
Safford, H.D. and Stevens, J.T. 2017. Natural Range of Variation (NRV) for yellow pine and mixed conifer forests in the Sierra Nevada, southern Cascades, and Modoc and Inyo National Forests, California, USA. General Technical Report PSW-GTR-256. Albany, CA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station. 229 p.
Stevens, J. T. 2017. Scale-dependent effects of post-fire canopy cover on snowpack depth in montane coniferous forests. Ecological Applications 27: 1888-1900.
Collins, B. M., J. T. Stevens, J. D. Miller, S. L. Stephens, P. M. Brown, and M. P. North. 2017. Alternative characterization of forest fire regimes: incorporating spatial patterns. Landscape Ecology 32: 1543-1552.
Young, D. J. N.*, J. T. Stevens*, J. M. Earles*, J. Moore, A. Ellis, A. L. Jirka, and A. M. Latimer. 2017. Long-term climate and competition explain forest mortality patterns under extreme drought. Ecology Letters 20: 78-86. * equal contribution.
Stevens, J. T., B. M. Collins, J. W. Long, M. P. North, S. J. Prichard, L. W. Tarnay, and A. M. White. 2016. Evaluating potential trade-offs among fuel treatment strategies in mixed-conifer forests of the Sierra Nevada. Ecosphere 7: e01445.
Stevens, J. T., H. D. Safford, M. P. North, J. S. Fried, A. N. Gray, P. M. Brown, C. R. Dolanc, S. Z. Dobrowski, D. A. Falk, C. Farris, J. F. Franklin, P. Z. Fulé, R. K. Hagmann, E. E. Knapp, J. D. Miller, G. F. Smith, T. W. Swetnam, and A. H. Taylor. 2016. Average stand age from forest inventory plots does not describe historical fire regimes in ponderosa pine and mixed-conifer forests of western North America. PLoS One 11: e0147688.
Stevens, J. T., H. D. Safford, S. P. Harrison and A. M. Latimer. 2015. Forest disturbance accelerates thermophilization of understory plant communities. Journal of Ecology 103: 1253-1263.
Winford, E.M., J. T. Stevens, and H. D. Safford. 2015. Effects of fuel treatments on California mixed-conifer forests. California Agriculture 69: 75-81.
Zefferman, E., J. T. Stevens, G. K. Charles, M. Dunbar-Irwin, T. Emam, S. Fick, L. Morales, K. M. Wolf, D. J. N. Young, and T. P. Young. 2015. Plant communities in harsh sites are less invaded: a summary of observations and proposed explanations. AoB Plants 7: plv056.
Stevens, J. T., H. D. Safford, and A. M. Latimer. 2014. Wildfire-contingent effects of fuel treatments can promote ecological resilience in dry mixed conifer forests. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 44: 843-854. Editor’s Choice- Featured Paper.
Stevens, J. T. and A. M. Latimer. 2015. Snowpack, fire, and forest disturbance: interactions affect montane invasions by non-native shrubs. Global Change Biology 21: 2379–2393.
Safford, H. D., J. T. Stevens, K. Merriam, M. D. Meyer, and A. M. Latimer. 2012. Fuel treatment effectiveness in California yellow pine and mixed conifer forests. Forest Ecology and Management 274: 17-28.
Stevens, J. T. and B. Beckage. 2010. Demographic responses of Brazilian pepper (Schinus terebinthifolius) to pine savanna fires. Natural Areas Journal 30: 500-510.
Stevens, J. T. and B. Beckage. 2009. Fire feedbacks facilitate invasion of pine savannas by Brazilian pepper (Schinus terebinthifolius). New Phytologist 184: 365-375.