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At least 325 records · Page 18Linked to original sources
USGS1989

Structural marsh management research priorities

The paper presents a prioritized list of research issues related to structural marsh management developed by a multidisciplinary panel of regulatory agency representatives, landowners, and scientists. More than 75 issues were identified concerning landscape changes, influence on ecological processes (i.e., hydrologic, biologic, and edaphic factors), habitat quality, cumulative impacts, and management approach. These issues were prioritized and organized around six basic questions regulatory personnel must try to answer for each marsh management plan application. The six questions deal with the influence of marsh management on, in order of most immediate need, marsh loss and health, fisheries, wildlife, habitat change, water quality, and cumulative effects.

Conference Paper↗
USGS2012

A conceptual model to facilitate amphibian conservation in the northern Great Plains

As pressures on agricultural landscapes to meet worldwide resource needs increase, amphibian populations face numerous threats including habitat destruction, chemical contaminants, disease outbreaks, wetland sedimentation, and synergistic effects of these perturbations. To facilitate conservation planning, we developed a conceptual model depicting elements critical for amphibian conservation in the northern Great Plains. First, we linked upland, wetland, and landscape features to specific ecological attributes. Ecological attributes included adult survival; reproduction and survival to metamorphosis; and successful dispersal and recolonization. Second, we linked ecosystem drivers, ecosystem stressors, and ecological effects of the region to each ecological attribute. Lastly, we summarized information on these ecological attributes and the drivers, stressors, and effects that work in concert to influence the maintenance of viable and genetically diverse amphibian populations in the northern Great Plains. While our focus was on the northern Great Plains, our conceptual model can be tailored to other geographic regions and taxa.

Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, ↗
USGS2026

Final project peport for “Mapping riparian vegetation response to climate change on the San Carlos Apache Reservation and Upper Gila River watershed to inform restoration priorities: 1935 to present – Phase 2: Focus on tamarisk vegetation”

Riparian ecosystems play a critical role in supporting wildlife habitats, maintaining water quality, and sustaining ecological resilience in arid landscapes. In the Upper Gila River level-4 Hydrologic Unit Code (HUC-4; Identification Number – 1504) watershed of Arizona and New Mexico, and across areas of the San Carlos Apache Tribe of the San Carlos Apache Reservation (hereafter, Tribe/Tribal – entity; or Reservation - place), riparian ecosystems have been substantially altered by the widespread expansion of tamarisk ( Tamarix spp.), an invasive and non-native riparian species. Tamarisk has high water use and increased flammability, making it a growing concern as droughts intensify across the southwestern United States (U.S.). Recent research indicates that tamarisk is increasingly stressed under prolonged drought conditions, which can elevate wildfire risk and further degrade riparian habitat. In response, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Western Geographic Science Center, in collaboration with the Tribe, developed remote sensing–based tools to map riparian vegetation composition and monitor vegetation condition over time. These tools enable accurate identification of tamarisk extent, detection of vegetation stress, and comparison with native species such as cottonwood and willow. This information directly supports restoration and management actions, including targeted tamarisk removal, protection of endangered species habitat, and prioritization of areas for native vegetation recovery. The tools also provide insight into how riparian vegetation responds to changing climate and hydrologic conditions, strengthening long-term planning for riparian forest management. Findings from this work demonstrate that riparian vegetation responses vary across river systems, indicating differences in plant composition and hydro-climatic conditions. Tamarisk on both the Gila and San Carlos Rivers generally exhibit greater declines in greenness in response to higher temperature as well as lower precipitation and river flow, while cottonwood ( Populus fremontii ) and willow (Salix spp.) are particularly sensitive to changes in discharge along the San Carlos River and respond more directly to both high and low flows, with more moderate responses to precipitation and temperature. By providing actionable, science-based information, this research supports climate adaptation planning, wildfire risk reduction, and improved riparian ecosystem health, with benefits that extend beyond the Reservation to regional water and wildlife conservation efforts.

Arizona, New Mexico↗
USGS2026

Fostering landscape resilience and species conservation in frequent fire landscapes

Restoration of dry forest landscapes of the Pacific Northwest often involves the removal of some closed-canopy forest that has expanded due to fire exclusion, but this can conflict with species conservation when species require closed-canopy forest as part of their habitat. Fire refugia—areas within fire perimeters that burn less severely or frequently—might provide a solution to this conflict. We used a species-specific approach to understanding fire refugia for northern spotted owls to model the post-fire persistence of nesting and roosting (NR) forest in the frequent fire landscapes of the eastern Washington Cascades and the Klamath province and parts of the southern Cascades. Persistent NR forest occurred in topographically sheltered locations and lower slope positions whereas less persistent NR forest occurred in topographically exposed locations. These patterns of persistence reflect historical vegetation patterns when complex interactions among topography, vegetation and weather maintained resilient landscapes. These vegetation patterns may also resemble higher quality heterogenous habitat for spotted owls. Our models can help managers achieve the dual objectives of maintaining viable populations of native species, including those that rely on closed-canopy forests, while also restoring resilient landscapes. In an era of rapid ecological change, we suggest that northern spotted owl conservation and fire-adapted landscape restoration are not opposing goals. By identifying the biophysical settings that promote persistent NR forest and acknowledging the role of heterogeneous landscapes for maintaining resilient ecosystems and high quality spotted owl habitat, the dual objectives of supporting long-term resilience for native species and ecosystems can be achieved.

California, Oregon, Washington↗
USGS2008

Change in the forested and developed landscape of the Lake Tahoe basin, California and Nevada, USA, 1940-2002

The current ecological state of the Lake Tahoe basin has been shaped by significant landscape-altering human activity and management practices since the mid-1850s; first through widespread timber harvesting from the 1850s to 1920s followed by urban development from the 1950s to the present. Consequences of landscape change, both from development and forest management practices including fire suppression, have prompted rising levels of concern for the ecological integrity of the region. The impacts from these activities include decreased water quality, degraded biotic communities, and increased fire hazard. To establish an understanding of the Lake Tahoe basin's landscape change in the context of forest management and development we mapped, quantified, and described the spatial and temporal distribution and variability of historical changes in land use and land cover in the southern Lake Tahoe basin (279 km2) from 1940 to 2002. Our assessment relied on post-classification change detection of multi-temporal land-use/cover and impervious-surface-area data that were derived through manual interpretation, image processing, and GIS data integration for four dates of imagery: 1940, 1969, 1987, and 2002. The most significant land conversion during the 62-year study period was an increase in developed lands with a corresponding decrease in forests, wetlands, and shrublands. Forest stand densities increased throughout the 62-year study period, and modern thinning efforts resulted in localized stand density decreases in the latter part of the study period. Additionally forests were gained from succession, and towards the end of the study period extensive tree mortality occurred. The highest rates of change occurred between 1940 and 1969, corresponding with dramatic development, then rates declined through 2002 for all observed landscape changes except forest density decrease and tree mortality. Causes of landscape change included regional population growth, tourism demands, timber harvest for local use, fire suppression, bark beetle attack, and fuels reduction activities. Results from this study offer land managers within the Lake Tahoe basin and in similar regions a basis for making better informed land-use and management decisions to potentially minimize detrimental ecological impacts of landscape change. The perspective to be gained is based on quantitative retrospection of the effects of human-driven changes and the impacts of management action or inaction to the forested landscape. ?? 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Forest Ecology and Management↗
USGS2009

Methods for assessing movement path recursion with application to African buffalo in South Africa

Recent developments of automated methods for monitoring animal movement, e.g., global positioning systems (GPS) technology, yield high-resolution spatiotemporal data. To gain insights into the processes creating movement patterns, we present two new techniques for extracting information from these data on repeated visits to a particular site or patch ("recursions"). Identification of such patches and quantification of recursion pathways, when combined with patch-related ecological data, should contribute to our understanding of the habitat requirements of large herbivores, of factors governing their space-use patterns, and their interactions with the ecosystem. We begin by presenting output from a simple spatial model that simulates movements of large-herbivore groups based on minimal parameters: resource availability and rates of resource recovery after a local depletion. We then present the details of our new techniques of analyses (recursion analysis and circle analysis) and apply them to data generated by our model, as well as two sets of empirical data on movements of African buffalo (Syncerus coffer): the first collected in Klaserie Private Nature Reserve and the second in Kruger National Park, South Africa. Our recursion analyses of model outputs provide us with a basis for inferring aspects of the processes governing the production of buffalo recursion patterns, particularly the potential influence of resource recovery rate. Although the focus of our simulations was a comparison of movement patterns produced by different resource recovery rates, we conclude our paper with a comprehensive discussion of how recursion analyses can be used when appropriate ecological data are available to elucidate various factors influencing movement. Inter alia, these include the various limiting and preferred resources, parasites, and topographical and landscape factors. ?? 2009 by the Ecological Society of America.

Ecology↗
USGS2018

Linking animals aloft with the terrestrial landscape

Despite using the aerosphere for many facets of their life, most flying animals (i.e., birds, bats, some insects) are still bound to terrestrial habitats for resting, feeding, and reproduction. Comprehensive broad-scale observations by weather surveillance radars of animals as they leave terrestrial habitats for migration or feeding flights can be used to map their terrestrial distributions either as point locations (e.g., communal roosts) or as continuous surface layers (e.g., animal densities in habitats across a landscape). We discuss some of the technical challenges to reducing measurement biases related to how radars sample the aerosphere and the flight behavior of animals. We highlight a recently developed methodological approach that precisely and quantitatively links the horizontal spatial structure of birds aloft to their terrestrial distributions and provides novel insights into avian ecology and conservation across broad landscapes. Specifically, we present case studies that (1) elucidate how migrating birds contend with crossing ecological barriers and extreme weather events, (2) identify important stopover areas and habitat use patterns of birds along their migration routes, and (3) assess waterfowl response to wetland habitat management and restoration. These studies aid our understanding of how anthropogenic modification of the terrestrial landscape (e.g., urbanization, habitat management), natural geographic features, and weather (e.g., hurricanes) can affect the terrestrial distributions of flying animals.

Book chapter↗
USGS2018

Migratory coupling between predators and prey

Animal migrations act to couple ecosystems and are undertaken by some of the world’s most endangered taxa. Predators often exploit migrant prey, but the movements taken by these consumers are rarely studied or understood. We define such movements, where migrant prey induce large-scale movements of predators, as migratory coupling. Migratory coupling can have ecological consequences for the participating prey, predators and the communities they traverse across the landscape. We review examples of migratory coupling in the literature and provide hypotheses regarding conditions favourable for their occurrence. We also provide a framework for interactions induced by migratory coupling and demonstrate their potential community-level impacts by examining other forms of spatial shifts in predators. Migratory coupling integrates the fields of landscape, movement, food web and community ecologies, and represents an understudied frontier in ecology.

Nature Ecology & Evolution↗
USGS2003

An index of ecological integrity for the Mississippi alluvial plain ecoregion: index development and relations to selected landscape variables

Macroinvertebrate community, fish community, water-quality, and habitat data collected from 36 sites in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain Ecoregion during 1996-98 by the U.S. Geological Survey were considered for a multimetric test of ecological integrity. Test metrics were correlated to site scores of a Detrended Correspondence Analysis of the fish community (the biological community that was the most statistically significant for indicating ecological conditions in the ecoregion) and six metrics--four fish metrics, one chemical metric (total ammonia plus organic nitrogen) and one physical metric (turbidity)--having the highest correlations were selected for the index. Index results indicate that sites in the northern half of the study unit (in Arkansas and Missouri) were less degraded than sites in the southern half of the study unit (in Louisiana and Mississippi). Of 148 landscape variables evaluated, the percentage of Holocene deposits and cotton insecticide rates had the highest correlations to index of ecological integrity results. sites having the highest (best) index scores had the lowest percentages of Holocene deposits and the lowest cotton insecticide use rates, indicating that factors relating to the amount of Holocene deposits and cotton insecticide use rates partially explain differences in ecological conditions throughout the Mississippi Alluvial Plain Ecoregion.

Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missou↗
USGS2023

Closing the gap between science and management of cold-water refuges in rivers and streams

Human activities and climate change threaten coldwater organisms in freshwater ecosystems by causing rivers and streams to warm, increasing the intensity and frequency of warm temperature events, and reducing thermal heterogeneity. Cold-water refuges are discrete patches of relatively cool water that are used by coldwater organisms for thermal relief and short-term survival. Globally, cohesive management approaches are needed that consider interlinked physical, biological, and social factors of cold-water refuges. We review current understanding of cold-water refuges, identify gaps between science and management, and evaluate policies aimed at protecting thermally sensitive species. Existing policies include designating cold-water habitats, restricting fishing during warm periods, and implementing threshold temperature standards or guidelines. However, these policies are rare and uncoordinated across spatial scales and often do not consider input from Indigenous peoples. We propose that cold-water refuges be managed as distinct operational landscape units, which provide a social and ecological context that is relevant at the watershed scale. These operational landscape units provide the foundation for an integrated framework that links science and management by (1) mapping and characterizing cold-water refuges to prioritize management and conservation actions, (2) leveraging existing and new policies, (3) improving coordination across jurisdictions, and (4) implementing adaptive management practices across scales. Our findings show that while there are many opportunities for scientific advancement, the current state of the sciences is sufficient to inform policy and management. Our proposed framework provides a path forward for managing and protecting cold-water refuges using existing and new policies to protect coldwater organisms in the face of global change.

Global Change Biology↗
USGS2014

Opposing resonses to ecological gradients structure amphibian and reptile communities across a temperate grassland-savanna-forest landscape

Temperate savannas are threatened across the globe. If we prioritize savanna restoration, we should ask how savanna animal communities differ from communities in related open habitats and forests. We documented distribution of amphibian and reptile species across an open-savanna–forest gradient in the Midwest U.S. to determine how fire history and habitat structure affected herpetofaunal community composition. The transition from open habitats to forests was a transition from higher reptile abundance to higher amphibian abundance and the intermediate savanna landscape supported the most species overall. These differences warn against assuming that amphibian and reptile communities will have similar ecological responses to habitat structure. Richness and abundance also often responded in opposite directions to some habitat characteristics, such as cover of bare ground or litter. Herpetofaunal community species composition changed along a fire gradient from infrequent and recent fires to frequent but less recent fires. Nearby (200-m) wetland cover was relatively unimportant in predicting overall herpetofaunal community composition while fire history and fire-related canopy and ground cover were more important predictors of composition, diversity, and abundance. Increased developed cover was negatively related to richness and abundance. This indicates the importance of fire history and fire related landscape characteristics, and the negative effects of development, in shaping the upland herpetofaunal community along the native grassland–forest continuum.

Indiana↗
USGS2021

Valleys of fire: Historical fire regimes of forest-grassland ecotones across the montane landscape of the Valles Caldera National Preserve, New Mexico, USA

Context Montane grasslands and forest-grassland ecotones are unique and dynamic components of many landscapes, but the processes that regulate their dynamics are difficult to observe over ecologically relevant time spans. Objectives We aimed to demonstrate the efficacy of using grassland-forest ecotone trees to reconstruct spatial and temporal properties of the historical fire regime in a complex landscape of montane forests and adjacent grasslands. Methods We sampled and crossdated fire-scarred trees along ecotones and compared variations in historical fire occurrence within and among nine adjoining valle basins in a 10,158 ha landscape. We analyzed fire year extensiveness, climate regulation, and the occurrence of consecutive fire years. Results The resulting tree-ring record covers 1240–2005 AD, with 296 trees recording 125 replicated fire years during the analysis period 1601–1902 AD . Mean fire intervals for all events recorded on two or more trees ranged from 4.7 to 13.6 years in individual valles , and a mean of 2.4 ± 1.7 (SD) years at the landscape scale. Between 1660 and 1902, extensive fires occurring in six or more valles occurred 15 times, on average at ~ 17-year intervals; 29 moderately widespread fires (3–5 valles ) occurred during this period, at 8.7 year intervals on average. Widespread events occurred in years with a significantly lower Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) preceded by years of significantly positive PDSI, indicating conditions favorable for fine fuel production. Spatial reconstruction of fire extent revealed multiple occurrences of consecutive-year fires burning non-overlapping areas, associated with persistent low PDSI anomalies preceded by positive conditions in antecedent years. Conclusions A landscape spatiotemporal approach to reconstructing fire regimes of montane forest-grassland complexes provides a valuable baseline for guiding prescribed and natural fire management at large spatial scales.

New Mexico↗
USGS2020

Drivers of landscape change in the northwest boreal region

The northwest boreal region (NWB) of North America is a land of extremes. Extending more than 1.3 million square kilometers (330 million acres), it encompasses the entire spectrum between inundated wetlands below sea level to the tallest peak in North America. Permafrost gradients span from nearly continuous to absent. Boreal ecosystems are inherently dynamic and continually change over decades to millennia. The braided rivers that shape the valleys and wetlands continually change course, creating and removing vast wetlands and peatlands. Glacial melt, erosion, fires, permafrost dynamics, and wind-blown loess are among the shaping forces of the landscape. As a result, species interactions and ecosystem processes are shifting across time. The NWB is a data-poor region, and the intention of the NWB Landscape Conservation Cooperative is to determine what data are not available and what data are available. For instance, historical baseline data describing the economic and social relationships in association with the ecological condition of the NWB landscape are often lacking. Likewise, the size and remoteness of this region make it challenging to measure basic biological information, such as species population sizes or trends. The paucity of weather and climate monitoring stations also compound the ability to model future climate trends and impacts, which is part of the nature of working in the north. The purpose of this volume is to create a resource for regional land and resource managers and researchers by synthesizing the latest research on the historical and current status of landscape-scale drivers (including anthropogenic activities) and ecosystem processes, future projected changes of each, and the effects of changes on important resources. Generally, each chapter is coauthored by researchers and land and natural resource managers from the United States and Canada.

Northwest Boreal Region↗
USGS2012

Downscaling future climate scenarios to fine scales for hydrologic and ecological modeling and analysis

Introduction Evaluating the environmental impacts of climate change on water resources and biological components of the landscape is an integral part of hydrologic and ecological investigations, and the resultant land and resource management in the twenty-first century. Impacts of both climate and simulated hydrologic parameters on ecological processes are relevant at scales that reflect the heterogeneity and complexity of landscapes. At present, simulations of climate change available from global climate models [GCMs] require downscaling for hydrologic or ecological applications. Methods Using statistically downscaled future climate projections developed using constructed analogues, a methodology was developed to further downscale the projections spatially using a gradient-inverse-distance-squared approach for application to hydrologic modeling at 270-m spatial resolution. Results This paper illustrates a methodology to downscale and bias-correct national GCMs to subkilometer scales that are applicable to fine-scale environmental processes. Four scenarios were chosen to bracket the range of future emissions put forth by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Fine-scale applications of downscaled datasets of ecological and hydrologic correlations to variation in climate are illustrated. Conclusions The methodology, which includes a sequence of rigorous analyses and calculations, is intended to reduce the addition of uncertainty to the climate data as a result of the downscaling while providing the fine-scale climate information necessary for ecological analyses. It results in new but consistent data sets for the US at 4 km, the southwest US at 270 m, and California at 90 m and illustrates the utility of fine-scale downscaling to analyses of ecological processes influenced by topographic complexity.

Ecological Processes↗
USGS2006

Landscape attributes and life history variability shape genetic structure of trout populations in a stream network

Spatial and temporal landscape patterns have long been recognized to influence biological processes, but these processes often operate at scales that are difficult to study by conventional means. Inferences from genetic markers can overcome some of these limitations. We used a landscape genetics approach to test hypotheses concerning landscape processes influencing the demography of Lahontan cutthroat trout in a complex stream network in the Great Basin desert of the western US. Predictions were tested with population- and individual-based analyses of microsatellite DNA variation, reflecting patterns of dispersal, population stability, and local effective population sizes. Complementary genetic inferences suggested samples from migratory corridors housed a mixture of fish from tributaries, as predicted based on assumed migratory life histories in those habitats. Also as predicted, populations presumed to have greater proportions of migratory fish or from physically connected, large, or high quality habitats had higher genetic variability and reduced genetic differentiation from other populations. Populations thought to contain largely non-migratory individuals generally showed the opposite pattern, suggesting behavioral isolation. Estimated effective sizes were small, and we identified significant and severe genetic bottlenecks in several populations that were isolated, recently founded, or that inhabit streams that desiccate frequently. Overall, this work suggested that Lahontan cutthroat trout populations in stream networks are affected by a combination of landscape and metapopulation processes. Results also demonstrated that genetic patterns can reveal unexpected processes, even within a system that is well studied from a conventional ecological perspective. ?? Springer 2006.

Landscape Ecology↗
USGS2022

A quantitative soil-geomorphic framework for developing and mapping ecological site groups

Land management decisions need context about how landscapes will respond to different circumstances or actions. As ecologists’ understanding of nonlinear ecological dynamics has evolved into state-and-transition models (STMs), they have put more emphasis on defining and mapping the soil, geomorphological, and climate parameters that mediate these dynamics. The US Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service ecological site descriptions (ESDs) have become the foremost system in classifying lands into ecological units based on STMs. However, an exhaustive inventory of ESDs has proved challenging to complete in the United States, and there have been questions about the consistency of detail in areas completed and the ability to objectively support some assertions made in existing ESDs. To address these issues, this study examines ESDs in the diverse Upper Colorado River region, where ESDs are only partially complete, to look at quantitative approaches to generalizing ecological site concepts based on unifying underlying soil, geomorphology, and climate patterns. Using existing ESDs and vegetation monitoring plot data, results show that a simple hierarchical soil geomorphic unit (SGU) framework based on topographic mediation of moisture, soil salinity, soil depth, slope, rock content, and soil texture can represent much of the ecological dynamics cataloged in ESDs. Analyses of reference plant production data, ecological state attribution, and regional monitoring data show that the new SGUs represent more variation than common climate parameters. This study also included predictively mapping SGUs at 30-m resolution (Kappa of 0.53, 74% agreement with top two predictions in validation). An optimized combination of SGUs with climate zones derived from an aridity index and maximum temperature of the hottest month resulted in an ecological site group framework that condensed over 826 unique ecological site records at various stages of completeness in the regional soil survey down to 35 intuitive and mappable ecological site groups.

Rangeland Ecology and Management↗
USGS2016

Overwintering strategies of migratory birds: a novel approach for estimating seasonal movement patterns of residents and transients

Our understanding of movement patterns in wildlife populations has played an important role in current ecological knowledge and can inform landscape conservation decisions. Direct measures of movement can be obtained using marked individuals, but this requires tracking individuals across a landscape or multiple sites. We demonstrate how movements can be estimated indirectly using single-site, capture–mark–recapture (CMR) data with a multi-state open robust design with state uncertainty model (MSORD-SU). We treat residence and transience as two phenotypic states of overwintering migrants and use time- and state-dependent probabilities of site entry and persistence as indirect measures of movement. We applied the MSORD-SU to data on eight species of overwintering Neotropical birds collected in 14 countries between 2002 and 2011. In addition to entry and persistence probabilities, we estimated the proportions of residents at a study site and mean residence times. We identified overwintering movement patterns and residence times that contrasted with prior categorizations of territoriality. Most species showed an evidence of residents entering sites at multiple time intervals, with transients tending to enter between peak resident movement times. Persistence and the proportion of residents varied by latitude, but were not always positively correlated for a given species. Synthesis and applications . Our results suggest that migratory songbirds commonly move among habitats during the overwintering period. Substantial proportions of populations appear to be comprised of transient individuals, and residents tend to persist at specific sites for relatively short periods of time. This information on persistence and movement patterns should be explored for specific habitats to guide landscape management on the wintering grounds, such as determining which habitats are conserved or restored as part of certification programmes of tropical agroforestry crops. We suggest that research and conservation efforts on Neotropical migrant songbirds focus on identifying landscape configurations and regional habitat networks that support these diverse overwintering strategies to secure full life cycle conservation.

Journal of Applied Ecology↗
USGS2021

Tamm review: Postfire landscape management in frequent-fire conifer forests of the southwestern United States

The increasing incidence of wildfires across the southwestern United States (US) is altering the contemporary forest management template within historically frequent-fire conifer forests. An increasing fraction of southwestern conifer forests have recently burned, and many of these burned landscapes contain complex mosaics of surviving forest and severely burned patches without surviving conifer trees. These heterogeneous burned landscapes present unique social and ecological challenges. Severely burned patches can present numerous barriers to successful conifer regeneration, and often contain heavy downed fuels which have cascading effects on future fire behavior and conifer regeneration. Conversely, surviving forest patches are increasingly recognized for their value in postfire reforestation but often are overlooked from a management perspective. Here we present a decision-making framework for landscape-scale management of complex postfire landscapes that allows for adaptation to a warming climate and future fire. We focus specifically on historically frequent-fire forests of the southwestern US but make connections to other forest types and other regions. Our framework depends on a spatially-explicit assessment of the mosaic of conifer forest and severely burned patches in the postfire landscape, evaluates likely vegetation trajectories, and identifies critical decision points to direct vegetation change via manipulations of fuels and live vegetation. This framework includes detailed considerations for postfire fuels management (e.g., edge hardening within live forest patches and repeat burning) and for reforestation (e.g., balancing tradeoffs between intensive and extensive planting strategies, establishing patches of seed trees, spatial planning to optimize reforestation success, and improving nursery capacity). In a future of increasing fire activity in forests where repeated low- to moderate-severity fire is essential to ecosystem resilience, the decision-making framework developed here can easily be integrated with existing postfire management strategies to optimize allocation of limited resources and more actively manage burned landscapes.

Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah↗