In a collaborative project funded by the non-profit Desert Tortoise Council with Natural Resource Conservation LLC, the authors synthesized published literature and practitioner’s experiences to develop best-management practices for habitats of desert tortoises.
Read MoreCollaboratively with the National Park Service, the authors performed a study along Northshore Road in Lake Mead National Recreation Area (eastern Mojave Desert, Nevada) to develop biocrust restoration strategies. Results and management recommendations for the most effective restoration methods are discussed.
Read MoreIn the early 20th century, there was an intense controversy over systematic “light burning, the practice of using cool fire as a management tool (similar to what we call prescribed fires today). These practices for fire control were highly debated before fire suppression policies overwhelmingly prevailed. Presented here is a series of research briefs that review publications from this controversy at this interesting look into history.
Read MoreThis research brief discusses the lessons learned from the costly fires of 2003 in Southern California. Recommendations on future fuel reduction strategies and placement are discussed.
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Read MoreWhile not written specifically about traditional cultural fire use, the framework discussed in this paper can also be applied to incorporating tribal public values into "place-based decision support technologies that are accessible to lay citizens as well as to fire-management experts."
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Old-growth chaparral systems are biodiversity hotspots that need to be protected for legal, functional, and ethical reasons. This learning module describes these Mediterranean Type Climate systems from a global perspective so that we can better protect them.
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Read MoreIn northern, southern, coastal, and interior California, examples exist of paired sibling Arctostaphylos subspecies exhibiting two alternate life strategies for surviving disturbance: resprouting and obligate seeding. This is a wonderful opportunity to observe how natural selection might favor one life strategy type over another, particularly in “an era of rapid climate change."
Read MoreThis presentation was given at the Desert Symposium 2014.
Presenter: Nussear et al.
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The authors examined the relationship between fuels and fire behavior by examining how fire suppression has affected fire severity in different forest ecosystems in California. The authors tested the hypothesis that fire behavior is limited by fuel availability in some California forests where climatic conditions during the fire season are nearly always conducive to burning and the primary limiting factor for fire ignition and spread is the presence of sufficient fuel.
Read MoreIn this collection of essays on the Californian region, Stephen J. Pyne colorfully explores the ways the region has approached fire management and what sets it apart from other parts of the country.
Read MoreIn many past and present ecosystems, changes in animal, plant, and human communities have been more influential in rapid local fire regime disruption than climate. The good news is that, unlike climate change, these direct, proximate community causes can be practically addressed by fire and resource managers.
Read MoreResprouting plants are common throughout the world and resprouting is a familiar response to any kind of disturbance that kills living tissue. Resprouting is a seemingly simple trait that has complex underlying morphological and anatomical origins among diverse evolutionary lineages.
Read MoreSome shrub species are obligate resprouters, some are obligate seeders, and others are facultative seeders, combining both resprouting and postfire seeding to various degrees. How could this diversity in fire response have evolved and how does it coexist?
Read MoreThis long-anticipated reference and sourcebook for California’s remarkable ecological abundance provides an integrated assessment of each major ecosystem type—its distribution, structure, function, and management. A comprehensive synthesis of our knowledge about this biologically diverse state, Ecosystems of California covers the state from oceans to mountaintops using multiple lenses: past and present, flora and fauna, aquatic and terrestrial, natural and managed.
Read MoreThis brief discusses how to improve forage for the threatened desert tortoise through increasing abundance of native plant forage species.
Read MoreThis brief discusses the findings from an in-depth synthesis of animal responses to fires in California shrubland systems.
Read MoreData Product and Research Brief
Read MoreResearch Brief/Management Consideration. One topic that is generating a great deal of interest among fire management professionals as California enters the fall prescribed fire season is whether we should be burning during this fourth year of drought. This brief discusses what managers should consider before doing a prescribed burn.
Read MoreThe six features of effective federal fire management plans are: consistent and compatible,
collaborative, clear and comprehensive, spatially and temporally scalable, informed by the best
available science, flexible and adaptive. Additional tools and strategies are discussed.
Meyer, M. D., Roberts, S. L., Wills, R., Brooks, M., & Winford, E. M.. 2015. Principles of effective USA federal fire management plans. Fire Ecology 11(2): 59–83. doi: 10.4996/fireecology.1102059.
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The California Fire Science Consortium is divided into 4 geographic regions and 1 wildland-urban interface (WUI) team. Statewide coordination of this program is based at UC Berkeley.
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This regional Fire Science Exchange is one of 15 regional fire science exchanges.
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