This project will investigate the long-term ecological outcomes of large wildfires and how management actions, such as planting, impact the ecological resilience of large fire footprints.
Objectives:
- How are different forest types recovering naturally across a gradient of moisture and temperature conditions?
What are the ecological outcomes of reforestation efforts on public lands, and how do these outcomes impact watershed health? - What projections can we make about long term recovery of more recent fires based on the recovery of 20+ year old fires?
- How do post-fire management strategies differ across jurisdictions and states in different regions across the intermountain west and what partners (i.e., federal government, collaborative groups, tribal nations, etc.) drive on the ground action?
Charter Summary:
As wildfire size and severity continue to increase and climate change makes recovery on post-fire landscapes more difficult, managers grapple with what our ecosystems will look like for decades to come and how we prioritize post-fire reforestation treatments. We examine long post-fire landscapes (>20 years) to understand the patterns we may expect from more recent fires and apply experimental plantings in both recent and older fires across a range of forest types from piñon-juniper dominated woodlands through 3 forest types to our highest elevation subalpine forests. We are working closely with managers and stakeholders who are concerned about ecological transformations from forested to non-forested landscapes, while also understanding the limitations of the amount of the landscape that can likely be treated in the coming years.
Primary Contact
- Camille Stevens-Rumann (CSU)
Team Members
- Kelly Jones (NMSU)
- Ryan Morrison (CSU)
- James Biggs (NMHU)
Graduate & PhD Students
- Jamie Woolet (CSU), PhD, 2022-Present
- Maria Vicini (CSU), MS, 2021-2023
- Katie Jones (CSU), Master’s of Natural Resource Stewardship 2023
Undergraduate Students
- Sam Gunning (CSU), 2022
- Ali Goodrich (CSU), 2022 & 2023
- Morgan Murphy (CSU), 2023
- Alex Smilor (CSU), 2023
Community Partners
- Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forest
- Pike-San Isabel National Forest
- Bureau of Land Management – Grand Junction Field Office
- Trees, Water & People
- Philmont Scout Ranch
- Coalition for the Poudre River Watershed
- Rocky Mountain Research Station
- Colorado State University Extension
- The Nature Conservancy – Colorado
Publications:
- Woolet, J., Stevens-Rumann, C., Coop, J., Pejchar, L. (2023). A bird’s eye view of ecosystem conversion: Examining the resilience of piñon-juniper woodlands and their avian communities in the face of fire regime change. In Forest Ecology and Management (Vol. 546, p.121368). Elsevier BV. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2023.121368