Details:One poorly understood consequence of is its effects on extreme events such as wildfires. Robust associations between wildfire frequency and climatic variability have been shown to exist, indicating that future climate change may continue to have a significant effect on wildfire activity. The Northeastern United States (NEUS) has experienced severe, catastrophic historic wildfire outbreaks, such as the Miramichi Fire of 1825 and the Maine fires of 1947. However, little is known about how the direct effects of climate change (temperature & precipitation) will impact fire risk in the NEUS under future climate scenarios.
Presentation Objectives:
Present a regional assessment of climatological fire risk using a multi-model ensemble from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) and the Keetch-Byram Drought Index (KBDI)
Demonstrate the accuracy of climate models in reconstructing modeled KBDI compared to observational KBDI from regional meteorological stations
Highlight regional and sub-regional changes in future fire risk and the causes of said changes.
Presenters: Daniel Miller: Hydrologist, Division of Natural Resources and Conservation Planning, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Northeast Region
Recorded: March 2, 2021
Duration: 55 Minutes
Details: USFS Forest Health Protection provides technical and financial support to state, federal, and tribal agencies related to forest health issues. We also monitor forest health through direct survey (aerial, ground, trapping) and assessment.
Forests in the northeast face an array of threats, with and changing climates at the forefront. Warming climates have been implicated in the spread of both native and invasive forest insects. Increased frequency of storms and the severity of these events can create opportunities for bark beetles and other insects to build damaging populations. Increased drought and tree stress result in less resilient trees that can succumb to defoliators and other organisms. I will discuss three projects related to climate and insects, including: (1) range expansions, (2) severe windstorms, and (3) the interaction of drought, tree stress, and defoliation on hardwood forests.
Presenters: Kevin J. Dodds, Forest Entomologist, U.S. Forest Service, Forest Health Protection
Recorded: November 17, 2020
Duration: 56 Minutes
Climate Change Vulnerability and Adaptation of Forest Wildlife
Details: Climate change is affecting the species and communities that make up our forests in a myriad of ways. Dr. Morelli will present a synthesis of the impacts of climate change on the wildlife of the forests that cover much of the Midwest and northeastern U.S. Based on a mix of expert elicitation and literature review, she will show what species are predicted to be most vulnerable to climate change, as well as the uncertainty around those predictions. Tools to incorporate the latest science into management decisions in order to achieve climate change adaptation will also be reviewed.
Presenters: Toni Lyn Morelli (Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center)
Recorded: September 19, 2019
Duration: 51 Minutes
Details: Chronically overabundant white‐tailed deer populations have made it difficult to regenerate desirable woody species throughout much of eastern North American. Neither silvicultural prescriptions nor deer management alone have resulted in successful forest regeneration. We found that that the combination of state‐regulated deer hunting and forest‐overstory removal increases the probability of creating habitat with high density and diversity of native tree, shrub, and herbaceous species along with lower levels of invasive species.
Presenters: Jeffrey S Ward (The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station)
Recorded: October 20, 2020
Duration: 68 Minutes
Details: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has developed a Forest Ecology and Management course focused on advancing knowledge and skills for USFWS biologists, foresters and others who manage forests on refuges or partner lands to meet wildlife habitat needs and objectives. This webinar is an overview of the course which is designed to introduce biologists and others to the concepts of forest disturbance ecology, basic silvicultural approaches and the design of silvicultural prescriptions that will either emulate conditions more typical of natural disturbances or meet the needs for a particular set of species. The course covers field skills, stand exams, forest dynamics modeling, cruising, marking and harvesting. The course and presentation focus on using emulation of natural forest disturbances as a main thesis.
Presenters: Brenda McComb (Oregon State University), Haven Barnhill (USFWS) and Jeff Horan (USFWS)
Recorded: March 28, 2019
Duration: 57 Minutes
Details: Fire is a natural ecosystem process and forest dependent wildlife evolved with, and are well adapted to fire. Spotted owl responses to fire continue to be the topic of significant research, investigating changes in occupancy, foraging behavior, colonization and site extinction probabilities, and movements. The effects of wildfire on spotted owls can be either positive or negative, depending on the size, severity, and landscape position of the fire. In this presentation we will explain how we are currently working with partners to conserve spotted owls in post fire landscapes. Our methods are applicable to all spotted owl subspecies but may need to be tailored to local conditions and species needs.
Presenters: Christine Jordan and Bob Carey
Recorded: June 16, 2020
Duration: 61 Minutes
Details: Traditional forestry, ecological, and fuels monitoring methods are costly, error-prone and are rarely analyzed. The application of Terrestrial LIDAR System (TLS) units to monitoring methods can help standardize data collection resulting in improved efficiency, reduced error, and datasets that can easily be analyzed to better inform management decisions. Affordable (sub-$20K) off-the-shelf TLS units can be employed to streamline the data collection process, remove sampling bias, and produce data that can be easily imported into analysis software or decision support framework.
Presentation Objectives: Discuss the integration of TLS into monitoring programs, highlight the advantages of TLS over traditional monitoring in support of forestry, fire and ecological decision support and discuss limitations of the technology.
Presenters: Christine Jordan and Bob Carey
Recorded: February 16, 2021
Duration: 61 Minutes
Details: USFS Forest Health Protection provides technical and financial support to state, federal, and tribal agencies related to forest health issues. We also monitor forest health through direct survey (aerial, ground, trapping) and assessment. Forests in the northeast face an array of threats, with invasive species and changing climates at the forefront. Warming climates have been implicated in the spread of both native and invasive forest insects. Increased frequency of storms and the severity of these events can create opportunities for bark beetles and other insects to build damaging populations. Increased drought and tree stress result in less resilient trees that can succumb to defoliators and other organisms. I will discuss three projects related to climate and insects, including: (1) range expansions, (2) severe windstorms, and (3) the interaction of drought, tree stress, and defoliation on hardwood forests.
Presenters: Carolyn Pike (US Forest Service)
Recorded: November 17, 2020
Duration: 46 Minutes
Details: Climate change is altering forest ecosystems, with many changes expected by the end of the 21st century. Forests vary widely, and not all forests are equally at risk; vulnerabilities are strongly influenced by regional differences in climate impacts and adaptive capacity. Further, as an increasing amount of scientific information on forest vulnerability to climate change becomes available, natural resource managers are searching for ways to realistically use this information to meet specific management needs, ranging from landscape-level planning and coordination to onthe-ground implementation.
Presenters: Maria Janowiak (US Forest Service)
Recorded: September 12, 2019
Duration: 59 Minutes
