Fire and climate change in the Great Basin: Prospects in the middle of the sagebrush sea

Dr. Beth A. Newingham Research Ecologist

USDA - Agricultural Research Service, Reno, NV

Wildfire and Invasives in the Great Basin

Credit: Rob Cox USDA-NRCS

Fire Regime • Increase in fire size • Increase in frequency

- Fire return interval = - Historic >100 years - Current > 2 years

Fire in the Great Basin

209,000 hectares

Murphy Complex 2007

650,000 acres

Long Butte 2010

320,000 acres

Long Draw 2012

560,000 acres

Rush 2012

270,000 acres

Holloway 2012

460,000 acres

Kinyon Road 2012

235,000 acres

2012 • 3.3 million acres

burned • Holloway/Long

Draw Fires- 1 million acres

20% of the Great Basin

Hot Spots

209,000 hectares

Recent, Nearby Fires

209,000 hectares

Overland Strawberry

Wildfire and Invasives in the Great Basin

Credit: Rob Cox USDA-NRCS

• Bureau of Land Management • Average of $33.7 million per year spent on

treatments • 86% is spent in the Great Basin

Emergency Stabilization and Rehabilitation (ESR)

Post-fire Rehabilitation Drill Seeding Aerial Seeding

Post-Fire Rehabilitation

Climate

Grazing

Native Plant Communities Plant Invasion

Soil

Fire Regimes

Wildfire

Research Framework

Fire Regimes 209,000 hectares

N = No Rehab A = Aerial D = Drill

Graduate Student: Chris Bowman-Prideaux Collaborators: Eva Strand, UI Boise and Twin Falls districts, BLM Funding: NASA, Joint Fire Science Program, Stillinger Herbarium, NSF

Question: How do post-fire seeding strategies affect natives, cheatgrass invasion, and fire return intervals?

Burn Severity Questions: 1. How do burn severity

indices correlate with actual severity in sagebrush?

2. How does plant recovery correlate with burn severity?

Collaborators: Eva Strand and Chris Bowman-Prideaux, UI; Jeff Gicklhorn, UNR

Funding: Joint Fire Science Program

Murphy Complex Fire 2007

Treatments Control Warming Drought Warming + drought

Climate Change

Graduate Student: Alex Suazo Collaborators:

Matt Germino, USGS Boise District, BLM

Funding: NSF, USGS

Question: What are the effects of warming and drought on cheatgrass and native bunchgrass emergence?

Climate Change Questions: 1. How does warming and drought affect competition among

natives and cheatgrass, as well as natives and red brome? 2. Are there native seed mixes that may be resistant to cheatgrass

or red brome invasion in future climates?

Collaborators: Keirith Snyder, ARS Funding: Great Basin Native Plant Program Salo 2005. Biological Invasions.

Elevation Gradients

Question: How does elevation, temperature, and precipitation gradients affect cheatgrass distributions?

Low resistance Low resilience

Resistance to invasion Resilience to disturbance

High resistance High resilience

Wind Erosion

Collaborators: Jeff Herrick, USDA-ARS

Nick Webb, NMSU Ben Sullivan, UNR

Paul Verburg, UNR Funding: Working on it….

National Wind Erosion Research Network

Site locations – TBD ( = proposed)

Wind Erosion

Collaborators: Ben Sullivan, UNR

Paul Verburg, UNR Funding: Working on it….

• Quantify and predict post-fire dust emissions

• Determine effects of pre- and post-fire management on dust

• ESR = Emergency Stabilization and Rehabilitation

• Advising agencies – Soil monitoring

• Wind erosion • Water erosion

– Weather stations – Monitoring design

Project Lead: Camie Dencker Collaborators:

Eastern Nevada Landscape Coalition Ely District BLM

Funding: Ely District BLM

ESR Monitoring

Spring Valley Field Station

Opportunities for: RESEARCH

• Gradient studies • Wind erosion network • Fire and post-fire

rehabilitation TEACHING/OUTREACH

• Agency trainings • GB Fire Science Exchange

workshops

Facility Needs: • Lab space • Meeting/training rooms • Housing

Acknowledgements Cooperators/Collaborators:

• Bureau of Land Management • USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station • US Geological Survey • Agricultural Research Service • Natural Resource Conservation Service • National Park Service • US Fish and Wildlife Service • US Air Force • Idaho Fish and Game • Idaho Department of Lands • Truax Company, Inc. • OX Ranch • The Nature Conservancy • Numerous universities

Soda Fire, August 2015