Fire Effects Monitoring Annual Report: 2002
Kopper K and Drake C. 2003. Fire Effects Monitoring Annual Report: 2002. Fire Effects Monitoring at John Day Fossil Beds NM. National Park Service
The 2002 Annual Report of the Fire Effects Monitoring at John Day Fossil Beds National Monument summarizes activities of the 2002 field season. These include revisiting nine YR01 plots following the 2001 Picture Gorge fall burn, installing six new burn plots (three forest and three sagebrush) in the Middle Mountain unit, and then treating those plots with prescribed burn in the fall. The Fire Effects monitoring objectives include sagebrush and juniper density reduction in all plots as well as the establishment of perennial bunchgrass in the brush plots. The management goal is to alleviate hazard fuel conditions and to restore the native bunchgrass community to historic levels. Sagebrush reduction in both forest and brush plots exceeded managment objectives, necessitating the need for utilizing adaptive management strategies to meet, but not exceed, the goals in the future. Reduction of western juniper density met managment goals one year post-burn. Maintenance of native bunchgrass communities by five years post-burn appears to be not as successful; after two years post-burn, one of the two perennial natives of interest had not recovered from its 79% die back.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Kopper, Karen; Drake, Cedar
- Date of Issue
- 2003
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- JODA , UCBN
- Keywords
- Abundance (Biodiversity), brush density, bunchgrass, cheatgrass, Effects, FIRE, Forest, hazard fuel, John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, Middle Mountain, Monitoring, Oregon, Picture Gorge, Prescribed Burn, Presence (Biodiversity), Sagebrush, Taxa Links To References, Vegetation, western juniper