Search Results:
Narrow
"AND" Search: includes all selected items
Widen
"OR" Search: includes any selected items
GPE: What fire ecology topics related to grasslands get you most excited as a researcher, and why? This is a tough question—there are a lot…
click to continue reading ExpandGPE: What fire ecology topics related to grasslands get you most excited as a researcher, and why?
This is a tough question—there are a lot of things that get me excited. I have focused primarily on how fire affects the fauna in grasslands to date. My lab has been exploring fire effects on Texas horned lizards, harvester ants, other insect species, and most recently, bobwhite quail. However, topics such as seasonal fluctuations in flammability, small-scale heterogeneity in fire severity, heat tolerance, and fire history are of interest to me.
In particular, I am interested in how small differences in heat tolerance among species shapes post-fire insect communities. Grassland fires don’t always heat the soil to lethal temperatures, so even small differences in heat tolerance can make big differences in survival. I am also interested in understanding how patchy mosaics of fire shape insect communities on the 1m^2 scale.
GPE: What long term goals do you have for your research lab?
In the future, I hope to explore some of the topics I mentioned above in-depth. I also hope to continue my work on fire and insects. However, one of the most exciting parts of having a university lab is that I get to mentor students; my biggest long-term goal is to create and foster a research environment where students can ask exciting questions and become the future of fire ecology.
I am passionate about teaching and training future fire practitioners, and Texas Tech’s undergraduate Natural Resources Management majors are passionate about fire use and excited to learn how to safely and effectively apply fire to the landscape. One of my biggest long-term goals is to build a TTU prescribed burning training program, where our students can gain fire exposure and experience and be competitive for fire management positions across the region.
GPE: What are the most important questions we need to answer for grasslands today?
How do we conserve grassland function and integrity in a rapidly developing world and changing climate?
I think there are three very intertwined topics that are going to be important going forward: 1) fire mitigation and suppression, 2) climate change, and 3) fire management and use. For all three of these topics, education of practitioners, landowners, and other stakeholders is an important component of bringing about change.
GPE: Can you describe one or two findings from your research career related to grasslands and fire?
We recently completed a study led by Rachel Granberg that examined the effects of fire on Texas horned lizards in central Texas grasslands. She found that lizards tended to use burned areas more frequently. She also modeled survival of lizards and found that female lizard survival depends primarily on a lack of leaf litter, as created by fire. My lab also recently completed a project led by Anna Meyer that examined the effects of fire on harvester ant colony size, abundance, and calorie content. Harvester ants are prey items of the Texas horned lizard, so their availability and nutritional content are relevant to its conservation. We found no effect of fire on colony size or abundance; however, ants from burned areas contained fewer calories than ants from unburned areas. While ants from burned areas may be less nutritious, burning is still an important tool in horned lizard conservation.
GPE: What advice can you offer to students considering fire research as a career? What key things should they do to prepare?
My advice would be to go out and experience fire. Take a summer to work on a crew or get involved in prescribed burning. No amount of reading or research can make up for that experience.
GPE: Al was nominated by Chris Helzer for this interview. He commented that Al was really one of the first to research pyric herbivory or patch…
click to continue reading ExpandGPE: Al was nominated by Chris Helzer for this interview. He commented that Al was really one of the first to research pyric herbivory or patch burn grazing, but he doesn’t often get recognized for that. Chris wanted to know more about the genesis of Al’s ideas to start combining fire and bison grazing.
Please tell us about how you began learning about the synergy of fire and grazing.
I received my MS and Ph.D. at Texas Tech University conducting research on the ecological role and management applications of fire for suppressing woody plants on South Texas and North Texas rangelands. I had the distinct privilege of doing this work as a student of Dr. Henry A. Wright – the guru of rangeland fire science of the 1970’s – 1990’s. My first post-graduate school job was with The Nature Conservancy as a research and management associate on their Samuel H. Ordway, Jr. Memorial Prairie – at the time a 7,800 ac Northern Mixed Prairie preserve in north-central South Dakota. Other than a scrubby windbreak at the headquarters, there was one equally scrubby escaped Russian Olive tree in one of the pastures. Needless to say woody plant control was not going to be an important priority of a prescribed burn program. Not to mention that prescribed fire was a subject that released the wrath of the neighbors and most of the regional range management professionals of the time.
Most of the preserve was leased to local ranchers for summer cattle grazing. However, about a quarter of Ordway Prairie was leased by a bison rancher who maintained a year-round herd of bison in two pastures, one for summer grazing and one for winter grazing. Bob Hamilton [TNC Tallgrass Prairie Preserve fame] – also newly graduated with an MS from Emporia State University – had been hired as the summer intern by our boss Mark Heitlinger who was working out of the Minnesota Field office of TNC. During the next years the three of us conspired: first, to replace cattle lease grazing with TNC owned bison herds on their large grassland preserves (some not yet acquired); second, to initiate landscape scale recreations of the Great Plains Fire-Bison Interaction that had been described in general terms by early naturalists and ecologists; and third, to encourage and support both basic and applied research on these TNC preserves to extend the state-of-the-art of range management.
A particularly productive brain-storming session occurred overlooking the South Unit of the Cross Ranch Preserve, ND. I’m sure Bob and Mark remember that exciting day with the same fondness as I do.
GPE: How did you get started working with landowners and burn cooperatives in Nebraska?
Nature Conservancy staff at the Niobrara Valley Preserve began using prescribed burning on the preserve in the fall of 1984 – shortly after my arrival. Our hope was that our neighbors would see the value of RxB in suppressing woody plant expansion out into the Sand Hill rangeland. Again the most common stance of resource managers in the Nebraska Sand Hills was that fire was a destructive force and a dangerous tool. TNC staff on the Niobrara Valley Preserve persisted and even expanded the RxB program on the preserve by co-developing, co-teaching and hosting the TNC Fire School for land managers from around the country. Again, Mark Heitlinger was a primary developer of the course with logistical support from the Niobrara staff.
Implementation of the Fire Bison Interaction and woodland management program provided many opportunities for RxB in spring, summer and fall. However, there continued to be little neighborhood by-in. It was the NRCS/landowner supported RxB program (Prescribed Burn Taskforce) in the central Nebraska loess hills in and around Custer County, followed by a similar effort in the Loess Hills (Loess Canyons Rangeland Alliance) in and around Lincoln County Nebraska, that initially provided successful landowner driven examples of fire as a modern land management tool in Nebraska. Although landowners along the Niobrara remained cool to using fire as a management tool, the Niobrara Valley Preserve was an early participant in the new Interagency/TNC effort known as the Fire Learning Network. In 2009 we finally incorporated the Niobrara Valley Prescribed Fire Association with an all private landowner board of directors. The NVPFA was actively supported by the Nebraska Game and Parks Through their office in Bassett. The NVPFA is designed to provide RxB training and equipment to landowners in seven counties along the Niobrara River.
GPE: You served on the very first Great Plains Fire Science Board of directors. As you have watched shift from proposal to implementation, what have you found most valuable for the fire work you are involved in now?
I think the training materials and topic review papers are valuable for training landowners in prescribed burning and giving them in-depth materials on the ecology and management of specific grassland types.
GPE: How did you come to work in the world of grassland ecology?
After three years in the Marine Corps – which included a tour in Vietnam – the resilience and solitude of the remaining native Great Plains grasslands became my refuge, and their conservation my life’s work.
GPE: Where does fire fit in your ecological interests?
Fire and grazing ecology are at the top of my professional interests. Early in my Masters program under Dr. Henry Wright at Texas Tech University I realized that I might be able to make my living doing what the earliest human cultures did – using fire as a tool. I thought I could handle that.
GPE: Describe your land management style? How do you go about instituting adaptive management?
I have a minimalist management style. I don’t want to control everything that goes on in the landscape, but only mitigate for those natural forces which no longer function as they were evolved to function. For example, fragmentation, the loss of large predators, and ecological processes associated with fire. As for managing large grazers, the most important decision is to make sure the stocking rate is appropriate for meeting your landscape objectives. The stocking rate and season of use are intimately tied to fire management since the fine fuel load, distribution and phenology are the result of grazing intensity and distribution and season of use.
GPE: What are the most important questions we need to answer for grasslands today?
How do we maintain grasslands within agriculture and trade policies that incentivize their conversion to cropland.
Nick Garza was nominated for our get to know the fire community series by John Weir. Nick Garza is a Senior Research Associate with AgriLife…
click to continue reading ExpandNick Garza was nominated for our get to know the fire community series by John Weir.
Nick Garza is a Senior Research Associate with AgriLife Research at the Sonora Research Station, Sonora Texas. We asked him about his thoughts on working fire in Texas.
Please describe your professional interests and expertise related to wildland fire?
My interests tend to run towards equipment design and development. I like to work with effective and economical sprayers and modifications to ATV’s to make them more suitable for prescribed burning.
What changes have you seen in the fire landscape over your career?
In the early 1990’s people were beginning to show greater interest in fire for management. As more has been learned about fire behavior people are becoming more comfortable with it. However, as populations increase there are more and more conflicts between those people wanting to use fire and people who fear or don’t understand fire.
How has fire science played a role in decision making at the field station and in the neighborhood?
It has definitely created more interest in the neighborhood, especially since we are still largely rural and smoke is not as much of a concern. At the Research Station it has allowed us to explore the use of livestock (cattle, sheep and especially goats) to extend the useful life of prescribed fire. That is important because this area still has strong ties to range animal agriculture.
What are the most important questions we need to answer for grassland fire ecology today?
-
What knowledge can we use to make prescribed fire safer?
-
How can we ease the fears of the general public towards the use of prescribed fire?
Can you describe a particular finding that you think has been ground breaking for grassland management?
That summer fire is not the death sentence for warm season perennial grasses it was once thought to be.
John Weir was recently awarded the Henry Wright lifetime achievement award by the Association for Fire Ecology. John has played an instrumental role in forming…
click to continue reading ExpandJohn Weir was recently awarded the Henry Wright lifetime achievement award by the Association for Fire Ecology. John has played an instrumental role in forming and advocating for burn associations and training new fire ecologists and agency staff in the use of prescribed fire. We thought you might like to learn a little more about John.
John Weir, Research Associate at Oklahoma State University, was recently awarded the Henry Wright Lifetime Achievement award from The Association for Fire Ecology.
How did you come to get interested in working with fire?
Honestly, I liked to set stuff on fire when I was a kid so it comes naturally. It did start at an early age. When I was in Jr. High, I also noticed how wildfires impacted the trees and the grass grew back, and I knew Native Americans burned a lot. So, I kept putting things together and figured out that fire was important. Then when I went to college, I got to help with a NRCS [Natural Resource Conservation Service] burn that was exciting. Then going to Texas Tech, I got to burn a lot with Dr. Henry Wright and work on several fire research projects; that really got me going even more. Then, I ended up at Oklahoma State running the OSU Range Research Station and fire was very central to the research and work going on there, so I just fit right in and have not looked back since.
Please describe your professional interests and expertise related to wildland fire?
My main interests are prescribed burn associations and how to get more fire on the land, especially in private land settings. I really enjoy training and showing people how to burn safely and effectively. On a research and fire ecology level, I like working with season of burn impacts and continually learning how important fire is to all aspects of the ecosystem.
What changes have you seen in the fire landscape over your career?
I have seen cedars and other woody plants increase dramatically, but the greatest thing I have seen is the increased use of prescribed fire across the state of Oklahoma and the region. This is noted by the number of burn associations, acres being burned, importance of fire to NGOs, state and federal agencies, and really just how much interest in fire has increased over the past 25 years.
How has fire science changed how fire is being used at Oklahoma State University over time?
Fire science has had a huge impact on fire use at OSU. It has increased the amount and types of research being done. There is more research going on with fire at all levels, from below ground level to birds and butterflies flying around and everything in between.
What are the most important questions we need to answer for grassland fire ecology today?
One is to continue to work on fire history to show how much fire was actually on the ground and secondly continue to look at season of burn impacts to specific plants (native and invasive) and plant communities.
Can you describe a particular finding that you think has been ground breaking for grassland management?
I think the patch burn work that has been done is so important and instrumental. It’s not a new concept, it’s just proving what Native Americans knew already. This work has done so much to show how important fire and grazing are, how important the different habitats that fire and grazing create are important to birds, mammals and insects. But probably the most important part of it is the bringing together work on fire at an international level because this is something that happens on every continent except Antarctica and that’s probably because we haven’t been there yet.
Get to know the fire community Jim Ansley, Professor and Regents Fellow with Texas A&M AgriLife Research-Vernon, Texas. We’ll start with Butch Taylor’s question…
click to continue reading ExpandGet to know the fire community
Jim Ansley, Professor and Regents Fellow with Texas A&M AgriLife Research-Vernon, Texas.
We’ll start with Butch Taylor’s question to you: Despite years of accumulating scientific evidence that fire is critical to the structure and function of Great Plains grasslands, society has been unable to restore fire as a fundamental grassland process across broad landscapes. What can be done to resolve this issue?
My feeling is that not much can be done. I think prescribed fire will play a minor role in grassland function but human population growth and urban, suburban and rural development (e.g., fences, structures, etc.), pressures to maintain cattle herds and graze and possibly climate change with increasing droughts will increasingly limit fire opportunities.
How did you get started working with fire and grassland systems?
I began fire research as a post-doctorate working with Dr. Pete Jacoby at Texas A&M AgriLife Vernon. We both had experience with brush control with chemical applications but began exploring the use of fire together.
What fire topics related to grasslands get you most excited as a researcher, and why?
The interaction of woody species and grasses and how fire affects those interactions.
What are the most important fire-related questions we need to answer for grasslands today?
Can fire really suppress or eliminate encroaching woody plants on large, regional scales; how frequently can prescribed fires realistically be applied on working ranches; Is there a disconnect between historical fire regimes that maintained a grassland state vs. thinking that we can mimic this using prescribed burning in an environment of more-or-less continual livestock grazing with only occasional deferment for prescribed fires.
Can you describe one or two findings/accomplishments that you are proud of from your career related to grasslands and fire?
(1) C4 midgrass restoration using summer season and alternate season fires; (2) mesquite seedling mortality response to fire intensity and summer fires.
Looking back over your career, can you offer some professional wisdom to those who are now getting their feet wet?
Make sure you understand all the legal ramifications before conducting a prescribed fire; do some practice burns on small areas to get a feel for wind effects and communication dynamics before taking on anything large; start with flat surfaces and slowly work up to understanding wind dynamics around hills and slopes; for research, replicate if possible and record as much about pre-fire conditions and conditions of the fire itself that you can include in publications; also when writing papers be careful not to compare your work to results from other fire studies that really don’t relate to the conditions of your study as support for your results – they can often be meaningless (e.g., comparing Yellowstone fire effects on soil nutrients to soils responses to a small plot grassland fire in west Texas).
GPE: Your blog is titled “Prairie Ecologist”, but how do you describe your professional interests and expertise? I do consider myself to be a prairie…
click to continue reading ExpandGPE: Your blog is titled “Prairie Ecologist”, but how do you describe your professional interests and expertise?
I do consider myself to be a prairie ecologist. What I enjoy most is implementing a land management or restoration technique, watching the results, and then figuring out what we can learn and incorporate into our next attempt. Over time, I’ve increased the amount of time I spend sharing what we learn with others. I try to be a generalist in terms of how I look at and manage prairies. My graduate work dealt with grassland birds, but I now think much more about plants and invertebrates than birds, and I try to keep learning about new species and ecological interactions each year.
GPE: Ultimately, what is your goal for the blog?
I view my blog as a more current and interactive version of my prairie management book (The Ecology and Management of Prairies). The blog is closing in on 2000 subscribers, and attracts many other readers that visit regularly but don’t subscribe. A large percentage of readers are prairie managers, landowners, or prairie conservationists. I hope to provide those readers with food for thought and discussions that will help them improve the quality of the grasslands they interact with. Other people just read the blog for the photos and because they have a broad interest in nature or conservation. For that audience, I try to just raise awareness about the beauty and value of prairies, in the hope that I can build a bigger constituency for prairie. The blog is one of a spectrum of outreach tools I use, including print publications, field days, presentations, and workshops.
GPE: How did you come to work in the world of grassland ecology?
I went to college planning to be a forest ranger but was introduced to prairies by a friend who convinced me that they were an underdog ecosystem that needed help. It didn’t take long to get hooked.
GPE: Where does fire fit in your ecological interests?
I see fire as an important tool for many things, but I don’t worry too much about applying it in any kind of historically-accurate kind of way. Instead, I look for ways that it can help us control woody encroachment, focus grazing impacts, alter habitat structure, and suppress/stimulate various components of the prairie plant community.
GPE: Describe your land management style? How do you go about instituting adaptive management?
I like messiness. I want every part of our prairie to experience different conditions from year to year so that no species or group becomes dominant and we maintain the highest possible diversity of species. We make management plans year by year, rather than focusing longer term. That lets us evaluate the weather and management impacts from the previous year and design the coming year’s management accordingly. We have broad goals for each prairie, but annual objectives can vary quite a bit from year to year, depending upon what we see happening and want to respond to.
GPE: What are the most important questions we need to answer for grasslands today?
I think the absolute most important issue has to do with economics and policy – we need to figure out how to prevent grasslands from being converted to other land cover types that, at least in the short term, provide more income to the landowner. Solving that issue is above my pay grade, but I try to do my part by raising awareness of the value of diverse native grasslands and helping to find ways to maintain diversity that still allow grasslands to pay their way.
Aside from that big monster, there are a lot of important questions about how degraded a prairie can become before it can recover with good management, about how to restore prairies that have passed that threshold, and about the level of species diversity (plants, invertebrates, and other) that is needed to make prairies resilient in the face of human activities and climate change. Included within that are myriad questions that we need to answer to understand how prairies actually work; the role of species (especially those belowground) in the prairie community, and how they respond to impacts from us and their environment.
GPE: What questions are you working to answer?
I’ve spent a lot of time refining techniques for restoring cropland to high-diversity grassland. Now we’re trying to figure out how effective we’ve been at actually defragmenting the landscape with that kind of restoration – do bees, ants, mice, plants, birds, and other taxa move into and through our restored areas?
Our work on the Platte River has really shifted recently toward increasing plant diversity in degraded prairies that have a long history of chronic overgrazing and broadcast herbicide use. We are working on strategies for overseeding those areas and then looking both at initial establishment and long-term viability of those new plants.
The third focus of our work has been on figuring out how to manage prairies to maintain species diversity and ecological resilience. Fire and grazing are important components of that, but we also want to find effective management strategies for managers who don’t have one or both of those tools available. It’s important for us to come up with core principles and tactics that most private and public landowners/managers can understand and implement, so while we really like using variations on patch-burn grazing, we also want to help landowners tweak the management systems that fit their individual personalities and sites instead of trying prescribe any particular management regime for them.
GPE: Since the beginning of your career, what is the most exciting development in fire ecology that you have observed? (Robin Verble’s question to Butch.)…
click to continue reading ExpandGPE: Since the beginning of your career, what is the most exciting development in fire ecology that you have observed? (Robin Verble’s question to Butch.)
Butch: One big challenge, in getting more fire on the landscape, has been “how to change the paradigm for transferring ‘management’ technology”, and “how to equip and empower landowners”. The establishment of prescribed burn associations throughout the Great Plains states is meeting this challenge and also creating a fire-culture that will carry on into the future.
GPE: What fire topics related to grasslands get you most excited as a researcher, and why?
Butch: Fire grazing/browsing interaction or also referred to as patch-burning or pyric-herbivory. This concept, developed and researched by Sam Fuhlendorf and others at Oklahoma State University, is changing how we implement prescribed burning.
Another topic is the use of fire during the growing season under extreme dry conditions. Many landowners in my region cannot meet their goals and objectives with burning unless they burn under these extreme conditions.
GPE: What are the most important fire-related questions we need to answer for grasslands today?
Butch: Fire suppression and continuous heavy stocking are primary disturbances that contributed to the conversion of rangelands from grasslands to woodlands. Chemical and mechanical brush management practices replaced the historic role of fire in rangeland ecosystems. However, the ecological and economic impacts of these practices are not the same as fire. Reintroduction of fire as prescribed burning requires proper grazing management that will accumulate effective fuel loads and enhance plant succession. The integration of prescribed fire and grazing management is essential for effective ecosystem management. This will require the development of technology in the form of decision-aids which are needed to guide managers in the process of collecting information, monitoring the resource, and applying information for management decisions.
GPE: Can you describe one or two findings/accomplishments that you are proud of from your career related to grasslands and fire?
- Development and implementation of the concept of prescribed burn associations.
- Research of prescribed burning during the growing season under extreme dry conditions and implementing its use in the Edwards Plateau region of Texas.
GPE: Looking back over your career, can you offer some professional wisdom to those who are now getting their feet wet?
Butch: Have an attitude of never being satisfied with your current knowledge of fire or anything else for that matter. Never turn down an opportunity to participate on a prescribed burn (more experience is better, even for an expert). Be adaptive and think outside the box but don’t practice outside the box unless conducting research.
2014-17 Key Points: Changes in wildland fire regime have led to an expansion of eastern redcedar in tallgrass prairie. Increased eastern redcedar leads to decreased…
click to continue reading Expand2014-17
Key Points: Changes in wildland fire regime have led to an expansion of eastern redcedar in tallgrass prairie. Increased eastern redcedar leads to decreased herbaceous biodiversity, decreased forage production, and increased Wildland Urban Interface concerns.
The workshop held on March 18-19, 2014 was developed to share current knowledge, technical information, practical management information, and provide training opportunities for private local,…
click to continue reading ExpandThe workshop held on March 18-19, 2014 was developed to share current knowledge, technical information, practical management information, and provide training opportunities for private local, federal and state participants that either manage land or work with land managers.
2014-07
Woody plant encroachment is a well-documented consequence of fire suppression in rangeland ecosystems. 2019-02
click to continue reading ExpandWoody plant encroachment is a well-documented consequence of fire suppression in rangeland ecosystems.
2019-02