• Investigators and Consultants

• What's in This Website

• Project Background

• Acknowledgments

Sandra L. Haire , Principal Investigator. Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Natural Resources Conservation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Dr. Kevin McGarigal, Principal Investigator. Professor and Director of the Landscape Ecology Program, Department of Natural Resources Conservation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Patrick McCarthy, Project Consultant. Director of Conservation Programs, The Nature Conservancy of New Mexico, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Dr. William H. Romme, Project Consultant. Professor of Forest Ecology, Department of Forest, Rangeland, and Watershed Stewardship, College of Natural Resources, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado.

Dr. Melissa Savage, Project Consultant. Professor Emerita at the University of California-Los Angeles and Executive Director of the Four Corners Institute, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

STUDY PLAN (PDF)--Click here to download a copy of our project proposal/study plan.

PROGRESS REPORT (PDF)--Click here to download an update on the mapping and field components of our research as of August 2005.

PHOTO GALLERY--Follow the links to view photos

Saddle Mountain Plant Communities

La Mesa Plant Communities

Field Season 2005

Field Site Maps

SLIDE PRESENTATIONS-(Best viewed with Internet Explorer)

The Nature Conservancy Fire Learning Network meeting, Silver City, New Mexico, February 2005

The 3rd International Fire Ecology and Management Congress, San Diego, California, November 2006

The Nature Conservancy Science in Conservation Practice Conference, Tucson, Arizona, November 2006

Fire has long been a dramatic force in shaping landscapes of the southwestern United States. Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), a broad, open-crowned tree that is valued for its beauty as well as its economic and ecological importance, has unique characteristics which operate in concert with fires that historically burned frequently through the forest understory. Our research project is motivated by the need to understand how ponderosa pine forests respond to high-severity fires, that is, fires that cause extensive tree mortality.

An assumption of our research is that the spatial pattern of a disturbance becomes increasingly important when the disturbance is large and biological legacies are few and scattered. With this assumption in mind, we ask, what is the relationship of post-fire plant communities after decades of change to spatial patterns of severity mapped in early post-fire time frames? And, do spatial patterns of older burns (1950-1980) differ from recent burns (1998-present) in ways that make us expect successional changes years from now to differ from those we observe at older burns? By addressing these questions, we hope to not only contribute to understanding the resiliency of ponderosa pine forests, but also to elucidate the conservation values intrinsic to the diverse communities that represent alternative successional trajectories after severe fire.

In the first phase of our project, we are examining the outcomes of high-severity fire in ponderosa pine forests and their neighboring communities across an elevational gradient that encompasses piñon-juniper (Pinus edulis-Juniperus spp.) woodlands, ponderosa pine and mixed conifer forests. We have recently completed field work at two study sites: La Mesa and Saddle Mountain. Both were large burns that included areas of high severity fire in ponderosa pine forests, and encompassed a range of elevations and pre-fire forest types. La Mesa burned across the Pajarito Plateau, New Mexico in 1977 and Saddle Mountain burned on the North Kaibab Plateau, Arizona in 1960. Please see the photos and report available on this website for more information.

We thank the following organizations for providing operating funds and salaries: The Nature Conservancy; University of Massachusetts, Amherst; American Association of University Women; and US Geological Survey, Biological Resources Division. Scientists and managers at Bandelier National Monument, Santa Fe National Forest, Kaibab National Forest, Grand Canyon National Park, and Los Alamos National Laboratory provided expertise and crucial logistical support. Many thanks to Janice Stone, who applied her extraordinary talent in the essential and challenging endeavor of photo interpretation and mapping from historic aerial photos. We gratefully acknowledge the outstanding efforts of Rebecca Franklin and John Riling, our core field crew; David Lively, who joined us for field work at Saddle Mountain; and Matt Sperry and Micah Brachman, who provided the extra help we needed to accomplish data collection in the Dome Wilderness. Thanks to one and all!