# Presentation: 063500

## Slide 1

## Great Basin: Wildfires, Invasive Species, & Climate Change

**Great Basin: Wildfires, Invasive Species, & Climate Change**

- Mike PellantGreat Basin Restoration Initiative CoordinatorBoise, ID

- Cheatgrass

**Notes:**
In this short presentation I will describe the impacts of wildfires, invasive species, and climate change on BLM lands and discuss the science needs of Great Basin land managers.  I will focus on cheatgrass as the poster child for invasive species in the Great Basin as it is a major contributor to wildfires and may increase in the future due to climate change. Good science is the key to addressing these issues and USGS is a major provider of the information needed by land managers. 

## Great Basin  

| Owner | Acres |
| --- | --- |
| BLM | 73 million |
| Private | 29 million |
| USFS | 19 million |
| State |  4 million |
| DOD |   3 million |
| Tribes |   2 million |
| Other |   5 million |
| Total | 135 million |

- Great Basin

**Notes:**
The floristic Great Basin is North America’s largest desert, encompassing 135 million acres of land between the Rocky and Sierra Nevada Mountains in western North America.  The manager of the largest land base in the Great Basin (includes parts of Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, and California) is the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) with oversight of 73 million acres of public land. The Great Basin is characterized by aridity (over half the area receives less than 12 inches annual precipitation) and a mix of shrubs [sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) being the dominant], with an understory of native grasses and forbs (BLM 2000).  Over half of the sagebrush in North America is found in this desert along with a diverse array of wildlife including the sage-grouse. 

## -Fire Suppression- $126 M-Fire Rehabilitation-$71 M-Loss of Sagebrush & Sage-grouse-Social-Economic Impacts

**Great Basin Wildfires 1990-2007 (2007 in red)**

_**2007**_

- 2007 Costs:

**Notes:**
Wildfires are one of the greatest threats to the ecological integrity of the Great Basin and are increasingly impacting both fiscal and natural resources. Over the last 17 years, nearly 16.2 million Federal and non-Federal acres have burned in this region (data from SageMap and GeoMac databases).  Over 1.9 million acres of the total wildfire acres burned two or more times during this same period due, in large part, to increased fuel continuity as a result of the presence of annual grasses, including cheatgrass (Whisenant 1990). The burn acreage figures cited above do not include wildfires prior to 1990 so the acreage of reburned areas in the Great Basin is considerably larger. 

In 2007 approximately 2.7 million Federal and non-Federal acres burned at a fire suppression cost estimated at $126 million with an additional $71 expended to repair the damages caused these wildfires.   Fire suppression and rehabilitation costs, and private property losses could increase if the climate change induced plant community changes projected for the Great Basin occur. Besides the increased cost to the American public, wildfire behavior could be more extreme, especially in areas where woody vegetation has increased fuel loads.  Risks to fire fighters and the public may continue to rise as well. 

## Great Basin: Wildfires Are the Symptom.... Invasive Plants/Loss of Land Health is the Illness

- Invasive species:
_**Flammable exotic annual grasses**_
- Native conifer encroachment
- Exotic forbs

**Cheatgrass**

**Juniper Encroachment**

**Knapweed****  **

**Notes:**
Invasive species are one of the greatest concerns of many managers in the Great Basin. A consortium of organizations led by The Nature Conservancy identified the Great Basin as the third most endangered ecosystem in the United States due in large part to the dominance of exotic species (Stein et al. 2000).  Cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) is an invasive exotic and the most ubiquitous invasive plant in the Great Basin, occupying over 25 million acres of public lands managed by BLM (BLM 2000). Besides being a serious competitor with native plants, cheatgrass is a significant contributor to the increase in frequency and size of wildfires in the Great Basin (Whisenant 1990). 

Conifer encroachment into sagebrush steppe rangelands is another large invasive species concern in the Great Basin.  In this situation, fire exclusion, along with management changes and climate change,  has accelerated the movement and eventual dominance of native woodland trees, especially pinyon pine (Pinus edulis) and juniper species (Juniperus spp.).  These conifers eventually exclude native shrubs and herbaceous species and increase soil erosion  In the northern portion of the Great Basin, expansion of western juniper (Juniperus occidentalis) into sagebrush steppe over the last 130 years is occurring at an unprecedented rate compared to other time periods during the Holocene (Miller et al. 2005).

The rapid expansion of secondary weeds is now occurring throughout the Great Basin.  Invasive species, including cheatgrass, may facilitate wildfires and the invasion of biannual or perennial invasive forbs (Brooks and Pyke 2001).   

## Climate Change- Increased Temperature 

**Expanding cheatgrass invasions into previously cold-limited environments (Keeley and McGinnis 2007) and sagebrush “migration” to the northern portion of the Great Basin (Neilson 2006)....many social, economic, legal, and ecological implications.**
** **

- Climate Change- Increased Temperature

- Southern Idaho sagebrush

**Sagebrush ******** Juniper**

- Cheatgrass in Ponderosa Pine

**Notes:**
Climate change models predict temperature changes ranging from 3.6-9 degrees F in the future (Chambers et al. 2007).  Warming temperatures mayl shift the current distribution of invasive species to new environments in the Great Basin.   Cheatgrass has appeared in lower elevation Ponderosa pine forests causing manager concerns that wildfires may increase in these ecosystems.

One model predicts that much of the sagebrush in the southern Great Basin could eventually be replaced by Mojave Desert shrubs to the south due to projected higher temperatures and less frost in this portion of the Great Basin (Neilson et al. 2005). Loss of sagebrush will have significant impacts on wildlife species, especially sage-grouse and other sagebrush obligate species, which are dependent on this shrub-dominated ecosystem for food and shelter (Knick 1999). 

## Climate Change- Increased CO2 

**Rising CO****2**** is predicted to increase the success of annual plants such as cheatgrass (Smith et. al 1987) and increase lignin (less digestible) content in cheatgrass (Ziska et al. 2005) ...****more fires! ****  **
** **

- Cheatgrass

- Climate Change- Increased CO2

**Notes:**
Cheatgrass is expected to respond even more favorably than most native plants to conditions with increased atmospheric CO2 (Smith et al. 2000).  One recent study hypothesized that the increase in rangeland wildfires is partially due to enhanced cheatgrass production stimulated by increasing CO2 levels (Ziska et al. 2005).  This study also found that cheatgrass will become more coarse (e.g., lignin content will increase) in the future which will reduce the time that it is palatable to livestock and wildlife and thereby result in the greater accumulation of fuel loads.  The ability to use livestock to reduce cheatgrass continuity and fuel loads may also be reduced.  If we don’t begin to restore land health to degraded lands and do  better job of maintaining healthy plant communities, weeds and wildfires will continue to control the ecological and economic health of the Great Basin.  

## “We are confronted by insurmountable opportunities” 

***“******We are confronted by insurmountable opportunities”***** **
*Pogo*

**Notes:**
As the great philosopher Pogo said “We are confronted by insurmountable opportunities.”  The challenges to maintaining sagebrush ecosystems in the Great Basin are great and goals will only be met if partners such as USGS provide managers with the science and technical assistance to address issues like wildfires, invasive species, and climate change.  Let me give you several examples of USGS projects that are assisting land managers in meeting these challenges. 

##  SageSTEP-Fire/Fire Surrogates in the Sagebrush Biome

-  SageSTEP-Fire/Fire Surrogates in the Sagebrush Biome

**SageSTEP Research Team**

- http://www.sagestep.org

**Notes:**
SageSTEP is a Great Basin wide research project looking at solutions to the loss of native habitat due to cheatgrass and native conifer encroachment into sagebrush steppe ecosystems (photo on left). USGS is provides a key core group of scientists working on this six-state project (see map)exploring a suite of treatments (prescribed fire, mechanical, and herbicide) to “push” threatened rangelands back into a healthy state.  This five-year project is funded in part by the Joint Fire Sciences program and is just now delivering products to managers such as this field guide to management of western juniper published by USGS (on left)

## Great Basin Integrated Landscape Monitoring Project

- http://www.usgs.gov/features/greatbasin/index.html

**Notes:**
The GBILM was initiated three years ago by USGS’s to assist managers in addressing key issues at a landscape rather than a site specific scale  Utilizing all of the programs in USGS, a collaborative plan was developed with BLM involvement to develop baseline information for landscape monitoring and predictive models to assist managers in planning for a future influenced by threats and impacts described in the Dry System (e.g., rangeland) drivers of change.   The focus in this pilot project for the Dry System component is the invasive-fire interaction (cheatgrass) and land treatments to mitigate land degradation.  Funding for climate change research has been requested through a separate funding mechanism for this project.  BLM managers are full partners in this important landscape monitoring project. 

## Murphy Complex Wildfire: Livestock-Fuels Workgroup Report 

**Murphy Complex Wildfire: Livestock-Fuels Workgroup Report **

- http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2008/1214/

**Notes:**
USGS also assisted BLM in evaluating the impacts that livestock grazing had on the rate of spread and extend of the 2007 Murphy Complex wildfire, which was the largest wildfire in the US last year at 650,000 acres burned.  A USGS open file report has been released detailing the wildfire background findings and recommendations of the interagency team that developed the report.  USGS scientists provided important contributions to this report that has implications across the Great Basin as managers look for tools to reduce the threat and impacts of wildfires.

Before I leave the assistance that USGS provides BLM on major projects like the three previously described, I also want to recognize the technical assistance that USGS provides to BLM by providing instructors for the BLM’s training on “Restoration of Sagebrush Ecosystems”, the development of a monitoring protocol and database for BLM’s Emergency Stabilization and Rehabilitation Program, and the numerous instances that USGS provides technical assistance to BLM managers and resource specialists.

## Great Basin: Challenges for the Future

- Invasives and climate change interactions
- Better regional climate change predictions
- Population expansion effects on water, wildfires, and invasive species
- Potential for Carbon sequestration on rangelands

**Notes:**
As can be seen from the previous examples, USGS is addressing management issues in the Great Basin for BLM and other land managers.  However, there are still many issues and problems that require more study in order to meet management needs.  A few examples includes:  (see bullets in slide).  

## “Healthy Great Basin landscapes and sustainable resources that meet the needs of the public that use and enjoy these lands”

- “Healthy Great Basin landscapes and sustainable resources that meet the needs of the public that use and enjoy these lands”

**Notes:**
I will close with this photo of a healthy Great Basin landscape and the BLM vision, as expressed in the Great Basin Restoration Initiative vision statement,  to show BLM’s commitment to managing for or restoring these fragile landscapes.  Our partnership with USGS is an important cornerstone in this effort to apply science-based strategies to accomplish our management objectives.