Tillamook Bay is the second largest estuary on the Oregon coast, and concerns have been raised whether human induced impacts have been responsible for the perceived increase in sedimentation rates during the past century. Major land-use practices within the five watersheds of the Bay include logging, forest fires, the construction...
Anthropogenic land-cover change and climate change are the major drivers of the steep loss of avian biodiversity in past decades. Loss of avian biodiversity is predicted to result in the reduction of ecosystem services and ecological functions. Identifying avian population changes and the drivers of these trajectories is essential for...
There is a perceived trade-off between fire risk reduction and northern spotted owl habitat protection in dry-conifer forests in southwestern Oregon. Management options for balancing this trade-off need to be sought at the landscape level. Applied landscape ecology suggests three important features to consider are (1) patch size and configuration...
Private forest owners face an increasing risk of economic damage from extreme wildfires as the climate becomes warmer and drier. This thesis empirically estimates the influence of climate on private forest owners’ management decisions using plot-level data in the Pacific states of the U.S. Econometric models are specified where the...
The 2002 Biscuit Fire burned through more than 200,000 ha of mixed conifer/
evergreen hardwood forests in southwestern Oregon and northwestern
California. The remarkable size of the fire and the diversity of conditions through
which it burned provided an opportunity to analyze the correlates of burn severity
across vegetation types...
This thesis explores the complexity of relationships between communities and the ecosystems in which they live through a focus on forest restoration and fuels reduction on private land. As a case study, research took place in the Klamath-Siskiyou region of rural Northern California, in Humboldt and Siskiyou counties. The research...
Landscape characteristics can strongly influence demographic and genetic processes in wildlife populations. Climate change and human land use are causing many landscapes to change rapidly, and the effects on wildlife populations must be understood to properly manage these threats and design effective conservation strategies. In this dissertation, I explored the...
Following high-severity fire, forest succession may take alternate pathways depending on the pattern of the fire and any secondary disturbances during early stand development, with lasting consequences for ecosystem function. The objectives of this research were to quantify: (1) early postfire regeneration as influenced by the spatial pattern of a...