Land Use and Wildfire Effects on Landscape Patterns and Avian Diversity: A Comparison of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and the Pacific Northwest

Principal Investigators:

Andrew Hansen, Assistant Professor of Biology, Montana State University

Warren Cohen, Research Forester, Forestry Sciences Laboratory, Corvallis, OR

Jay Rotella, Assistant Professor of Biology, Montana State University

Cooperators:

Roland Redmond, Research Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences, University of Montana

Robin Patten, Research Associate in Biology, Montana State University

David Wallin, Research Associate in Forest Science, Oregon State University

A key challenge to ecosystem management is understanding the effects of natural disturbance and land use practices on landscape patterns and biodiversity at regional and larger scales. Traditional ground-based inventories of these patterns are insufficient, and satellite data may offer the only practical tool for characterizing regional landscape patterns. We are using LANDSAT-TM data to quantify landscape and bird habitat patterns in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) and to compare land-use effects there with those in the Pacific Northwest (PNW). In both study areas, timber harvest has extensively altered landscape patterns with unknown effects on vertebrate diversity. The GYE also experienced broad- scale wildlfires in 1988, allowing comparison of the effects of natural disturbance and timber harvest on landscape and biodiversity patterns. Our objectives are to: map vegetation (seral stage, dominant species, canopy cover) across the Yellowstone Study Area using satellite data; use these maps to quantify the effects of logging, wildfire, and edaphic controls on landscape pattern; compare land use and landscape dynamics between the GYE and the PNW; and project the effects of these landscape changes on bird habitat diversity.

This work is evaluating a new paradigm in resource management that uses the natural range of variability in disturbance and landscape pattern as a basis for ecosystem management. The underlying assumption is that organisms and ecological processes are adapted to presettlement landscapes, and that they will be sustained if such patterns are maintained today. The paradigm is yet to be rigorously tested, however, and important questions remain about both conceptual and logistical aspects of the approach. The GYE is uniquely suited to this work because the extensive wildfires of 1988 imposed patterns in Yellowstone National Park that are probably analogous to those of presettlement times. Landscapes in the national forests west of the park, in contrast, have been driven primarily by clearcut logging. This confers an excellent opportunity to study the processes and constraints that drive spatial patterning of natural and human landscapes and to use this knowledge to develop guidelines for ecosystem management.

Contact Information

Mail:	Andrew Hansen, Assistant Professor
	Department of Biology
	Montana State University
	Bozeman, MT 59717