Subject: ECOLOG-L Digest - 14 Jun 2002 to 15 Jun 2002 (#2002-154)
There are 3 messages totalling 265 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. Before and after ecological snapshots
2. Butterfly housing
3. Size and intensity of current fires
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 15 Jun 2002 02:11:26 +0000
From: Paul Cherubini <monarch@SABER.NET>
Subject: Re: Before and after ecological snapshots
Pat Foley wrote:
> Heavy logging has multitudinous effects on the landscape,
> among them: 1) increased erosion (due to roads and cover loss)
> and the long term loss of nutrients that are often slow to return
and Robert Froese commented:
> Only a small proportion of nutrients are removed with bolewood;
> where foliage and branches are left to decompose there may be
> little if any net effect on nutrient capital (Keenan and Kimmins
> 1993; Kimmins 1977).
Far more substantial disturbances than crown fires have occurred
in localized areas of our western USA high altitude forests yet
the forests recovered. Consider the 1915 volcanic eruption of
Mount Lassen in northern California.
http://membersites.nwbombers.com/dalkena/lassen4.jpg
According to the following Palomar College website
http://waynesword.palomar.edu/lmexe10d.htm#retro1
"Hot gasses, molten lava and ash melted the snow-covered
summit and an enormous mud slide came down the steep
slopes, wiping out the forest in its path. The trees (including
lodgepole pine) have reseeded the barren slopes and the
forest is slowly growing back."
Here is a paired photograph (1926 vs. 1984) of the recovery showing
the conifers are growing back on bare, siliceous ash soil
that lacks nutrients and without preparation by herbaceous plants.
http://membersites.nwbombers.com/dalkena/lassen.jpg
Paul Cherubini
Placerville, Calif.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 15 Jun 2002 12:12:16 -0400
From: Shrinidhi <ssa2645@GARNET.ACNS.FSU.EDU>
Subject: Butterfly housing
Hi all,
Can anybody give me information on butterfly house designs, butterfly
gardens and housing.
Thank you
Shrinidhi
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 15 Jun 2002 18:47:37 EDT
From: WirtAtmar@AOL.COM
Subject: Re: Size and intensity of current fires
Paul Cherubini asks:
> Can you offer us any forest service data supporting your
> contention that the fires in these mountain forests have been
> growing in size and intensity during the past 5 or 10 years
> as compared to previous decades? If so, has the magnitude of the
> increases been small, moderate or large?
The fires of the recent years in Yellowstone, simply to be choose an area
that has been well studied, are consistently reported to be the largest and
most intense since the 1700's and are occasionally said to be the largest
fires of the last 2000 years. However they are expected to grow even larger,
given the global increases in temperature and drought conditions that are
expected.
Although I am reluctant to quote Greenpeace simply because they assume an
alarmist attitude and have an agenda underlying their notes, they say very
much the same thing at:
http://www.greenpeace.org/~climate/arctic99/reports/forests.html
=======================================
Boreal forests require disturbances such as fires and insect outbreaks for
natural reproduction and rejuvenation. However, climate change is likely to
dramatically accelerate the intensity and frequency of fires and insect
outbreaks, resulting in catastrophic disruption, loss of biodiversity and th
release of more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Fire contributes to the overall health and distribution of boreal forests by
removing weakened trees and sparking seed release during reproduction. Fire,
however, is more common during warm, dry weather, and as climate alters
forest environments, the frequency of fire may increase, as well. This threa
has already become a reality in North America. Canadian forest fires have
been increasing in area burned, with the three highest recorded years this
century being 1989, 1995, and 1994. Fire frequency has increased since 1975
in Alaska, as well. In the next century, Canadian researchers predict a 40 t
50 percent increase in area burned in Canada annually, under a doubling of
carbon dioxide. There are similar projections for boreal forests in Russia
over the next 50 years.
======================================
...as does the EPA, in:
http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/impacts/mountains/cs_wmtn1.html
======================================
The glaciers in Glacier National Park are shrinking. Today, the park's
largest glaciers are only about a third of the size they were in 1850, and
many small mountain glaciers have disappeared completely during the past 150
years. The area of the park covered by glaciers declined by 73 percent from
1850-1993. The cause? A regional warming trend that some scientists believe
may be related to global climate change. Since 1900, Glacier National Park's
average summer temperatures have increased by about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit.
Park visitors can experience the scale of glacial retreat by hiking the trai
to Upper Grinnell Lake, where a series of signs mark the former end points o
Grinnell Glacier. The glacier once covered 576 acres on the eastern slope of
the Continental Divide. To reach its terminus today, one must climb steadily
upward through an area that was covered with ice in the 1850s. Still farther
uphill is the sign marking the terminus in the 1930s, still higher the 1960s
and finally the 1980s. Today the remnants of Grinnell Glacier -- one of more
than 50 mountain glaciers in the park -- are reached just below the summit o
Mt. Gould. The glacier has shrunk by more than 62 percent since 1850 and now
covers barely 200 acres.
"It's increasingly hard to understand why it's called Glacier National Park,
because the glaciers are getting hard to find."
- Bruce Babbitt, Secretary of the Interior
October 7, 1998
If scientists' predictions are accurate, Grinnell and all of the park's othe
glaciers will disappear entirely within the next 30 years. Melting glaciers
are only part of the story. Experts believe that climate change will have
wide-ranging impacts on fish, wildlife, trees, and plants throughout the
western mountains and plains....
Another hazard -- forest fire -- may occur more frequently in Yellowstone
National Park if the climate becomes drier. Fire frequency depends on local
weather, sources of fuel and ignition, and the effectiveness of fire
suppression.
========================================
...to which Pierce, Despain and Jachowski add:
http://firescience.cr.usgs.gov/html/Pierce2_abs.html
========================================
The severity of fire episodes relates to the Holocene history of climate and
fires. Large, stand-replacing fires are most likely during intervals of
severe drought. Climatic instability, such as the ongoing global warming, i
likely to be accompanied by greater climatic variation, including intervals
of severe drought. From the study of cores of lake sediments, both (1)
climatic history, in particular, intervals of severe drought may be
determined by study of pollen and other materials, and (2) fire history can
be determined from the distribution of fine charcoal. For example, a
cooperative study by the USGS and a NSF-funded University group headed by
Cathy Whitlock (Univ. Oregon) is planned for cores from Crevice Lake in
northern Yellowstone National Park. This core is varved with annual layers
similar to tree rings providing a detailed history of drought, fire, and
other environmental parameters. For the Crevice Lake study, scientists from
the Mountain Research Center at Montana State University plan collaborative
work on climate and fire history based on study of tree rings and fire scars
on trees. Thus, for the last one-thousand years or so, we can correlate and
compare histories based on tree-ring and varved-core studies of climate,
particularly drought, vegetation, fire, and other environmental factors and
reach a more fundamental understanding of the factors leading to severe fire
.
Meyer and others (1995, GSA Bulletin, p. 1211-1230) show a strong relation
between forest fires and debris flows onto alluvial fans in Northeastern
Yellowstone Park. They find a 300-450 yr cycle of fire-related sedimentatio
that may also reflect the recurrence interval for extreme drought in
northeastern Yellowstone. They also find a 1300 yr cycle where fire-related
sedimentation builds out alluvial fans into axial valleys alternating with
intervals of lesser fire related sedimentation when axial streams widen thei
valley floors and trim back alluvial fans.
=======================================
Nonetheless, the document to read carefully is Swetnam's "Fire and Climate
History in the Western Americas from Tree Rings" at:
http://www.ltrr.arizona.edu/~tswetnam/graphics/PAGES/PAGES3.pdf
...and the figure to pay particular attention to is his Fig 3B. In this
diagram, Swetnam argues that large fires are synchronized throughout the
Western Hemisphere to the ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) and the PDO
(Pacific Decadal Oscillation). Fire sizes are well synchronized to the Palme
Drought Severity Index, which is correlated to the ENSO and PDO.
As with any idea that has a moderate plausibility index, someone is likely t
have thought of it before. In the case of my original comments, that
certainly seems to be the case. My comments don't seem to be wrong. If
anything, they were naive. Spending just a little bit of time on web turned
up a great deal of material quickly. Perhaps of greatest interest to me are
those pages that present data suggesting that following the retreat of the
last Pleistocene glaciation (the beginning of the Holocene), fires were
widespread 9,900 to 10,000 years ago, with accompanying a shift in biome
composition:
http://www.nps.gov/yell/publications/pdfs/fire/htmls/chapter1a.htm
=======================================
An analysis of the charcoal deposits in several Yellowstone lakes led Cathy
Whitlock of the University of Oregon and doctoral student Sarah Millspaugh t
conclude that fire frequency has been closely correlated to the intensity of
summer drought for at least the last 17,000 years. [7] Long-term fluctuation
in the solar radiation that reaches Earth during the summer have caused
gradual climate shifts by altering atmospheric circulation. Based on a
sediment core from Cygnet Lake on Yellowstone's central plateau, Whitlock an
Millspaugh determined that fires occurred most frequently (15 per 1,000
years) in the early Holocene period, about 9,900 years ago, when summer
insolation was peaking, and warmer, drier conditions were present throughout
what is now the northwestern U.S. After that, decreased summer insolation
brought cooler, wetter conditions, and fire frequency declined to no more
than 2 or 3 fires per 1,000 years on the central plateau.
======================================
Skinner and Chang report much the same for the Sierra Nevada and recapitulat
my obviously non-original thought, "Fire may serve as a catalyst for the
reorganization of vegetation during periods of rapid climate change ":
http://ceres.ca.gov/snep/pubs/web/PDF/VII_C38.PDF
=======================================
Paleoecological studies show that Sierra Nevada fire regimes are dynamic in
space and time on many scales. The long-term importance of fire in Sierran
ecosystems is suggested by the common occurrence of charcoal in the
paleoecological record of the Holocene (e.g., Smith and Anderson 1992; Davis
and Moratto 1988). Analyses of fossil pollen suggest that climate and
vegetation have varied considerably over this period (Woolfenden 1996).
Vegetation and fire appear to have varied, sometimes greatly, in concert wit
the variation in climates (Davis et al. 1985). Fire may serve as a catalyst
for the reorganization of vegetation during periods of rapid climate
change (e.g., Whitlock 1992; Wigand et al. 1995). It is noteworthy that larg
charcoal peaks from the early Holocene were followed by vegetation that was
considerably different from that found before this period of heightened fire
activity (Edlund and Byrne 1990). However, the resolution of temporal data
available for the Sierra Nevada is insufficient to define the role of fire i
reorganizing vegetation at various times
in the past.
=======================================
Subject: ECOLOG-L Digest - 12 Jun 2002 to 13 Jun 2002 (#2002-152)
There are 23 messages totalling 1327 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. question about parabolic microphones
2. Size and intensity of current fires (12)
3. Job: climate modelling, Germany
4. Job -- Field Station Assoc. Director
5. fires and thinning (2)
6. Logging in National Forests: Sierra Club vs. ESA?
7. Can logging mimic fires? (2)
8. Prairie Bird Field Assistant Position
9. please post this job on your listserv
10. Postdoc, Technician, PhD Assistantships in Stream Ecology
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 19:10:05 -0700
From: Herm Heshe <taochouns@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Re: question about parabolic microphones
I've nver replied to this list, just an observer, but
I had to at least put my 2 cents into this discussion.
I'm not going to gurantee this response as anything
more than an opinion based on a decent knowledge of
wave physics thansk to an undergrad education in
electrical engineering but a parabolic reflector
doesn't work merely because it is a curved, it works
because it is a PARABOLA and sound is a wave
phenomenon. A proper parabola wil l direct the wave
front to a focus and in-phase. anything deviating from
a parabolic arc will not accomplish this thereby not
focusing and amplifying the sound power. In fact, not
any parabola will do. The curvature depends on the
frequency of sound one wishes to amplify. a "wok
cover" being mostly a hemisphere would not do much to
focus the sound waves but would most likely result in
major phase cancellation.
--- Oliver Kilian <ollie@ACCESSV.COM> wrote:
> Hi:
>
> Been a while since I contributed a post to the list,
> but this particular
> topic is one I've mulled over myself, especially
> after having used
> such a mic in the outdoors myself.
>
> I don't know how much a proper parabolic mic would
> cost, but
> I've often thought that one could fashion a
> home-made version
> using something like the lid from a wok. Spend your
> money on
> a good mic, improvise the parabolic dish yourself.
> Better yet, get
> two of the same mics and two dishes (for true
> stereo). Omni-directional mics
> would be best, but chat with someone in a music
> store. (heck,
> they may even one of these things for rent)
>
> Always more ideas where this came from,
>
> Oliver K. Reichl, B.E.S.(Hons.)
> Consulting Arborist
> 7 Oaks Urban Forestry Consultants, Inc.
> Home page:
> http://members.tripod.com/~Oliver_Kilian/index.htm
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Bill Freeman" <bill_freeman@OFFICEONWEB.NET>
> To: <ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU>
> Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2002 8:51 PM
> Subject: question about parabolic microphones
>
>
> > I was wondering if there is anyone out there that
> has had success with
> > the use of a hand-held parabolic microphone?
> > I would like to hook into a Memorex cassette
> recorder for the purpose
> > of recording breeding bird songs in a riparian
> woodland in Douglas=20
> > County, Colorado. There is a fair amount of
> background noise in this =
> > locale so=20
> > I need to intensify the song with this device.
> The tape recorder has an
> > external microphone port. I have a limited
> budget. I'd like to spend=20
> > about 100 - 150 dollars but that obviously might
> minimize the sound =
> > collecting=20
> > ability of the instrument. Welcome any
> suggestions.
> >
> > Bill Freeman, ecologist
> >
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 22:01:26 EDT
From: WirtAtmar@AOL.COM
Subject: Size and intensity of current fires
This note should be taken to be more along the lines of idle speculation tha
anything scientific, but I've been watching the size and intensity of the
fires in the Rocky Mountains of the American southwest for the last several
years and I've been impressed by their growing sizes and intensities.
There's an excellent NASA image of Colorado that was taken just a few days
ago at:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/Archive/Jun2002/ColoradoUW.T
O
2002161_lrg.jpg
...imaged by the Terra satellite. Not only can you get a sense of the size o
the giant Hayward fire near Denver, but also the smaller fires near Durango
and just south of the Colorado border in New Mexico.
What impresses me about these fires is that they may be a mechanism of movin
biomes northward many times faster than you might expect simply due to the
climate shifts resulting from global warming. While fire has obviously alway
been a natural part of the cycle of these forests, and the sizes of these
fires have been conflated by the artificial fire suppression methods of the
last half century or so, leaving an enormously greater fuel load than would
be ordinarily expected, if the forests continue to become increasingly xeric
due to changing weather patterns, a hundred years' worth of fires of the
current intensities, when coupled with increasing temperatures, would seem t
offer the possibility of clearing at least the southern mountains of their
current boreal and alpine forests.
You can get some sense of the magnitude of the change available moisture
makes in the images taken 11 years apart for Mt. Kilimanjaro:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=4728
Rather than a slow ecological succession of one set of species of trees and
shrubs displacing the current residents on the mountains of the Rocky
Mountains over a period of a thousand years, it seems possible that we may b
on the edge of an ecological cusp. Fires of the current sizes would seem to
offer the possibility of permanently "flipping" the biomes of the mountains
in only 50 to 100 years, if every year were just a little warmer and a littl
drier than the preceeding one.
Wirt Atmar
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 22:55:28 +0000
From: Paul Cherubini <monarch@SABER.NET>
Subject: Re: Size and intensity of current fires
WirtAtmar@AOL.COM wrote:
> While fire has obviously always
> been a natural part of the cycle of these forests, and the sizes of the
e
> fires have been conflated by the artificial fire suppression methods of
the
> last half century or so, leaving an enormously greater fuel load than w
uld
> be ordinarily expected
Well then it seem reasonable that if we allowed more thinning of these
forests by logging companies it would help diminish this
"enormously greater fuel load." Some prestigious ecologists,* however,
have been calling for a ban on commercial logging in our national forests:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2002/2002L-04-16-02.html
"During the past several decades," the scientists wrote, "our
national forests have suffered from intense commercial logging.
Today almost all of our old growth forests are gone and the timber
industry has turned our national forests into a patchwork of
clearcuts, logging roads, and devastated habitat."
* Dr. Edward O. Wilson
* Dr. Anne Ehrlich
* Dr. Peter Raven
Paul Cherubini
Placerville, Calif.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 08:56:02 -0500
From: PETE JACKSON <PJACKSON@DNRMAIL.STATE.IL.US>
Subject: Re: Size and intensity of current fires
What folly to suggest that thinning by logging companies, and all the degrad
tion that it would entail, could be equated with a natural cycle of fire.
>>> Paul Cherubini <monarch@SABER.NET> 06/12/02 05:55PM >>
>
WirtAtmar@AOL.COM wrote:
> While fire has obviously always
> been a natural part of the cycle of these forests, and the sizes of the
e
> fires have been conflated by the artificial fire suppression methods of
the
> last half century or so, leaving an enormously greater fuel load than w
uld
> be ordinarily expected
Well then it seem reasonable that if we allowed more thinning of these
forests by logging companies it would help diminish this
"enormously greater fuel load." Some prestigious ecologists,* however,
have been calling for a ban on commercial logging in our national forests:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2002/2002L-04-16-02.html
"During the past several decades," the scientists wrote, "our
national forests have suffered from intense commercial logging.
Today almost all of our old growth forests are gone and the timber
industry has turned our national forests into a patchwork of
clearcuts, logging roads, and devastated habitat."
* Dr. Edward O. Wilson
* Dr. Anne Ehrlich
* Dr. Peter Raven
Paul Cherubini
Placerville, Calif.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 07:11:11 -0700
From: Herm Heshe <taochouns@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Re: Size and intensity of current fires
Will this apologist for the commercial
logging,"wise-use" movement please cease and desist
his proselytizing in this group.
It seems obvious that commercial loggers would take
the more robust and healthy trees since wizened,dying
trees would make poor quality lumber. Therefore I
don't see how thinning would reduce the fuel load; the
dead and rotting timbers that exist on the forest
floor due to death of old trees and downed branches
except the minimal need to remove some of it to ease
road construction.
The fact that this enhanced fuel load exists is not
due to insufficinet logging but to the attempt by Man
to control natural process in order to protect
man-made structures, that is, past fire control.
Perhaps we should stop building infrastructure that
needs protecting near potential fire areas instead.
The same goes for building in flood plains and on
barrier islands. Hurricanes, floods and fire do
little "economic" damage except to homes, hotels and
other human dwellings. If the only population that
was at risk were the trees and animals themselves the
gov't., nightly news and insurance companies wouldn't
care what happened.
--- Paul Cherubini <monarch@SABER.NET> wrote:
> WirtAtmar@AOL.COM wrote:
>
> > While fire has obviously always
> > been a natural part of the cycle of these forests,
> and the sizes of these
> > fires have been conflated by the artificial fire
> suppression methods of the
> > last half century or so, leaving an enormously
> greater fuel load than would
> > be ordinarily expected
>
> Well then it seem reasonable that if we allowed more
> thinning of these
> forests by logging companies it would help diminish
> this
> "enormously greater fuel load." Some prestigious
> ecologists,* however,
> have been calling for a ban on commercial logging in
> our national forests:
>
> http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2002/2002L-04-16-02.html
> "During the past several decades," the scientists
> wrote, "our
> national forests have suffered from intense
> commercial logging.
> Today almost all of our old growth forests are gone
> and the timber
> industry has turned our national forests into a
> patchwork of
> clearcuts, logging roads, and devastated habitat."
>
> * Dr. Edward O. Wilson
> * Dr. Anne Ehrlich
> * Dr. Peter Raven
>
> Paul Cherubini
> Placerville, Calif.
__________________________________________________
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Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 07:52:08 +0000
From: Paul Cherubini <monarch@SABER.NET>
Subject: Re: Size and intensity of current fires
PETE JACKSON wrote:
>
> What folly to suggest that thinning by logging companies,
> and all the degradation that it would entail, could be equated
> with a natural cycle of fire.
Yes, but apparently thinning by logging companies was one
reason why catastrophic crown fires in the western USA
were less prevalent 40 years ago.
http://www.naiaonline.org/body/articles/archives/forest_burn.htm
"In the 1930s, the government promoted road-building
in the forests to provide jobs, and the roads served the
lumber industry in the post-World War II building boom.
Logging helped reduce the fuel load, and logging roads
made it easier for firefighters to reach any burns that
occurred. By the late 1950s, annual loss to forest fires
was less than five million acres. The recent increase
in lost acreage is accredited to a reversal of the government
road-building and road repair projects, changes directly
attributed to the anti-logging campaigns of environmental
and animal rights organizations.
Besieged by environmental and animal rights organizations,
many politicians "vote green" to rack up points with the
voters. As a result, Congress often leans towards regulatory
programs that appease these groups. In addition, the
current administration favors the arguments of activists
over the application of science when man and the
environment clash. As a result, campaigns to protect the
spotted owl and old growth forest, halt roadbuilding, and
abandon existing roads have dramatically reduced logging
on public lands and left a legacy of dry, dead brush and
trees to burn."
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 09:13:03 -0600
From: David Inouye <di5@umail.umd.edu>
Subject: Job: climate modelling, Germany
Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Faculty 4, invites applications
within the
research project ^ÓSocial learning and sustainability^Ô (GELENA) for the
following fulltime position for a period of 5 years. The GELENA project is
funded by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) and
investigates participatory learning processes towards sustainability.
Scientific Researcher in Climate Modelling
Payment based on BAT IIa
(gross salary approx. between ^À 3.000,--/ ^À 3.400,--)
Research tasks: Evaluation and development of climate modelling tools for
social science applications and participatory procedures, contributions to
integrated assessment modelling approaches.
Required skills: Ph.D. in natural science, profound knowledge of climate
modelling and climate research, interest and courage to work in an
interdisciplinary research team. Experiences in integrated assessment are
an asset. Successful candidates are encouraged to acquire fluency in German.
Position will start (preferably) 1 August 2002. Carl von Ossietzky
University is an equal opportunity employer and particularly encourages
women to apply. Seriously
handicapped applicants with the same level of qualification will be
favoured. Additional information about the project can be found at:
http://www.sciosnet.de/webpage/oeoe/gelena.
Please send applications by 10 July 2002 to Bernd Siebenhüner, Carl von
Ossietzky Unviersität Oldenburg, FB 4, 26111 Oldenburg, Germany.
Contact: bernd.siebenhuener@uni-oldenburg.de
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 10:03:27 -0700
From: Diana Pilson <dpilson1@UNL.EDU>
Subject: Job -- Field Station Assoc. Director
CEDAR POINT BIOLOGICAL STATION ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Coordinate and supervise all activities for the Cedar Point Biological
Station. Manage the summer teaching program, facility maintenance,
research projects, a large natural area, and supervise personnel. Master's
in a biological field science required. PhD preferred. Ability to
supervise operational activities and coordinate research/teaching programs
required. Excellent interpersonal skills essential. Microcomputer
experience preferred. Position resides at Cedar Point Biological Station
near Ogallala, NE during the summer season and in Lincoln the remainder of
the year. Review of resumes will begin July 8. Position will remain open
until a suitable candidate is found. Excellent benefits including
staff/dependent tuition remission. Submit cover letter, resume, curriculum
vitae and the names of three references to Search Committee Chair, School
of Biological Sciences, 348 Manter Hall, University of Nebraska, Lincoln,
NE 68588-0118. UNL is committed to AA/EEO and ADA/504. If you require an
accommodation, please call (402) 472-1107.
****************************
Diana Pilson
School of Biological Sciences
348 Manter Hall
University of Nebraska
Lincoln NE 68588-0118
phone: 402-472-2347
fax: 402-472-2083
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 10:39:35 -0400
From: Erik Nordman <eriknordman@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: fires and thinning
I would think a thinning operation would remove standing timber, but leave
behind a lot of residue, such as dead trees, branches and limbs on the
ground. My guess is this would add to the already high fuel load, at least
in the short term, and increase the intensity of fires.
Do current logging practices call for the removal of these residues?
-Erik Nordman
_________________________________________________________________
Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 11:58:00 -0400
From: Nicholas Stow <nstow5767@ROGERS.COM>
Subject: Logging in National Forests: Sierra Club vs. ESA?
The question of what role, if any, logging should play in the management of
National Parks is difficult to answer. Even the letter from the Sierra Club
leaves some "wiggle room." While the letter refers generally to the impacts
of logging, it only calls for an end to "commercial logging." This appears
to leave the door open for non-commercial logging in support of
"...scientifically based restoration and recovery." Does anyone else read
it that way?
The E.S.A. paper, "Applying Ecological Principles to Management of the U.S.
National Forests" (Aber J. et al. 2000. Issues in Ecology 6) explicitly
recognizes the need for limited logging under certain circumstances: (1) to
provide "habitat for early successional species" (e.g. Florida Scrub Jay);
(2) "fuel control"; (3) "restoration ecology and forest health." Yes, fire
would also accomplish these goals, but as the authors recognize, fire is
not a politically and economically acceptable option.
I noted that none of the authors of the ESA paper signed the Sierra Club
letter. Nor did any of the authors of the 1996 paper, "The Report of the
Ecological Society of America on the Scientific Basis for Ecosystem
Management" (Christensen N.L. et al. 1996. Ecological Applications 6).
Why, I wonder? Are they simply "apologists" for commercial logging, as Herm
suggests? If so, their apologetics are remarkably well-researched and
well-reasoned. In fact, I've yet to find any other document that matches
them for applying objective, scientific reasoning to the problems of
ecosystem management (though I'd love to hear from people who disagree).
There are some impressive names on the Sierra Club letter and some
impressive names missing. If any of the authors of the 1996 and 2000 ESA
papers are on the Ecolog list, perhaps they would tell us why they didn't
sign
the Sierra Club letter. Were they not contacted? Did they disagree with
it?
Nick Stow
PhD Candidate
Plant Ecology
University of Ottawa
-----Original Message-----
From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news
[mailto:ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU]On Behalf Of Herm Heshe
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 10:11 AM
To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU
Subject: Re: Size and intensity of current fires
Will this apologist for the commercial
logging,"wise-use" movement please cease and desist
his proselytizing in this group.
It seems obvious that commercial loggers would take
the more robust and healthy trees since wizened,dying
trees would make poor quality lumber. Therefore I
don't see how thinning would reduce the fuel load; the
dead and rotting timbers that exist on the forest
floor due to death of old trees and downed branches
except the minimal need to remove some of it to ease
road construction.
The fact that this enhanced fuel load exists is not
due to insufficinet logging but to the attempt by Man
to control natural process in order to protect
man-made structures, that is, past fire control.
Perhaps we should stop building infrastructure that
needs protecting near potential fire areas instead.
The same goes for building in flood plains and on
barrier islands. Hurricanes, floods and fire do
little "economic" damage except to homes, hotels and
other human dwellings. If the only population that
was at risk were the trees and animals themselves the
gov't., nightly news and insurance companies wouldn't
care what happened.
--- Paul Cherubini <monarch@SABER.NET> wrote:
> WirtAtmar@AOL.COM wrote:
-----------------------------------
Nicholas Stow
158B Henderson Avenue
Ottawa, Ontario
K1N 7P6
(613) 236-5767
"If I can persuade any man to idle away a day on a stream or a lake when he
should be doing something much more important, I am satisfied I have done
him and the world a service. At any given moment in the world's history,
there has always been an excess of people busy doing important things, and
there always will be." -- Roderick Haig-Brown, "A Primer of Fly-Fishing".
"All the evil in this world is brought about by persons who are always up
and doing, but do not know when they ought to be up nor what they ought to
be doing. The devil, I take it, is still the busiest creature in the
universe, and I can quite imagine him denouncing laziness and becoming angry
at the smallest waste of time. In his kingdom, I will wager, nobody is
allowed to do nothing, not even for a single afternoon. The world, we all
freely admit, is in a muddle, but I for one do not think that it is laziness
that has brought it to such a pass. It is not the active virtues that it
lacks but the passive ones; it is capable of anything but kindness and a
little steady thought." -- J.B. Priestly, "On Doing Nothing".
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 11:10:29 -0500
From: Dave McNeely <dlmcneely@LUNET.EDU>
Subject: Re: Size and intensity of current fires
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Cherubini" <monarch@SABER.NET>
To: <ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 2:52 AM
Subject: Re: Size and intensity of current fires
Paul wrote:
> Besieged by environmental and animal rights organizations,
> many politicians "vote green" to rack up points with the
> voters. As a result, Congress often leans towards regulatory
> programs that appease these groups. In addition, the
> current administration favors the arguments of activists
> over the application of science when man and the
> environment clash.
Others have said that, "Pressured by logging and mining companies, who make
large campaign contributions, many politicians favor actions promoted by
those interests. As a result, Congress often leans away from making
regulatory policies that affend the companies. In addition, the current
administration favors the arguments of commercial interests over the
application of science when exploitation and degradation are to the benefit
of the companies."
Why don't we stick to science on this forum, and quit promoting the
interests of anyone over science?
Dave McNeely
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 11:41:44 -0500
From: "D. Liane Cochran-Stafira" <cochran@SXU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Size and intensity of current fires
If I might, I'd like to change the discussion focus more towards what I
think the original post was trying to say.
Current ecological theory leans strongly towards a non-equilibrium view of
communities and we recognize the importance of disturbance in structuring
communities (heck, let's throw in Gould's "punctuated equilibrium view of
evolution as well just for kicks). It would seem that Wirt's observations
regarding the potential for fire and climate change to produce rapid
changes in communities lend support to this hypothesis.
One comment. Lately there seem to have been an unusually large number of
these "it is, no it isn't" arguments on the list. While I love to see good
discussions based on data that support differing points of view, I don't
see this as the proper forum for strictly political arguments. There are
other places for that. If we are going to discuss the pros and cons of
environmental policies please don't just give your opinion. It's like
listening to the politicos ramble on and on when they really have nothing
to say. Back up your statements with some references or data or something.
I have nearly worn out my delete button simply to get rid of the clutter
in my in box. I might be missing some good points, but I'm not going to
waste time sorting through all the junk. Yeah, I do recall we also went
through a huge discussion on this topic as well.
BTW - To be consistent with my statement regarding backup material, just
about any modern ecology text can give reams of references for my statement
regarding the importance of disturbance for structuring communities
beginning with the experiments of Connell and Sousa.
My $.02 worth.
Liane
***************************
Liane Cochran-Stafira, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Biology
Saint Xavier University
3700 West 103rd Street
Chicago, Illinois 60655
phone: 773-298-3514
fax: 773-779-9061
email: cochran@sxu.edu
http://www.sxu.edu/science/faculty_staff/cochran_stafira/
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 08:32:21 -0700
From: Richard Kahn <richard@GETVEGAN.COM>
Subject: Re: Size and intensity of current fires
Hello,
I am not a scientist (at least not in the way that most scientists would
accept), but rather a Phd.c. at UCLA's Graduate School of Education and
Information Science looking into the ecological problems and challenges
of the present moment and thinking about them from a sociological
perspective. I appreciate this list for a number of reasons, but I find
it especially helpful when situations like the Colorado wildfires erupt.
I am happy to see that Paul Cherubini has waded in this morning b/c
while I am deeply insecure about his view, I myself (as I listened to
the NPR experts yesterday and the House Committee on Forest Services
session last night with the Forest Bureau's Chief on CSPAN) began
sensing that the experts here are speaking past one another and that
this is potentially confusing for the lay public who stands in need of
education on this matter. What do I mean?
Well, as P. Cherubini points out, the public has recently been receiving
much information (though in my opinion, not enough) that U.S. forests
stand on the threshold of a serious crisis and that the forests are in
need of immediate conservation -- Wilson, Ehrlich, etc.. But the Col.
fire has apparently opened up a debate space that talks about forest
over-growth instead. Cherubini has pointed out the line of attack that
appears to be the status-quo on the fire so fire -- that is: expert
after expert, and gov't official after gov't official, that I have
listened to in the past couple of days all appear to be singing a
similar tune...
--- There are more trees than ever before, all this new coniferous
growth resulting from the change from a century of urbanization,
industrialization and the end of widespread agrarian practices, and that
combined with 30 years of inappropriate fire management techniques, fuel
load for big fires has become dangerously high. ---
I understand Herm Heshe's retort that "big logging" is not an acceptable
solution to the fuel load problem b/c it does not result in the removal
of dead wood, and in fact creates more detritus through its many
interventions. -- My experience with loggers is that they do not cart
out a lot of the waste that they produce...
However, no one I've heard is even considering that this is a sprawling
suburbs issue and that a possible solution is to back off from further
encroachment toward/into the forests. Instead the talk is all about the
"sustained" and "managed" care of these new woods, etc., which I take to
be a euphemism for "clearing" them -- which I suspect the logging
industry does too.
All this to get to my questions, which I would really appreciate any
thoughts concerning, either on or off list, from anyone who has the time
(or inclination):
1) I have heard many conservationists weigh in on the "fire issue" by
pointing out that timber, save for the really weak and old or sapling,
isn't the fuel load for fires as they sweep through areas at all, but
besides the dead timber, the real load is brush and related growth. In
this sense, wouldn't all this talk about blaming the 100 years of
coniferous forest be misleading? Aren't most of these healthy trees
scarred by the flames, releasing moisture that actually helps to lessen
the fire, in many cases?
2) Should the public be concerned that the seriousness of the Colorado
fire has led to fire becoming a viable political issue, which means a
viable political solution...another way of saying that shouldn't the
public be concerned that the issue is being constructed in such a way as
to make nonsense out of all the "conservationist" talk about forests
that has recently made some headlines? In this sense, I read P.
Cherubini's comment, not as strictly wise-use polemical, but as putting
his finger on exactly the type of construction that the media and gov't
appear to be giving to this issue...is this the case? Why or why not?
If so, is there a way to combat this besides demanding an end to the
suburbs?
Much thanks to the list for the good discussion and info -- keep up the
good work. Yours,
Richard Kahn
On Thursday, June 13, 2002, at 07:11 AM, Herm Heshe wrote:
> Will this apologist for the commercial
> logging,"wise-use" movement please cease and desist
> his proselytizing in this group.
>
> It seems obvious that commercial loggers would take
> the more robust and healthy trees since wizened,dying
> trees would make poor quality lumber. Therefore I
> don't see how thinning would reduce the fuel load; the
> dead and rotting timbers that exist on the forest
> floor due to death of old trees and downed branches
> except the minimal need to remove some of it to ease
> road construction.
>
> The fact that this enhanced fuel load exists is not
> due to insufficinet logging but to the attempt by Man
> to control natural process in order to protect
> man-made structures, that is, past fire control.
> Perhaps we should stop building infrastructure that
> needs protecting near potential fire areas instead.
> The same goes for building in flood plains and on
> barrier islands. Hurricanes, floods and fire do
> little "economic" damage except to homes, hotels and
> other human dwellings. If the only population that
> was at risk were the trees and animals themselves the
> gov't., nightly news and insurance companies wouldn't
> care what happened.
>
>
> --- Paul Cherubini <monarch@SABER.NET> wrote:
>> WirtAtmar@AOL.COM wrote:
>>
>>> While fire has obviously always
>>> been a natural part of the cycle of these forests,
>> and the sizes of these
>>> fires have been conflated by the artificial fire
>> suppression methods of the
>>> last half century or so, leaving an enormously
>> greater fuel load than would
>>> be ordinarily expected
>>
>> Well then it seem reasonable that if we allowed more
>> thinning of these
>> forests by logging companies it would help diminish
>> this
>> "enormously greater fuel load." Some prestigious
>> ecologists,* however,
>> have been calling for a ban on commercial logging in
>> our national forests:
>>
>> http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2002/2002L-04-16-02.html
>> "During the past several decades," the scientists
>> wrote, "our
>> national forests have suffered from intense
>> commercial logging.
>> Today almost all of our old growth forests are gone
>> and the timber
>> industry has turned our national forests into a
>> patchwork of
>> clearcuts, logging roads, and devastated habitat."
>>
>> * Dr. Edward O. Wilson
>> * Dr. Anne Ehrlich
>> * Dr. Peter Raven
>>
>> Paul Cherubini
>> Placerville, Calif.
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
> http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 10:20:08 -0500
From: Brian Ritzel <ritzel@PRAIRIENET.ORG>
Subject: Re: Size and intensity of current fires
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news
> [mailto:ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU] On Behalf Of Paul Cherubini
> Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 2:52 AM
> To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU
> Subject: Re: Size and intensity of current fires
>
>
> PETE JACKSON wrote:
> >
> > What folly to suggest that thinning by logging companies,
> > and all the degradation that it would entail, could be
> equated with a
> > natural cycle of fire.
>
> Yes, but apparently thinning by logging companies was one
> reason why catastrophic crown fires in the western USA were
> less prevalent 40 years ago.
And if we clearcut and then salt the land, we won't have to ever worry
about fires again.
Brilliant.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 09:25:44 -0700
From: Patrick Foley <patfoley@CSUS.EDU>
Subject: Can logging mimic fires?
Dear Ecologgers (as it were),
I am not a logger, but I did work for one year on Northern Spotted Owl
population biology for the California Forestry Association, a timber
industry education and lobbying group in Sacramento. (Shortly after I
left, the Unibomber sent a letter bomb that killed the wrong person, the
new head of the CFA, a decent guy even if I disagreed with his politics.
Incidentally, the FBI, those hypercompetent folks, never interviewed me
about the Unibombings even though I worked at two of the places where
bombs were sent and I have the right profile -- 60's radical
environmentalist mathematician). In the course of the work I visited
several logging sites and met many logging company professionals. You
may be interested in two sociological insights I got from the job.
1) Logging company wildlife biologists and foresters (mostly with
masters degrees and little effective power over policy) seemed like good
fellows with some sympathy for the Northern Spotted Owl and for the
land. By comparison the lobbyists were mainly rabid conservatives with
little knowledge and insight. One lobbyist, just about to visit a
legislator, tried his routine on me one day. Look he said, at all the
land we haven't even sampled for Spotted Owls, and he waved his hand
over a map of Northern California. Somewhat dryly, I pointed out that he
was waving at the Trinity Alps, well above Spotted Owl habitat. He
rushed off to try his routine on somebody easier. The problem I saw is
that the lobbyists, political activisits and businessmen within the
logging community don't listen enough to their own professionals, and
perhaps intentionally, don't hire them at a level where they would have
the authority, independence and familiarity with the ongoing scientific
research to argue with the bean counters and lobbyists effectively. So
logging companies have the appearance of professionalism; but they are
hiring nurses not doctors and then they treat them like janitors. As is
obvious from the remarks of Paul Cherubini and other wise-use lobbyists,
a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
2) The big logging companies are in it for the long haul. They stole
their land fair and square during the astonishingly corrupt
railroad-land deals after the US Civil War, when we had a one-party rule
for decades. The railroad companies and power companies own lots of land
and trees that grow in value when environmental laws get stricter. They
don't care what the environmental rules are, although they enjoy the
political advantages of appearing on the side of the small logger. They
can make money with any rules, although they would like some consistency
so they can make long-term plans. It is the small company that owns
little land and depends on what amounts to federal subsidized logging on
public land that gets screwed by changes in the law. But it also these
small companies that are most likely to really trash the landscape and
fudge on the rules. And these are the companies that will often get
contracts to scavenge after fires.
But back to science.
Heavy logging has multitudinous effects on the landscape, among them: 1)
increased erosion (due to roads and cover loss) and the long term loss
of nutrients that are often slow to return, 2) the loss of habitat for
certain birds, lichens and other creatures that are typical of
old-growth forest, 3) the disruption of the old landscape-level
processes of succession and its replacement by new patterns that the
organisms are not adapted to and which the communities may not be
suitable to. Light fires that clear out the lower strata of vegetation
have very different effects than logging. It should be the business of
applied forestry science to find ways to mimic natural processes. And it
should be the business of logging companies hire professionals with PhD
level qualifications, give them as much independence as an accounting or
law firm, and to listen to them.
Someday, when logging companies meet their ethical and scientific
responsibilities more effectively, this whole debate over logging versus
conservation will seem stupid. At the moment, even the best logging
companies tend to clear out the genetically best trees and the the
diversity of habitats and replace them with monocultures of some fast
growing genotypes of even-aged stands. And without the constraint of
law, loggers cut too close to creeks and on land too steep for
sustainable logging. So we need laws, constraints and citizen activists.
We need wood and we need forests. We need less greed and stupidity. But
we will only get it if we insist on it as citizens and scientists.
Patrick Foley
patfoley@csus.edu
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 16:48:34 +0000
From: Chris Rosamond <kiwdafish@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Size and intensity of current fires
My experience with the salvage logging sales in my home town has been one
which partially reflects Herm's viewpoint; trees which are actually most
likely to spread fire are left in the forest, due to lack of profit margin,
and the commercially attractive "pumpkins" are harvested en masse. Even
large diameter (>30" dbh) trees are cut under the pretense that they are
"hazard trees", and the "hazard tree" designation is sometimes misused in
order to make sales attractive to logging companies.
I would submit that some logging will be essential if we are interested in
using wood products, but that the initial fire hazard associated with
thinning operations is in fact greater due to slash laying everywhere. USFS
documents tend to agree with that assessment. In the long run,
however,thinning may reduce fire hazard which has often developed due to the
lack of natural fire regime in western forests.
The real questions are 1)how to reduce consumer demand for wood,
2) how to reduce the initial increased fire hazard which comes from thinning
"dog hair" second growth forests which have been fire suppressed, and
3) how to bring forests back to some semblance of natural functioning while
avoiding catastrophic fires.
constructive, thoughtful comments appreciated, dogma discouraged.
cheers,
CR
>From: Herm Heshe <taochouns@YAHOO.COM>
>Reply-To: Herm Heshe <taochouns@YAHOO.COM>
>To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU
>Subject: Re: Size and intensity of current fires
>Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 07:11:11 -0700
>
>Will this apologist for the commercial
>logging,"wise-use" movement please cease and desist
>his proselytizing in this group.
>
>It seems obvious that commercial loggers would take
>the more robust and healthy trees since wizened,dying
>trees would make poor quality lumber. Therefore I
>don't see how thinning would reduce the fuel load; the
>dead and rotting timbers that exist on the forest
>floor due to death of old trees and downed branches
>except the minimal need to remove some of it to ease
>road construction.
>
>The fact that this enhanced fuel load exists is not
>due to insufficinet logging but to the attempt by Man
>to control natural process in order to protect
>man-made structures, that is, past fire control.
>Perhaps we should stop building infrastructure that
>needs protecting near potential fire areas instead.
>The same goes for building in flood plains and on
>barrier islands. Hurricanes, floods and fire do
>little "economic" damage except to homes, hotels and
>other human dwellings. If the only population that
>was at risk were the trees and animals themselves the
>gov't., nightly news and insurance companies wouldn't
>care what happened.
>
>
>--- Paul Cherubini <monarch@SABER.NET> wrote:
> > WirtAtmar@AOL.COM wrote:
> >
> > > While fire has obviously always
> > > been a natural part of the cycle of these forests,
> > and the sizes of these
> > > fires have been conflated by the artificial fire
> > suppression methods of the
> > > last half century or so, leaving an enormously
> > greater fuel load than would
> > > be ordinarily expected
> >
> > Well then it seem reasonable that if we allowed more
> > thinning of these
> > forests by logging companies it would help diminish
> > this
> > "enormously greater fuel load." Some prestigious
> > ecologists,* however,
> > have been calling for a ban on commercial logging in
> > our national forests:
> >
> > http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2002/2002L-04-16-02.html
> > "During the past several decades," the scientists
> > wrote, "our
> > national forests have suffered from intense
> > commercial logging.
> > Today almost all of our old growth forests are gone
> > and the timber
> > industry has turned our national forests into a
> > patchwork of
> > clearcuts, logging roads, and devastated habitat."
> >
> > * Dr. Edward O. Wilson
> > * Dr. Anne Ehrlich
> > * Dr. Peter Raven
> >
> > Paul Cherubini
> > Placerville, Calif.
>
>
>__________________________________________________
>Do You Yahoo!?
>Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
>http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com
Chris Rosamond,
UNR Biology Dept
(775)784-6793
Buildings and Bridges Are made to bend in the wind.
To withstand the world that's what it takes.
All that steel and stone, are no match for the air, my friend.
What doesn't Bend Breaks.
What doesn't Bend Breaks.
What doesn't Bend Breaks.
-Ani Difranco.
_________________________________________________________________
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------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 13:11:46 EDT
From: Aneyww@AOL.COM
Subject: Re: Size and intensity of current fires
In a message dated 13-06-2002 07:32:32 Pacific Daylight Time,
PJACKSON@DNRMAIL.STATE.IL.US writes:
<< What folly to suggest that thinning by logging companies, and all t
e
degradation that it would entail, could be equated with a natural cycle of
fire. >>
Somewhere I would like to see some justification for statements that logging
under current management controls is ecologically more devastating than
intense wildfires fed by unnaturally high accumulations of down and standing
fuel. I'm not advocating logging, just good forest management.
Warren W. Aney
Senior Wildlife Ecologist
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 13:36:04 -0400
From: eann@JUNO.COM
Subject: Re: fires and thinning
To the extent that economics determines logging practices, residues are
left unless there's a market for low grade wood. Coincidentally, there's
an interesting article by Michael Mauri and Rebecca Brown on low grade
markets in the northeast US in the latest issue of "Northern Woodlands"
magazine.
Ann
E. Ann Poole, MS, NH#WSA-5
Ecologist and Environmental Planner
Concord, NH
1997 - 2002 5 years of Service
"Helping Communities Meet the Challenges of Growth"
On Thu, 13 Jun 2002 10:39:35 -0400 Erik Nordman <eriknordman@HOTMAIL.COM>
writes:
> Do current logging practices call for the removal of these residues?
>
> -Erik Nordman
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger:
> http://messenger.msn.com
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 10:52:40 -0700
From: Robert Froese <robert.froese@TAGANOV.COM>
Subject: Re: Size and intensity of current fires
At 08:32 AM 6/13/2002 -0700, Richard Kahn wrote:
>isn't the fuel load for fires as they sweep through areas at all, but
>besides the dead timber, the real load is brush and related growth. In
>this sense, wouldn't all this talk about blaming the 100 years of
>coniferous forest be misleading?
See
http://www.ispe.arizona.edu/climas/fire/overview/figures/jrephoto.html
http://www.nifc.gov/joint_fire_sci/conferenceproc/P-09Hirschetal.pdf
as examples. There are others in other ecosystems; here in Idaho we have
Douglas-fir invading (or increasing) in what were previously open Ponderosa
pine forests, and we have grand fir almost everywhere. I'm afraid the
trees are the cause of the increased fire hazard and increased intensity
once a fire occurs.
Respectfully,
...Robert
--------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Froese, MF, RPF http://www.taganov.com/robert.html
The opinions presented in this e-mail are exclusively those of
Robert Froese and may not be attributed to any other person or
organization unless stated explicitly to that effect.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 11:20:06 -0700
From: Robert Froese <robert.froese@TAGANOV.COM>
Subject: Re: Can logging mimic fires?
At 09:25 AM 6/13/2002 -0700, Patrick Foley wrote:
>But back to science.
Good!
>Heavy logging has multitudinous effects on the landscape, among them: 1)
>increased erosion (due to roads and cover loss)
"Low" intensity logging requires roads, often at higher densities than
under "high" intensity logging. Most erosion is associated with road
construction, and the most catastrophic, mass wasting, can be mitigated by
performing slope stability assessments prior to logging (Keenan and Kimmins
1993). Such assessments are mandatory in many jurisdictions, including
British Columbia, where I come from. So, to conclude, "it depends".
>and the long term loss
>of nutrients that are often slow to return
Only a small proportion of nutrients are removed with bolewood; where
foliage and branches are left to decompose there may be little if any net
effect on nutrient capital (Keenan and Kimmins 1993; Kimmins 1977).
>2) the loss of habitat for
>certain birds, lichens and other creatures that are typical of
>old-growth forest
Yes. But how much old growth and how much early seral forest that should
be sustained on the landscape is a value statement, not a science statement.
>It should be the business of
>applied forestry science to find ways to mimic natural processes.
Why? This is a value statement, not science, per se. I'm quite fond of
some anthropogenic forest processes, for example.
>Someday, when logging companies meet their ethical
Now away from science and back to values?
>and scientific responsibilities more effectively
What is a "scientific responsibility"?
In my mind, science is a process by which knowledge is elucidated. The
consequences of possession of that knowledge (and lack of knowledge) are
values and ethics. I interpret a "scientific responsibility" as, given
certain knowledge, values, and acknowledged limits to knowledge that
interact with values, how society directs public funds and actions towards
acquiring new knowledge. For example, given certain knowledge about the
effects of clearcutting, and given a public expression of values for say
spotted owls, how should research funding and resources be
directed. Formally, this is again a value statement, so I'm stretching.
Respectfully,
...Robert
Keenan, R.J. and J.P. Kimmins. 1993. The ecological effects of
clear-cutting. Environ. Rev. 1: 121-144.
Kimmins, J.P. 1977. Evaluation of the consequences for future tree
productivity of the loss of nutrients in whole-tree harvesting. For. Ecol.
Manage. 1: 169-183.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Froese, MF, RPF http://www.taganov.com/robert.html
The opinions presented in this e-mail are exclusively those of
Robert Froese and may not be attributed to any other person or
organization unless stated explicitly to that effect.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 13:42:40 -0500
From: "Larson, Michael Andrew" <LarsonM@MISSOURI.EDU>
Subject: Prairie Bird Field Assistant Position
Praire Bird Field Assistant Position (1)- Available immediately through
August. Primary responsibilities include nest searching, banding,
radiotracking, and vegetation monitoring at nests of Dickcissels and
Eastern Meadowlark in southwestern Missouri. Candidates will assist on a
graduate project funded by the Missouri Department of Conservation
investigating post-fledging habitat use, movement patterns, and survival on
Taberville and Wah-Kon-tah Conservation Areas. Experience with nest
searching and radio tracking desired, but not required. Salary is
$1600/month and free housing and field vehicles are included. The position
will be filled as soon as a qualified applicant is identified. To apply,
send a CV and letter of interest via e-mail to Kimberly Suedkamp Wells at
kmsnq6@mizzou.edu. For questions, call (573) 864-0776.
Kimberly Suedkamp Wells
Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences
University of Missouri - Columbia
302 ABNR Building
Columbia, MO 65211
kmsnq6@mizzou.edu
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 08:51:46 -1000
From: Tim Male <tmale@HAWAII.EDU>
Subject: please post this job on your listserv
>CONSERVATION INITIATIVES COORDINATOR. The Division of Forestry and
>Wildlife of the State of Hawaii seeks a dynamic biologist with a strong
>policy interest to lead its program dealing with endangered species on
>private lands. Salary: minimum $2667/month. Location: Honolulu,
>Hawaii. Start: July 2002. Job Description/Duties: The Division of
>Forestry and Wildlife is responsible for designing, planning, and
>implementing programs to provide for the conservation and restoration of
>wildlife resources of the State of Hawaii. Central to this is a new foc
s
>on private and other lands that are traditionally seen as being outside
f
>the conservation estate. This position is on the Division Administrativ
>staff and will have responsibilities for consultation, coordination,
>planning and development related to the implementation of conservation
>initiatives including safe harbor agreements (SHAs), candidate
>conservation agreements (CCAs), habitat conservation plans (HCPs), and
>incidental take permits. These responsibilities require both biological
>expertise and an ability to conceptualize complex policy
>issues. Assisting landowners in development conservation agreements and
>plans is also a key responsibility. Qualifications: 1. Master's degre
>in natural sciences, 2. Two years progressively responsible professiona
>field experience, 3. skill in exercising independent judgment and
>decision-making, 4. ability to be innovative in carrying out work plans,
>initiating new projects, and/or finding solutions to improve program
>efficiency, 5. ability to effectively communicate orally and express
>technically complex concepts and plans clearly. Please send short
>application letter and resume by email (only) to TIM MALE (EM:
>tmale@hawaii.edu).
>
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 16:49:38 -0400
From: Sophia Passy <sophia.passy@UTA.EDU>
Subject: Postdoc, Technician, PhD Assistantships in Stream Ecology
Postdoctoral Fellowship, Research Technician, and Graduate Assistantships
in Stream Ecology
Positions for a postdoctoral fellow, a research technician, and PhD
research assistantships available immediately to study the interaction
between spatial patterns and ecological processes across a range of scales
in natural riverine landscapes and in laboratory streams. The research will
be conducted at the interface of stream and landscape ecology in addressing
questions such as producer patch dynamics under different environmental
constraints and spatial aspects of biofilm development. Desired
qualifications: experience in freshwater ecology in natural and artificial
environments, proficiency in algal taxonomy, and a strong statistical
background. To apply send a summary of research interests and experience,
CV, copies of up to four publications, and names, affiliations, phone
numbers, and e-mail addresses of three references to Dr. Sophia Passy,
Department of Biology, University of Texas at Arlington, Box 19498,
Arlington, TX 76019-0498, USA; phone: (817) 272-2415, e-mail:
sophia.passy@uta.edu.
------------------------------
Subject: ECOLOG-L Digest - 13 Jun 2002 to 14 Jun 2002 (#2002-153)
There are 21 messages totalling 1399 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. Can logging mimic fires? (2)
2. NSF's Draft Environmental Agenda Available for Comments
3. Meadow Monitoring, southern Sierra Nevada, June - August
4. Size and intensity of current fires (4)
5. Cloud forest web site
6. gw: African droughts "triggered by Western pollution" ??
7. field assistant
8. question about parabolic microphones (2)
9. Notable Book on Lake Sedimentology Returns to Print
10. Research Assistant-Plant Ecology-Archbold Bio. Stn.-Florida
11. On-Line Journals (i.e. BMC Ecology) - viable option for
publishing?
12. News: Study of Air Pollution Impacts On Tree Growth
13. values, science and professional obligations
14. Field Station Director: Washington University in St. Louis, Tyson Resea
ch
Center
15. 3 week fisheries job in western Alaska, July 1 -21
16. Before and after ecological snapshots
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 17:22:17 -0700
From: Patrick Foley <patfoley@CSUS.EDU>
Subject: Re: Can logging mimic fires?
Robert,
The business of an applied science (such as forestry) is to obtain results t
at
humans value. In the United States, imperfect as we are in many ways, we hav
placed value on biodiversity, wood, natural beauty and many other things. If
foresters and forestry companies cannot get these results, then their scient
fic
or professional approach may be partly to blame. If forestry employees put v
lue
only on wood production or only on profitability, they certainly are not
achieving a value-free "scientific" professionalism. They are simply adoptin
the ethics of whoever pays them.
I think that professional foresters want more than that. So they should insi
t
on more than that. The alternative is to shill for the highest bidder, a val
e
we all can understand.
Patrick Foley
patfoley@csus.edu
Robert Froese wrote:
> At 09:25 AM 6/13/2002 -0700, Patrick Foley wrote:
> >But back to science.
>
> Good!
>
> >Heavy logging has multitudinous effects on the landscape, among the
: 1)
> >increased erosion (due to roads and cover loss)
>
> "Low" intensity logging requires roads, often at higher densities than
> under "high" intensity logging. Most erosion is associated with road
> construction, and the most catastrophic, mass wasting, can be mitigated
by
> performing slope stability assessments prior to logging (Keenan and Kim
ins
> 1993). Such assessments are mandatory in many jurisdictions, including
> British Columbia, where I come from. So, to conclude, "it depends".
>
> >and the long term loss
> >of nutrients that are often slow to return
>
> Only a small proportion of nutrients are removed with bolewood; where
> foliage and branches are left to decompose there may be little if any n
t
> effect on nutrient capital (Keenan and Kimmins 1993; Kimmins 1977).
>
> >2) the loss of habitat for
> >certain birds, lichens and other creatures that are typical of
> >old-growth forest
>
> Yes. But how much old growth and how much early seral forest that shou
d
> be sustained on the landscape is a value statement, not a science state
ent.
>
> >It should be the business of
> >applied forestry science to find ways to mimic natural processes.
>
> Why? This is a value statement, not science, per se. I'm quite fond o
> some anthropogenic forest processes, for example.
>
> >Someday, when logging companies meet their ethical
>
> Now away from science and back to values?
>
> >and scientific responsibilities more effectively
>
> What is a "scientific responsibility"?
>
> In my mind, science is a process by which knowledge is elucidated. The
> consequences of possession of that knowledge (and lack of knowledge) ar
> values and ethics. I interpret a "scientific responsibility" as, given
> certain knowledge, values, and acknowledged limits to knowledge that
> interact with values, how society directs public funds and actions towa
ds
> acquiring new knowledge. For example, given certain knowledge about th
> effects of clearcutting, and given a public expression of values for sa
> spotted owls, how should research funding and resources be
> directed. Formally, this is again a value statement, so I'm stretching
>
> Respectfully,
>
> ...Robert
>
> Keenan, R.J. and J.P. Kimmins. 1993. The ecological effects of
> clear-cutting. Environ. Rev. 1: 121-144.
>
> Kimmins, J.P. 1977. Evaluation of the consequences for future tree
> productivity of the loss of nutrients in whole-tree harvesting. For. E
ol.
> Manage. 1: 169-183.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> Robert Froese, MF, RPF http://www.taganov.com/robert.html
>
> The opinions presented in this e-mail are exclusively those of
> Robert Froese and may not be attributed to any other person or
> organization unless stated explicitly to that effect.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 20:12:14 -0400
From: NCSE List Manager <henderson@NCSEONLINE.ORG>
Subject: NSF's Draft Environmental Agenda Available for Comments
NSF's Draft Environmental Agenda Available for Comments
The NSF Advisory Committee on Environmental Research and Education
(AC-ERE) is seeking public comment on a draft 10-year agenda for
interdisciplinary environmental research and edu-cation at NSF. The
draft report is available at
http://www.nsf.gov/geo/ere/ereweb/advisory.cfm. Comments may be
submitted online at http://www.nsf.gov/geo/ere/ereweb/comments.cfm and
are due on August 10.
The draft agenda "attempts to integrate a large and thoughtful body of
community-generated rec-ommendations and identify areas of opportunity
for NSF research and education efforts." It states, "from a long-term
perspective, the desired outcome of environmental research and
educa-tion is to maintain and improve the robustness, health and
well-being of environmental systems." A goal of the agenda is to
strengthen the linkage and interaction between scientific knowledge and
societal benefits.
The draft agenda emphasizes an integrated synthesis of environmental
knowledge: "An integral part of this approach is the collection and
effective communication of environmental knowledge across spatial,
temporal and societal scales to researchers, students, resource and
industrial man-agers, policy makers, and other users." The major topics
addressed in the draft agenda are listed below:
Environmental Research Frontiers: 2003-2012
A. Coupled Human and Natural Systems
B. Coupled Biological and Physical Systems
C. People and Technology
Building Capacity to Address Environmental Research Challenges
A. Environmental Education and Workforce
B. Infrastructure and Technical Capacity
The AC-ERE directs its attention primarily to environmental activities
that cross NSF's organiza-tional boundaries or that support NSF's entire
environmental portfolio. The committee was formed by NSF following the
National Science Board's 2000 report Environmental Science and
Engineering for the 21st Century. NCSE has been a leader in encouraging
full implementation of the National Science Board report.
The NCSE and its new Council of Environmental Deans and Directors (CEDD)
will be submit-ting comments on this report. To inform this process,
please send a copy of the comments you submit to NSF to
David@NCSEonline.org
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 18:16:03 -0700
From: Susan J Durham/R5/USDAFS <sdurham@FS.FED.US>
Subject: Meadow Monitoring, southern Sierra Nevada, June - August
SUMMER JOB IN THE SIERRA NEVADA
MEADOW MONITORING
Employer: USDA Forest Service, Region 5 (Pacific Southwest)
Location: southern Sierra Nevada
Titles: Ecologist, GS-0408-09, or Botanist, GS-0430-09
Duration: 3 months (late June ? early September)
Background and Job Description:
Long-term monitoring of meadows will begin this summer. One monitoring
crew will be assigned to the southern Sierra Nevada. The duty station is
Bishop but the study area includes several national forests in the southern
Sierras.
The crew consists of one ecologist or botanist (crew leader), one
plant/ecology technician, and one soils technician. One plant/ecology
position remains to be filled on this crew.
Crews will use a variety of vegetation sampling techniques to measure
rooted frequency, percent ground cover, percent canopy cover, and
vegetation cross-section composition. Strong plant identification skills
are mandatory. The ability to key species in Cyperaceae, Juncaceae, and
Poaceae is essential to this position. Crews will locate pre-selected
meadows, establish permanent plots, and collect a variety of site data.
Experience in ecological sampling, especially in meadow or riparian
settings, is preferred.
Meadows often are located in remote areas that can be accessed only by
cross-country navigation. Crews will need to read and interpret
topographic maps, ortho-photos, and aerial photos. Crews will camp during
the workweek and should be prepared to backpack when necessary. Weather
conditions can be highly variable with hot or cold extremes, thunderstorms
with lightning, or snowstorms.
Interested individuals should contact (e-mail inquiries preferred):
Susan Durham
Eldorado National Forest
100 Forni Road
Placerville, CA 95667
(530) 295-5654
sdurham@fs.fed.us
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 22:12:48 EDT
From: WirtAtmar@AOL.COM
Subject: Re: Size and intensity of current fires
Liane writes:
> If I might, I'd like to change the discussion focus more towards what I
> think the original post was trying to say.
>
> Current ecological theory leans strongly towards a non-equilibrium vie
of
> communities and we recognize the importance of disturbance in structur
ng
> communities (heck, let's throw in Gould's "punctuated equilibrium view
of
> evolution as well just for kicks). It would seem that Wirt's observat
ons
> regarding the potential for fire and climate change to produce rapid
> changes in communities lend support to this hypothesis.
Liane emphasizes the point I was trying to make. I hadn't expected a
political discussion about logging per se, although that response perhaps
shouldn't have been unexpected, I suspect. Rather, just to restate the simpl
argument I intended, I've been impressed with the increasing number and size
of the fires in the Rocky Mountain west over the last several years.
The plant and animal communities currently on the Rocky Mountain mountaintop
are relictual Pleistocene communities that once inhabited the plains and
valleys between these mountains. With the retreat of the last glaciation
epoch and the warming of the planet 11-13,000 years ago, these communities
moved up the sides of the mountains and became differentially depauperate
isolated remnants of the original assemblage, with whatever species
richnesses that now exist there heavily dependent on area of the various
mountaintops.
If the forecasted warming event that we're now beginning to experience is
similar to the epoch 12 kya -- and there's no reason to suspect that it's no
-- what strikes me about the size and intensity of the current fires (curren
meaning the last several years) is that the "flip" from forest to grassland
on the valley floors 12 kya could have been very quick, possibly within the
lifetime of a single human.
The form of criticism I expected to receive from yesterday's posting was
something more along the lines that forests don't burn that easily. It takes
a special set of conditions to get a fire to spread over any distance.
Clearly that's true given the small differences in humidity, wind and slope
that determine whether a fire is now easily artificially suppressed or not.
On the other hand, if a forest is stressed by drought, high temperatures
and/or disease, they can just as easily fairly well explode.
Although I've always imagined the succession of species on the valley floors
to have been a relatively slow and stately affair, the intensity of the
current fires now pique my imagination and suggest that the flip to
grasslands could have been quite quick, sweeping across truly large swaths o
land, perhaps semi-continental in size, in just 50 to 100 years, once the
standing forests were stressed by the new temperature regimes.
As I wrote yesterday, this is nothing more than speculation on my part, and
it shouldn't be given any more credence than that, and would perhaps be
better discussed at the end of the day at "My Brother's Place," with beer in
hand, especially given that I'm not sure that there would ever be any way to
proving that this scenario is true or not.
Wirt Atmar
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 22:57:38 +0000
From: Paul Cherubini <monarch@SABER.NET>
Subject: Re: Size and intensity of current fires
Wirt Atmar wrote:
> "I've been watching the size and intensity of the fires in
> the Rocky Mountains of the American southwest for the last
> several years and I've been impressed by their growing sizes
> and intensities."
Can you offer us any forest service data supporting your
contention that the fires in these mountain forests have been
growing in size and intensity during the past 5 or 10 years
as compared to previous decades? If so, has the magnitude of the
increases been small, moderate or large?
Have you examined historical aerial photographs of
these boreal and alpine forests to determine whether or
not the forests appear to have been changing in size, altitude,
composition, etc? If so, how many years after a crown fire
event does it appear to take a forest to return to its previous
successional status (assuming it does recover)? Do the photographs
tend to support your contention that there has been a major
increase in the fuel load in recent decades?
Have you examined the annual precipitation and mean temperature
records of these southwestern mountain forest areas for the past
10 years vs the past 100 years to determine whether or not the
climate has been getting significantly warmer and drier?
If so, has the magnitude of the changes been small or large?
I ask these questions in the interest trying to understand
the scientific basis of your suggestion (if I have stated it correctly)
that it's conceivable the current boreal and alpine forests of the
southern Rocky Mountains could dissappear within the next 100
years.
I should point out that you originally qualified your suggestion by
stating: "This note should be taken to be more along the lines of idle
speculation than anything scientific" so perhaps my probing scientific
questions here are off base. Nevertheless, it is quite a fantastic
and worrisome suggestion and therefore begs for some degree
of scientific justification.
Paul Cherubini
Placerville, California
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 07:07:10 -0600
From: David Inouye <di5@umail.umd.edu>
Subject: Cloud forest web site
21. Cloud Forest Alive
http://www.cloudforestalive.org/
The Cloud Forest Alive Web site, associated with the Tropical Science Center
and Forum One Communication, provides a host of information on the
biologically diverse cloud forests of Central America. The site contains a
large amount of information on several aspects of the forest, including many
attractive photographs. A recent highlight is one of the sites online
cameras, the Quetzal Cam. Highlights from this year's Quetzal Cam show the
activities within the nest, including incubation, the hatchling birds, and
an intruding weasel that brought an end to the chicks' short lives. The Web
cam photos are a little difficult to see, but they can be enlarged by
clicking on each photo individually. The site seems to continually update
its content, making it a site that users can visit often to develop a
broader understanding of these unique forests. [AL]
>From The NSDL Scout Report for the Life Sciences, Copyright Internet Sc
ut
Project 1994-2002. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 11:39:32 -0400
From: Karen Claxon <kclaxon@EARTHLINK.NET>
Subject: gw: African droughts "triggered by Western pollution" ??
----- Original Message -----
African droughts "triggered by Western pollution" 19:00 12 June 02
Exclusive from New Scientist Emissions spewed out by power stations and
factories in North America and Europe may have sparked the severe
droughts that have afflicted the Sahel
region of Africa. The droughts have been among the worst the world has
ever seen, and led to the infamous famines that crippled countries such
as Ethiopia in the 1980s.
Sahel dries out
The cause appears to be the clouds of sulphur belched out alongside the
soot, organic carbon, ammonium and nitrate produced when fossil fuels
are burnt, according to researchers in Australia and Canada. As these
compounds move through the atmosphere, they create aerosols that affect
cloud formation, altering the temperature of the Earth's surface and
leading to
dramatic shifts in regional weather patterns.
In the past thirty to forty years, the Sahel--a loosely defined band
across Africa, just south of the Sahara and including parts of Ethiopia
in the east and Guinea in the west--has suffered the most sustained
drought seen in any part of the world since records began, with
precipitation falling by between 20 and 50 per cent.
Although the droughts have had climate experts scratching their heads,
the impacts have been obvious. During the worst years, between 1972 and
1975, and 1984 and 1985, up to a million people starved to death.
Now Leon Rotstayn of the CSIRO, Australia's national research agency,
thinks he knows what caused them. Rotstayn and his colleague Ulrike
Lohmann of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, ran a
simulation of global climate that included interactions between sulphur
dioxide emissions and cloud formation. Sulphur dioxide creates sulphate
aerosols that provide
condensation nuclei for clouds. With more nuclei, clouds form from
smaller droplets than usual, and are more efficient at reflecting solar
radiation, cooling the Earth below.
Acid rain
When the researchers included the huge sulphur emissions from the
northern hemisphere during the 1980s in their model, the Earth's surface
in the north cooled relative to the south, driving the tropical rain
belt south and causing droughts in the Sahel. Their results will be
reported soon in the Journal of Climate.
"It's still speculative, and the model isn't very refined, but it's very
interesting. It's the first time we've seen a connection between
pollution in the mid-latitudes and climate in the tropics," says Johann
Feichter of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg.
Feichter, who has run similar simulations but cannot talk about the
results because the research
is being peer-reviewed for a major journal, says the sulphur emissions
probably worsen the natural cycle of droughts that would have happened
anyway.
During the past few years, the droughts have become less severe, a
change that Rotstayn puts down to the "clean air" laws in North America
and Europe that reduced sulphur dioxide emissions in response to another
environmental crisis, acid rain.
But the problems in Asia may be just beginning. Climate researchers
around the world are beginning to study other types of aerosols, such as
the clouds of black soot and sulphate being churned out by rapidly
industrialising India and China, in the hope that they may shed light on
other regional weather anomalies. For instance, northern China has had
unusually dry
summers in the past few years, while it has been particularly wet in the
south.
Rachel Nowak, Melbourne
http://www.newscientist.com/news/print.jsp?id=ns99992393
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 09:57:30 -0700
From: Robert Froese <robert.froese@TAGANOV.COM>
Subject: Re: Can logging mimic fires?
Patrick,
I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Forestry degree, with the major
"forest resources management". One of the key objectives of my program was
providing necessary background for registration as a practicing
Professional Forester. In this regard, my degree was about applying
science to generate desirable management outcomes. This is different from
practicing science itself, which is about elucidating knowledge. I
belabour this point because the metric of success of each is different;
successful application of science in forest management follows intelligent
identification of issues, tools and consequences and the design and
implementation of effective strategies and tactics to achieve desired
outcomes (value judgements). Most forest managers I've met take little
part in the definition of desired outcomes (value judgements). Regardless,
the purpose of forest management is support and achievement of goals (value
judgements). Forest science is about the knowledge that a forest manager
must draw upon to achieve desired values. Such knowledge is value-free; it
is pure understanding of the universe and its constitution and
mechanics. In fact, success in science depends on objectivity that is
notably value-free, at least in an ideal world. All other metaphysical
arguments aside, of course :).
So if a value is clearly stated and a forester trained and clearly tasked
to achieve it, and the forester is unable to achieve the value, then either
the professional approach was inadequate (politically or whatever) or the
underlying scientific knowledge was inadequate or incorrectly
interpreted. There are many examples - plantations of Douglas-fir in
British Columbia that came from an inappropriate seed source and repeatedly
damaged by snow.
Unfortunately, values are never clearly and completely elucidated, and are
rarely noncontradictory with other values. You seem to suggest in your
post that society has placed generic, universal value on forests, and that
this is at odds with values placed on forests by employers of Professional
Foresters. Balancing these values is a complex and imperfect
endeavour. In the United States as in Canada society also places value on
private property rights, security of the person, the right to seek
employment, and so forth. I think it unfortunate to blame discontent on
the outcome on the practicing professional forester, who is almost always
tasked with implementing management towards values established by
others. I'd say that if you don't like the goals for National Forests then
lobby to change them, but even to this humble Canadian it appears that the
public is successfully changing the goals for US National Forests.
I am a Registered Professional Forester in the Province of British
Columbia. I am bound by a code of ethics (even here in Idaho) that is
quite clear about my responsibilities. What I demand (of my profession, my
employer and the public) is that when I am tasked to manage, the goals and
objectives I am tasked to achieve be clear. I'll do my best to help
present to each the tradeoffs of different options. But, when I take off
my RPF hat I'm a citizen like you and lobby as I feel appropriate to
influence these goals.
Respectfully,
...Robert
At 05:22 PM 6/13/2002 -0700, Patrick Foley wrote:
>Robert,
>
>The business of an applied science (such as forestry) is to obtain resul
s
>that
>humans value. In the United States, imperfect as we are in many ways, we
have
>placed value on biodiversity, wood, natural beauty and many other things
If
>foresters and forestry companies cannot get these results, then their
>scientific
>or professional approach may be partly to blame. If forestry employees p
t
>value
>only on wood production or only on profitability, they certainly are not
>achieving a value-free "scientific" professionalism. They are simply ado
ting
>the ethics of whoever pays them.
>
>I think that professional foresters want more than that. So they should
nsist
>on more than that. The alternative is to shill for the highest bidder, a
value
>we all can understand.
>
>Patrick Foley
>patfoley@csus.edu
>
>
>
>Robert Froese wrote:
>
> > At 09:25 AM 6/13/2002 -0700, Patrick Foley wrote:
> > >But back to science.
> >
> > Good!
> >
> > >Heavy logging has multitudinous effects on the landscape, amon
them: 1)
> > >increased erosion (due to roads and cover loss)
> >
> > "Low" intensity logging requires roads, often at higher densities
han
> > under "high" intensity logging. Most erosion is associated with r
ad
> > construction, and the most catastrophic, mass wasting, can be miti
ated by
> > performing slope stability assessments prior to logging (Keenan an
Kimmins
> > 1993). Such assessments are mandatory in many jurisdictions, incl
ding
> > British Columbia, where I come from. So, to conclude, "it depends
.
> >
> > >and the long term loss
> > >of nutrients that are often slow to return
> >
> > Only a small proportion of nutrients are removed with bolewood; wh
re
> > foliage and branches are left to decompose there may be little if
ny net
> > effect on nutrient capital (Keenan and Kimmins 1993; Kimmins 1977)
> >
> > >2) the loss of habitat for
> > >certain birds, lichens and other creatures that are typical of
> > >old-growth forest
> >
> > Yes. But how much old growth and how much early seral forest that
should
> > be sustained on the landscape is a value statement, not a science
> statement.
> >
> > >It should be the business of
> > >applied forestry science to find ways to mimic natural process
s.
> >
> > Why? This is a value statement, not science, per se. I'm quite f
nd of
> > some anthropogenic forest processes, for example.
> >
> > >Someday, when logging companies meet their ethical
> >
> > Now away from science and back to values?
> >
> > >and scientific responsibilities more effectively
> >
> > What is a "scientific responsibility"?
> >
> > In my mind, science is a process by which knowledge is elucidated.
The
> > consequences of possession of that knowledge (and lack of knowledg
) are
> > values and ethics. I interpret a "scientific responsibility" as,
iven
> > certain knowledge, values, and acknowledged limits to knowledge th
t
> > interact with values, how society directs public funds and actions
towards
> > acquiring new knowledge. For example, given certain knowledge abo
t the
> > effects of clearcutting, and given a public expression of values f
r say
> > spotted owls, how should research funding and resources be
> > directed. Formally, this is again a value statement, so I'm stret
hing.
> >
> > Respectfully,
> >
> > ...Robert
> >
> > Keenan, R.J. and J.P. Kimmins. 1993. The ecological effects of
> > clear-cutting. Environ. Rev. 1: 121-144.
> >
> > Kimmins, J.P. 1977. Evaluation of the consequences for future tr
e
> > productivity of the loss of nutrients in whole-tree harvesting. F
r. Ecol.
> > Manage. 1: 169-183.
> >
> > --------------------------------------------------------------
> > Robert Froese, MF, RPF http://www.taganov.com/robert.html
> >
> > The opinions presented in this e-mail are exclusively those of
> > Robert Froese and may not be attributed to any other person or
> > organization unless stated explicitly to that effect.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 13:15:51 EDT
From: DebAFPDCC@AOL.COM
Subject: Re: Size and intensity of current fires
I am very interested in discussions of fire ecology, but don't have time to
sort through all of the philosophizing and opinions that this thread has
generated.
Could we please agree to notate this subject title with a word like "with
citations" or "opinion" to help some of us filter through this thread?
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 15:24:46 -0400
From: Yair Chaver <ychaver@UNR.EDU>
Subject: field assistant
My name is Yair Chaver and I am a Ph.D. student at the University of
Nevada in Reno, I am still looking for one field assistant for a six-week
period from beginning of July to mid August. My study involves habitat
fragmentation and genetics. The field site is in the Ruby Mountains
located in northeastern Nevada and involves the North-American pika,
Ochotona princeps. The site is in the middle of nowhere, at high
elevations (average 9000ft) without any facilities, i.e. camping for six
weeks. However, the scenery is as beautiful as they come, and the
animals are some of the cutest mammals out there. The
assistantship will consist of live trapping pikas, mapping talus using a
GPS unit and making behavioral observations.
You need to have backpacking skills, your own camping gear (i.e.
sleeping bag, backpack, boots, warm cloths, I may be able to supply a
tent) and a strong desire to learn about field work in the area of
ecology. I will supply the food, travel expenses once you get to Reno,
cooking gear and $50 a week. We will go down to the town of Elko
whenever needed to restock on food and get a real shower and
maybe a movie.
If you are interested please respond as soon as you can. You can
either email me, or call me at either 775-784-4009 or 530-550-0722.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 09:23:16 -0700
From: David Bryant <dmb@IO.HARVARD.EDU>
Subject: Re: question about parabolic microphones
>I would have ot agree with Herm. Although I am not a physicist I have
>frequently played around with telescopes and have found that there is no
>substitute for a good parabola. I have found, however a web page that
>provides an article on DIY parabolic dishes specifically for use in
>recording bird songs. In fac the source is the Cornell Ornithology Lab:
>http://birds.cornell.edu/lns/recordingnature/html/TheRecorder/windscreen
3_oct_10.PDF
The graphics area little poor but functional, and anyone with a moderate
amount of artistic ability should have no problem duplicating their design.
It even has a camo cover...
Good luck!
David M.
Bryant dmb@io.harvard.edu
Dept of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Harvard University 617-496-4571
20 Oxford St.
Cambridge, MA 02138
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 17:22:56 -0400
From: Andrea Herbert <AHerbert@BLACKBURNPRESS.COM>
Subject: Notable Book on Lake Sedimentology Returns to Print
To ECOLOG-L members:
I thought you would be interested to know that Principles of Lake =
Sedimentology, the first comprehensive textbook on the subject, has been =
brought back into print by The Blackburn Press. Authored by Lars =
Hakanson and Mats Jansson, the book defines and discusses fundamental =
physical, chemical and biological sediment parameters from a =
multi-disciplinary perspective. It covers the sedimentological =
mechanisms in the lake water, on the lake bottom and within sediments. =
It also stresses the role of sedimentology in lake management and =
control, with a special focus on nutrients and metals.
When it was originally published in 1983, it was called "a major =
contribution to this relatively new field." Transactions of the American =
Fisheries Society
=20
"The book should be welcomed and read by limnologists of many =
persuasions and it will be invaluable for workers in the fields of =
aquatic pollution and the environment. It could also serve as a textbook =
for advanced limnology courses and altogether may end up as a classic =
within its field." Freshwater Biology.
=20
For more information, we invite you to point your browser to:
http://www.blackburnpress.com/prinoflaksed.html or=20
=20
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1930665547/qid=3D1023196365/sr=3D1=
-4/ref=3Dsr_1_4/103-1727115-2143011=20
=20
The Blackburn Press is a relatively new publishing company, founded with =
the mission of keeping in print and available for purchase at reasonable =
prices book titles that larger publishers have lost interest in and have =
declared to be "out of print." We specialize in scientific and technical =
books and textbooks; most are classics in their field. We are interested =
in hearing about other out-of-print titles we might consider returning =
to print. Your suggestions are welcome.
=20
Andrea Herbert
The Blackburn Press
Publishers of classic scientific and technical books
P.O.Box 287, Caldwell, N.J. 07006
973-228-7077 Fax: 973-228-7276
AHerbert@BlackburnPress.com
Explore the latest additions to our list at =
http://www.BlackburnPress.com
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 07:44:31 -0400
From: "Menges, Eric" <EMenges@ARCHBOLD-STATION.ORG>
Subject: Research Assistant-Plant Ecology-Archbold Bio. Stn.-Florida
POSITION AVAILABLE - RESEARCH ASSISTANT IN PLANT ECOLOGY
Archbold Biological Station, Lake Placid, Florida. Available August 2002.
We seek a motivated, experienced plant ecologist for a research assistant's
position in the Plant Ecology Laboratory of Eric Menges at Archbold
Biological Station.
Duties include field data collection, field experiments, data analysis,
computer work, and lab work. Our research focuses on plant population
biology, fire ecology, conservation biology, community ecology, and
ecological genetics; with a focus on the endemic plants of Florida scrub and
on long-term data collection and analysis. Our lab consists of 3 full time
scientists together with variable numbers of interns, graduate students, and
collaborators; and is a stimulating and enjoyable workplace.
Archbold is devoted to research, conservation, and education and is
particularly strong in demography, conservation biology, fire ecology, and
behavioral ecology. Archbold's 5000-acre natural area has outstanding
examples of central Florida ecosystems and unique species. We also work
within a network of protected areas in the region.
The applicant should have a BA or BS in ecology, botany, or a related field,
experience in field work, computer and data handling experience, willingness
to work both independently and as part of research teams, and physical
stamina to work outdoors in a subtropical climate.
Other desired qualifications include specific training in plant population
biology or fire ecology, field experience in Florida, experience in hot,
humid climates, experience with GPS andGIS, statistical training, computer
modeling experience, and interest or experience in conservation and land
management.
Benefits include salary in the mid-20's (depending on experience), annual
leave, paid holidays, health insurance, disability benefits, and an
excellent pension plan. I also believe in professional development of
research assistants, and three past RA's have gone on to graduate school.
This position will be funded by research grants. We currently have support
for a year, but anticipate continued support.
Prospective applicants should seek more information on Archbold and the
Plant Ecology Lab at www.archbold-station.org
Applications are due by July 29, 2002. Send a letter summarizing experience
and qualifications, a CV or resume, lists of courses and grades, and names,
phone numbers, and email addresses for 3 references. Email applications are
welcome.
Archbold is an equal opportunity employer and encourages applications from
women and minorities.
Dr. Eric S. Menges
Archbold Biological Station
PO Box 2057 packages: 123 Main Dr.
Lake Placid, FL 33862 Venus, FL 33960
phone: 863-465-2571 ext. 235 or 234
fax: 863-699-1927
email: emenges@archbold-station.org
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 16:25:38 -0500
From: Robert Dana <robert.dana@DNR.STATE.MN.US>
Subject: Re: Size and intensity of current fires
Well, this article is unsigned--so have no idea what qualifications the
writer has. The board of the organization sponsoring the ariticle
(National Animal Interest Alliance) includes animal breeders, rodeo
cowboys, veterinarians, but no one likely to have much expertise in
forest ecology. As becomes apparent in browsing the web site, this is
another industry stealth-group meant to counter the "extremism" of
animal rights activists and "environmentalists".
*************************************************************
Robert Dana, Ph.D.
MN DNR
Natural Heritage and Nongame Research Program
500 Lafayette Rd, Box 25
St. Paul, MN 55155
651 297-2367
Email: robert.dana@dnr.state.mn.us
*************************************************************
>>> Paul Cherubini <monarch@saber.net> 6/13/02 2:52:08 AM >
>>
PETE JACKSON wrote:
>
> What folly to suggest that thinning by logging companies,
> and all the degradation that it would entail, could be equated
> with a natural cycle of fire.
Yes, but apparently thinning by logging companies was one
reason why catastrophic crown fires in the western USA
were less prevalent 40 years ago.
http://www.naiaonline.org/body/articles/archives/forest_burn.htm
"In the 1930s, the government promoted road-building
in the forests to provide jobs, and the roads served the
lumber industry in the post-World War II building boom.
Logging helped reduce the fuel load, and logging roads
made it easier for firefighters to reach any burns that
occurred. By the late 1950s, annual loss to forest fires
was less than five million acres. The recent increase
in lost acreage is accredited to a reversal of the government
road-building and road repair projects, changes directly
attributed to the anti-logging campaigns of environmental
and animal rights organizations.
Besieged by environmental and animal rights organizations,
many politicians "vote green" to rack up points with the
voters. As a result, Congress often leans towards regulatory
programs that appease these groups. In addition, the
current administration favors the arguments of activists
over the application of science when man and the
environment clash. As a result, campaigns to protect the
spotted owl and old growth forest, halt roadbuilding, and
abandon existing roads have dramatically reduced logging
on public lands and left a legacy of dry, dead brush and
trees to burn."
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 15:27:59 -0700
From: Colleen Grant <psorothamnus@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Re: On-Line Journals (i.e. BMC Ecology) - viable option for
publishing?
Hi, this reply is with the permission of Steve Carpenter.
For those of you interested in this subject and attending the ESA-SER
meeting in Tucson during August:
In May, at the request of the ESA Student Section, Steve Carpenter
agreed to lead a half-hour discussion on electronic publishing. It
started
with a question about the 'rules' for requesting and sending reprints
now that so many articles are available on-line and has since evolved
into the broader topic. The discussion will be in a question-answer
format so if you have questions dealing with electronic publishing ,
please
come to the student lounge on Thursday at 12:15 pm (during the lunch
break).
Colleen Grant
member ESA Student Section
Tamara Romanuk <romanutn@MCMASTER.CA> wrote: Hi all,
As most of you are aware, a number of on-line only "journals" are now on the
market, offering fast track services and free access to the articles they
publish. I was looking at BMC Ecology the other day, and in during the year
(approx) that this journal has been available, they have only published 12
articles. I would think that many ecologists would jump at the opportunity
to publish faster, retain copyright, take advantage of web only options
(unlimited content), fancy graphics or simulations etc. So why is BMC
ecology not being flooded with manuscripts?
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6785/
---------------------------------
Do You Yahoo!?
Sign-up for Video Highlights of 2002 FIFA World Cup
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 17:04:47 -0700
From: Ashwani Vasishth <vasishth@USC.EDU>
Subject: News: Study of Air Pollution Impacts On Tree Growth
http://ens-news.com/ens/jun2002/2002-06-13-09.asp
Air Pollution Affects Tree Growth
MADISON, Wisconsin, June 13, 2002 (ENS) - Carbon dioxide and ozone
pollution alter tree growth in northern forests, says an international
group of researchers working in northern Wisconsin.
The gases may change forest ecology and diversity in the long term, said
Eric Kruger, a University of Wisconsin-Madison forest ecologist
participating in the project. The team's long term study is also providing
insights into the role forests may play in global climate change.
Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide, the best known greenhouse gas, are
increasing around the world, contributing to global warming. Ozone levels
also are rising; elevated ozone levels are now common across much of the
eastern United States.
[Photograph omitted]
At the pollution research site near Rhinelander, Wisconsin, towers
release controlled amounts of carbon dioxide and ozone to simulate various
pollution levels. (Photo by Wolfgang Hoffmann, courtesy University of
Wisconsin-Madison)
Experts predict that concentrations of these gases will double in the next
100 years. The forest scientists are studying how quaking aspen, paper
birch and sugar maple - major components of the forests that blanket
almost half of Wisconsin - will respond to the levels of carbon dioxide
and ozone expected in the north by 2050.
Carbon dioxide acts like a fertilizer, stimulating plant growth, while
ozone harms plants, but no one had studied how trees would respond to
higher levels of both gases together.
[...]
See also:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/06/020613072710.htm
and:
http://www.cals.wisc.edu/sciencereport/02SRstories/Changes_in_the_Air.htm
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 09:08:52 -0700
From: Patrick Foley <patfoley@CSUS.EDU>
Subject: values, science and professional obligations
Chris and other ecologgers,
I do not disagree with your analysis (as far as I understand it), but I don'
see how it
contradicts what I wrote. People are free to choose the values they live by,
but I am
unhappy with the view taken by many forestry professionals that they are sci
ntists rather
than tools of their bosses. I wish they were scientists, and I wish the guil
of foresters
developed a more independent professional code, in the way wildlife managers
are
developing. And while people do want money and what it can buy, I could make
twice as much
money as an industry scientist (I am well trained in statistics, modeling an
computer
programming, besides having an inside knowledge of extinction theory and pra
tice) than as
as a non-tenurable academic. I am not being heroic; I just make a choice con
istent with
my values. Most people do.
One of the pillars of the wise-use movement is their claim that they are pra
tical
scientists and technicians, while environmentalists are sentimental fools. I
am an
environmentalist and a scientist, and I think that most wise-use people espo
se bad
science or good science only when it is to their advantage. For example, loc
l
biodiversity in its crudest form often declines in climax forests. So logger
are
improving biodiversity! Of course people who push this idea have only the on
idea to
push. A real ecological researcher would put many caveats around the origina
statement,
and would recognize the need to look also at the landscape level and at gamm
diversity.
As a scientist and teacher, I am absolutely committed to one value -- the fl
w of
knowledge and honest evaluation of theories. Can the same be said of the wis
-use movement
and the logging companies? As wood providers and as job providers, I salute
hem. But I
wouldn't trust their science any more than I would trust the medical advice
f HMO
accountants. I have some faith in the HMO's doctors because they are rather
ell trained
and have an independent commitment by their guild (objectified by the AMA) t
certain
values that I respect.
Patrick Foley
patfoley@csus.edu
Christopher J Wells wrote:
> Patrick,
>
> I doubt the world wants to follow this argument, so I'm taking it off-l
st.
> If you think its important, feel free to put it back on.
>
> Re your first contention (The business of an applied science (such as
> forestry) is to obtain results that humans value.). If that is the
> definition of applied science, does this not mean that applied science
s
> directly dependent upon majoritarian values? Thus, we select the manage
ent
> of our public forest through the election process. Thus, I am led to t
e
> conclusion that the population of the USA is itself divided (perhaps
> fractionated is more accurate) on how public forests should be managed.
> Therefore, we (society) are getting pecisely the forest management that
we,
> on average, want.
>
> Another argument is that management is shaped as a response to market
> forces. If there is lots of money spent on paper and wood products and
ess
> money spend on ecotourism, then management will tend to accomodate the
him
> of the money stream. But that too, is an incomplete argument since the
> .gov spends an aweful lot of money on forest enterprises that will like
y
> never show a profitable return on investment.
>
> I think that somewhere in a mix of the two arguements lies the truth.
> suspect that forest management shifts between those somewhat opposition
l
> descriptions depending on the political party in power. Unfortunately
for
> my particular view of public land management) neither party's paradigm
s
> particularly good for the resource.
>
> Concerning what foresters want, they are capitalists like most everybod
> else in this country. They want more money and more stuff. They get m
re
> money and more stuff just like everybody else (except .gov flunkies and
> ivory tower eggheads), by maximizing profits. Maximizing profits in the
r
> case means using whatever tools they have to make thier management effo
ts
> look profitable. Science provides lots of tools.
>
> ---chris
>
>
> Patrick Foley
> <patfoley@CSUS.ED To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSE
V.UMD.EDU
> U> cc:
> Sent by: Subject: Re: Can loggi
g mimic fires?
> "Ecological
> Society of
> America: grants,
> jobs, news"
> <ECOLOG-L@LISTSER
> V.UMD.EDU>
>
>
> 06/13/02 07:22 PM
> Please respond to
> Patrick Foley
>
>
>
> Robert,
>
> The business of an applied science (such as forestry) is to obtain resu
ts
> that
> humans value. In the United States, imperfect as we are in many ways, w
> have
> placed value on biodiversity, wood, natural beauty and many other thing
.
> If
> foresters and forestry companies cannot get these results, then their
> scientific
> or professional approach may be partly to blame. If forestry employees
ut
> value
> only on wood production or only on profitability, they certainly are no
> achieving a value-free "scientific" professionalism. They are simply
> adopting
> the ethics of whoever pays them.
>
> I think that professional foresters want more than that. So they should
> insist
> on more than that. The alternative is to shill for the highest bidder,
> value
> we all can understand.
>
> Patrick Foley
> patfoley@csus.edu
>
> Robert Froese wrote:
>
> > At 09:25 AM 6/13/2002 -0700, Patrick Foley wrote:
> > >But back to science.
> >
> > Good!
> >
> > >Heavy logging has multitudinous effects on the landscape, amon
them: 1)
> > >increased erosion (due to roads and cover loss)
> >
> > "Low" intensity logging requires roads, often at higher densities
han
> > under "high" intensity logging. Most erosion is associated with r
ad
> > construction, and the most catastrophic, mass wasting, can be miti
ated
> by
> > performing slope stability assessments prior to logging (Keenan an
> Kimmins
> > 1993). Such assessments are mandatory in many jurisdictions, incl
ding
> > British Columbia, where I come from. So, to conclude, "it depends
.
> >
> > >and the long term loss
> > >of nutrients that are often slow to return
> >
> > Only a small proportion of nutrients are removed with bolewood; wh
re
> > foliage and branches are left to decompose there may be little if
ny net
> > effect on nutrient capital (Keenan and Kimmins 1993; Kimmins 1977)
> >
> > >2) the loss of habitat for
> > >certain birds, lichens and other creatures that are typical of
> > >old-growth forest
> >
> > Yes. But how much old growth and how much early seral forest that
should
> > be sustained on the landscape is a value statement, not a science
> statement.
> >
> > >It should be the business of
> > >applied forestry science to find ways to mimic natural process
s.
> >
> > Why? This is a value statement, not science, per se. I'm quite f
nd of
> > some anthropogenic forest processes, for example.
> >
> > >Someday, when logging companies meet their ethical
> >
> > Now away from science and back to values?
> >
> > >and scientific responsibilities more effectively
> >
> > What is a "scientific responsibility"?
> >
> > In my mind, science is a process by which knowledge is elucidated.
The
> > consequences of possession of that knowledge (and lack of knowledg
) are
> > values and ethics. I interpret a "scientific responsibility" as,
iven
> > certain knowledge, values, and acknowledged limits to knowledge th
t
> > interact with values, how society directs public funds and actions
> towards
> > acquiring new knowledge. For example, given certain knowledge abo
t the
> > effects of clearcutting, and given a public expression of values f
r say
> > spotted owls, how should research funding and resources be
> > directed. Formally, this is again a value statement, so I'm stret
hing.
> >
> > Respectfully,
> >
> > ...Robert
> >
> > Keenan, R.J. and J.P. Kimmins. 1993. The ecological effects of
> > clear-cutting. Environ. Rev. 1: 121-144.
> >
> > Kimmins, J.P. 1977. Evaluation of the consequences for future tr
e
> > productivity of the loss of nutrients in whole-tree harvesting. F
r.
> Ecol.
> > Manage. 1: 169-183.
> >
> > --------------------------------------------------------------
> > Robert Froese, MF, RPF http://www.taganov.com/robert.html
> >
> > The opinions presented in this e-mail are exclusively those of
> > Robert Froese and may not be attributed to any other person or
> > organization unless stated explicitly to that effect.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 12:47:19 -0700
From: David Bryant <dmb@IO.HARVARD.EDU>
Subject: Re: question about parabolic microphones
D'oh!
Apologies all around! I sent the wrong web link previously. Here is one
for a solar cooker that should work well for sound waves as well. Just
forget the aluminum foil and you should be all set.
http://solarcooking.org/parabolic-from-flat-sheet.htm
Alternatively, many science edu stores sell "toy" parabolics that work
remarkably well for under $200. But this may be outside your realm of
"cheap".
http://www.ccrane.com/bionic_ear.asp
Sorry for the confusion,
David
>I would have ot agree with Herm. Although I am not a physicist I have
>frequently played around with telescopes and have found that there is no
>substitute for a good parabola. I have found, however a web page that
>provides an article on DIY parabolic dishes specifically for use in
>recording bird songs. In fac the source is the Cornell Ornithology Lab:
>http://birds.cornell.edu/lns/recordingnature/html/TheRecorder/windscreen
3_oct_10.PDF
The graphics area little poor but functional, and anyone with a moderate
amount of artistic ability should have no problem duplicating their design.
It even has a camo cover...
Good luck!
David M.
Bryant dmb@io.harvard.edu
Dept of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Harvard University 617-496-4571
20 Oxford St.
Cambridge, MA 02138
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 13:55:01 -0400
From: "Jonathan M. Chase" <jchase@BIOLOGY2.WUSTL.EDU>
Subject: Field Station Director: Washington University in St. Louis,
Tyson Research Center
Director, Tyson Research Center, Washington University in St. Louis
Washington University invites applications for the tenured position of
DIRECTOR of its Tyson Research Center. We are particularly interested in
qualified women and minority applicants. The Tyson Research Center is a
fenced 2,000-acre tract of oak-hickory forests, savannahs and glades on a
karst landscape surrounded by another 5,500 acres of protected land.
Although on the boundary of the Ozarks, Tyson is located only 20 miles
from the main campus and on the edge of the 16th largest metropolitan area
in the United States. Tyson offers a unique opportunity to identify the
processes that affect biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in urban-
suburban settings.
The Director will be a faculty member in an appropriate department or
program of the school of Arts & Sciences and is expected to develop a
research program in some area of ecology or other environmental sciences.
In addition, the Director will be responsible for overseeing the operation
of the field station. Candidates must have a distinguished record of
scholarship. Experience in the use and administration of field stations
is desirable. This is a 12-month appointment with a competitive salary
and level of appointment depending upon qualifications and experience. The
position may be taken up anytime after January 1, 2003.
Letters of application should be accompanied by a curriculum vitae and a
brief statement of experience and research interests. Applicants should
also arrange to have three letters of recommendation sent to:
Jonathan B. Losos
Chair, Tyson Search Committee
Department of Biology
Campus Box 1137
Washington University
1 Brookings Drive
St. Louis, MO 63130-4899
Review of applications will begin August 15, 2002 and continued until the
position is filled. Washington University is an Affirmative Action Equal
Opportunity employer.
http://www.biology.wustl.edu/tyson/
***************************
Jonathan Chase
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Biology
Campus Box 1137
Washington University
1 Brookings Drive
St. Louis, MO 63130
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 12:25:19 -0800
From: Matt Nemeth <mnemeth@LGL.COM>
Subject: 3 week fisheries job in western Alaska, July 1 -21
Hello,
I need a field technician for a brief study trapping juvenile salmonids in
estuaries of Norton Sound, on the west coast of Alaska. Technicians will
live in a road-accessed cabin and will boat to all field sites. Prior
field experience is required; prior experience working in fisheries, in
Alaska, or with motorized watercraft is preferred. Pay will be
approximately $15/hr. You must supply your own transportation to
Anchorage, Alaska (Round trips from Seattle to Anchorage are currently
$305). Application will consist of resume, names and contacts of 3
references, and a letter of interest. For more information, contact Matt
Nemeth by email at mnemeth@lgl.com. No phone calls, please.
Matt Nemeth
Fishery Biologist
LGL Alaska Research Associates, Inc.
1101 E. 76th St., Suite B
Anchorage, AK 99518
phone: (907) 562-3339
fax: (907) 562-7223
email: mnemeth@lgl.com
website: www.lgl.com
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 17:32:04 -0700
From: Patrick Foley <patfoley@CSUS.EDU>
Subject: Before and after ecological snapshots
Paul and all,
A valuable collection of paired photographs showing the increased cover and
even-agedness of Sierra Nevada forests is the new book Gruell, George
E. 2001. Fire in Sierra Nevada Forests a photographic interpretation of
ecological change since 1849. Mountain Press Publishing, Missoula.
The book addresses many of the issues Paul raises and is more sympathetic
to his viewpoint than I am. The work was supported by the proforestry
products org, The Forest Foundation. Most of the author's ideas are
sensible enough, though they don't go very deeply into fire or successional
ecology. So this is a reserved recommendation.
By the way the first serious use of paired photographs I know of is James
Hastings and Ray Turner's 1965 The Changing Mile, U Arizona Press. Is there
a bibliography of these before and after ecological snapshots?
Patrick Foley
patfoley@csus.edu
Paul Cherubini wrote:
> Wirt Atmar wrote:
>
> > "I've been watching the size and intensity of the fires in
> > the Rocky Mountains of the American southwest for the last
> > several years and I've been impressed by their growing sizes
> > and intensities."
>
> Can you offer us any forest service data supporting your
> contention that the fires in these mountain forests have been
> growing in size and intensity during the past 5 or 10 years
> as compared to previous decades? If so, has the magnitude of the
> increases been small, moderate or large?
>
> Have you examined historical aerial photographs of
> these boreal and alpine forests to determine whether or
> not the forests appear to have been changing in size, altitude,
> composition, etc? If so, how many years after a crown fire
> event does it appear to take a forest to return to its previous
> successional status (assuming it does recover)? Do the photographs
> tend to support your contention that there has been a major
> increase in the fuel load in recent decades?
>
> Have you examined the annual precipitation and mean temperature
> records of these southwestern mountain forest areas for the past
> 10 years vs the past 100 years to determine whether or not the
> climate has been getting significantly warmer and drier?
> If so, has the magnitude of the changes been small or large?
>
> I ask these questions in the interest trying to understand
> the scientific basis of your suggestion (if I have stated it correctly)
> that it's conceivable the current boreal and alpine forests of the
> southern Rocky Mountains could dissappear within the next 100
> years.
>
> I should point out that you originally qualified your suggestion by
> stating: "This note should be taken to be more along the lines of idle
> speculation than anything scientific" so perhaps my probing scientific
> questions here are off base. Nevertheless, it is quite a fantastic
> and worrisome suggestion and therefore begs for some degree
> of scientific justification.
>
> Paul Cherubini
> Placerville, California
------------------------------
End of ECOLOG-L Digest - 13 Jun 2002 to 14 Jun 2002 (#2002-153)
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Thanks to discussion with TVR, I have decided to put a link to back files of the discussion group. This months back files.
The link to complete archives is available elsewhere.
This text was originally an e-mail. It was converted using a program
RUPANTAR- a simple e-mail-to-html converter.
(c)Kolatkar Milind. kmilind@ces.iisc.ernet.in