Treatment: actively facilitate change to encourage adaptive responses
Desired Future Conditions
The goal of this treatment is to transition the forest composition to future adapted species and promote a heterogenous forest structure in age and fuel type. Snags and surface fuels will be reduced more than in the other treatments to create an open understory and reduce fire intensity. Shrubs, however, will be promoted to help wildlife. Finally, treatments will aim for disturbance regimes of 30-50 years through lower surface fuel loads and tree densities that promote fire and drought-adapted species.
Conceptual diagram of the Resistance – Resilience – Transition (RRT) framework applied to the ASCC Network, positioned vertically along a spectrum of ecological persistence to change (i.e., adaptation). The y-axis presents the degree of alignment with current conditions relative to the future range of acceptable outcomes (i.e., desired future conditions). Graphic by Kailey Marcinkowski, Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science.
Management Goals
ASCC Transition Experimental Site at Colorado State Forest. Photo Credit: Rylee McMillan, Colorado State University.
Create firebreaks, break up dense forest to limit insect outbreaks, and promote natural regeneration opportunities to create heterogenous forest structure
Favor future-adapted species that tolerate variable environmental conditions/disturbances (temperature extremes, drought, mixed-severity fire, insects, etc)
Create a variety of regeneration microsites
Focus on topography and drier/wetter microsites (i.e. topographic wetness index; heat load index), CWD/slash retention
Increase wind firmness
Reduce surface fuels to be appropriate for an upper montane-mixed conifer forest (10-20 tons/ac)
Increase shrub component for wildlife habitat
Provide ecosystem services, including wood products, watershed health, recreation opportunities, and cultural resources
Create opportunities for carbon sequestration through large tree retention
Strategies & approaches
A visit to the Colorado State Forest ASCC site. The Colorado Forest Restoration Institute crew collecting pre-treatment data at the
ASCC research sites. Photo Credit: Angelika Helmer.Touring the transition treatment ASCC site at the Colorado State Forest. Photo Credit: Rylee McMillan.
Group selection
Create an orstory mosaic through gaps and thinning
Create one large 4-acre opening and multiple small 1/2-acre gaps within thinned matrix
Lower residual density
Remove subalpine fir and Engelmann spruce to create 0.25-acre gaps for planting in matrix
Keep lodgepole pine and large trees in matrix
Promote quaking aspen if already growing, especially in moist topographic areas
Weed around remaining trees and maintain open areas with brush cutter, creating structures from upper montane mixed-conifer forests
Allow any natural regeneration
Details of tree species composition to be planted
Plant future adapted species with a different seed source than resilience treatment
Details of spacing grid for planting:
Douglas Fir 40%; Ponderosa pine 30%; limber/Pinus aristata (bristlecone pine) 20%; Picea pungens (blue spruce) 10%
Plant Douglas-fir across the site in gaps and matrix
Plant ponderosa pine in the drier microsites within the gaps
Plant limber pine across the site in gaps, matrix, and ridgetops
Plant some bristlecone pine because it is more blister rust resistant than limber pine
Plant blue spruce on wetter microsites within matrix
Maps of seedlot locations and graphs depicting mean annual precipitation and number of frost-free days over time.
Seedlings from six populations/seedlots (where available) will be planted for each species. The six populations will represent 6 climate categories, as listed in the figure legend. Categories were based on projections of future climate at the site for the 30-year periods centered on the 1970’s, 2020’s, 2050’s, and 2080’s, shown in different shapes in terms of two climate variables, number of frost-free days & mean annual precipitation. The maps show where each seed lot comes from geographically and the plots show their average 1970’s climate. Numbers next to the seedlots on the map show the elevation in feet that the seedlot is from. This will test how seed sources from different climates, in addition to the different species, vary in their response to climate-change.
Retain snags and keep large snags in clumps to help windfirm the area and create wildlife habitat
Minimum number of 4 snags/acre
Plant shrubs such as Mountain Ash, Rocky Mountain Maple, Mountain Mahogany, Bitterbrush, and Ceanothus shrubs in persistent tree-less openings
Reduce surface fuels to promote surface roughness, moisture retention, and nutrient cycling
Blair Rynearson, Zach Wehr, Carolina Manriquez, and John Twitchell from the Colorado State Forest Service are the site managers helping lead the Colorado State Forest ASCC Project. Mike Battaglia (Rocky Mountain Research Station) and Ethan Bucholz (Colorado State Forest Service) are scientists helping lead the research efforts for the site.
Key collaborators include Marin Chambers (Colorado Forest Restoration Institute) and Lance Asherin (USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, RMRS), Paula Fornwalt (USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, RMRS), Chuck Rhoades (USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, RMRS), Zachary Steel (USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, RMRS), Wade Tinkham (USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, RMRS), Katie Nigro (ORISE fellow working with the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, RMRS), and the Forest and Rangeland Stewardship Department at Colorado State University.
Blair Rynearson Manager Site Lead
State Forest Manager
Colorado State Forest Service
59228 Highway 14
Walden, CO 80480
Phone: 970-723-4505
blair.rynearson@colostate.edu
Mike Battaglia Science Site Lead
Research Forester
Rocky Mountain Research Station, USDA Forest Service
Forest and Woodland Ecosystems Science Program
240 West Prospect Road
Fort Collins, CO 80526
Phone: 970-498-1286
michael.battaglia@usda.gov
Ethan Bucholz Site Lead
Forest Monitoring Program Manager
Colorado State Forest Service
3843 Laporte Ave.
Fort Collins, CO 80521
Phone: 314-757-0387
ethan.bucholz@colostate.edu
