April
1, 1993 Number 1 April
1, 1993 Number 1
N U T C R A C K E R N O T E S
A Research and Management Newsletter about Whitebark Pine Ecosystems
An information digest published by the USDA Forest Service, Intermountain Research Station IFSL, P.O. Box 8089, Missoula, MT 59807
Management News and Notes
Research News and Notes
Management News and Notes
BACKGROUND: Project identification and planning efforts began in 1986. Two separate areas in the Wheeler creek drainage were identified by Hungry Horse District Biologist Henry Rivera as areas where a prescribed fire could improve grizzly bear habitat. Primary prescribed fire objectives included 1) improvement of shrub and forb forage production, and especially in avalanche chutes use by bears in early spring; 2) reduction of conifer encroachment; and 3) reduction of fuel accumulation. There was also a seldom used, but appropriate, secondary objective of reintroducing fire as a disturbance into the ecosystem. The two areas encompassed approximately 300 acres and were located mid-slope on a southerly aspect above 5000 feet.
Flathead National Forest Fire Management staff determined in the spring of 1988 that it would be necessary to burn the areas in the fall to maximize the chances of meeting the objectives and reducing long-term risk. It was decided the ridge above the two areas would be used to initiate ignition so control problems would be minimized. Whitebark Pine was the dominant overstory species in the upper 1/3 of the slope. Direct firing through this type was planned and the two targeted areas were increased in size to 400 and 200 acres to include the whitebark component.
PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION: On October 13th, 1988 the decision to burn was made. The National Weather Service was forecasting a wet system to hit the area on the morning of October 14th. Temperatures, humidities, fuel moistures and winds were also in prescription. The only unknown was the effects of the drought conditions through the 1988 season to the live fuel moistures. Ignition was accomplished with the use of a helitorch. Fire intensities and flame lengths were the highest ever observed by Fire Management Officer Dave Bunnell on a project of this type with flame lengths of 150-200 feet. The gelled gasoline used for ignition typically falls through tree crowns to start ground fires, but the dry conditions caused the gel to ignite the crowns of the whitebark pine before reaching the ground.
CONCLUSIONS: This prescribed burn produced a fire intensity that is rated at the upper end of the scale. It approached any maximum observed intensity level recorded in this fuel type. It may serve as an upper level to compare future, less intense, applications. The fire behavior exhibited was by far more extreme due to the drought-like conditions of 1988 than would be typical in a wildfire in August of a normal or average year. Hopefully, monitoring of the area will answer the question of whether or not the prescribed burn was too intense. Currently this area appears to be getting heavy grizzly bear use during spring and summer. The area will continue to be monitored to assess the success of this exciting burn.
Two subsequent grizzly bear prescribed burns with similar objectives have occurred on the district since the fall of 1988. One was accomplished in the spring of 1992 and one in the fall of 1992. Both were conducted in whitebark pine forests. In both cases, the gelled fuel ignited some tree canopies but fire coverage on the ground was marginal. These burns may represent the lower end of prescribed fire applications. Resulting monitoring data may prove very different from the Wheeler Creek treatment. Although whitebark pine regeneration was not a primary objective, the effects of these treatments on whitebark pine establishment success will provide useful data for improving future burning prescriptions that include whitebark pine regeneration as an objective.
INTRODUCTION: Planting whitebark pines is an integral component of the Lewis and Clark National Forest's Beartree Challenge, a 5-year grizzly habitat improvement partnership with the timber industry and conservation education organizations. Fire suppression and blister rust have reduced the berry shrubfield and whitebark pine components on the Rocky Mountain District. A diminished food supply has contributed to a unique problem: When there are food shortages on National Forest System lands, grizzlies spend more time feeding on private ranches. Opportunities for livestock depredations and, of course, grizzly mortalities increase.
THE CHALLENGE: The Beartree Challenge uses three types of projects to keep grizzly bears in the mountains. Timber harvests in patches restore buffaloberry shrubfields. Planned burns maintain productive buffaloberry shrubfields by killing invading conifers. Whitebark pine plantings provide a future source of grizzly food and function as centers of whitebark dispersal. Whitebark pine seedlings are grown from seed collected on the Rocky Mountain District. Planting sites are selected along travel corridors used by grizzlies in the fall. Plantation are 3-5 acres within mixed conifer stands. Seedlings are widely spaced (100-150/acre) to maximize cone production. Multiple tree planting sites (2 or 3 seedlings/hole) are used for 50% of seedlings to mimic the caching strategy of Clark's nutcrackers. Each tree is flagged to aid annual monitoring efforts.
Three whitebark pine plantations have been established since 1989. All three sites are within stands burned by the Canyon Creek Fire in 1988. Seedling survival at the 1989 plantation was 79% after three years. At single-tree planting sites survival was 84% while at multiple-tree sites survival was only 75%. Most mortality occurred between Year 1 and Year 2. At our second plantation 95% of seedlings have survived after 1 year. We attribute high survival rates to shade provided by standing burned trees.
The collaborative approach of the Beartree Challenge has been employed in our whitebark plantings. Montana Logging Association foresters help plant trees and and San Francisco State University Wildland Studies classes assist with monitoring. The Intermountain Research Station is using data from these plantations for a regeneration study. Although we recognize that many of our seedlings may eventually die from blister rust, we hope that enough survive to provide a future source of grizzly food. Even if no seedlings survive, the knowledge furnished by these pioneer plantations should contribute to the success of blight-resistant plantings.
During the last sixty years a severe decline in whitebark pine has occurred in northern Idaho and northwestern Montana as a result of mountain pine beetle epidemics, white pine blister rust, and successional replacement by shade-tolerant subalpine fir and spruce as a result of fire suppression. Whitebark pine benefits from fire because it is more fire resistant than the fir and spruce and it readily recolonizes even large stand-replacement burns because its seeds are transported and cached in the soil by Clarks nutcrackers.
A biodiversity analysis was done as part of an Integrated Resource Analysis for the area south of Skalkaho Creek on the Darby Ranger District. During the landscape level assessment of the area, whitebark pine ecosystems were identified as the element most in danger of losing its integrity and it was listed as an issue or concern as well as an opportunity in the analysis. Once identified, we began building support for a non-traditional form of management on the District and Forest and approached researchers to help determine the best methods available for treating the sensitive systems. We gained the full support of the Ranger who feels we need to be managing ecosystems and this is a start. It will be addressed in the Environmental Impact Statement in progress along with other proposed actions. The funding for the project will not be as easy. We are currently trying to find various sources of funding to make this truly a multi-resource, ecosystem management project.
The proposed demonstration area covers a few hundred acres within and adjacent to a 1960's overstory removal cutting unit on an 8000-foot ridge east of Coyote Meadows in the Sapphire Range on the Bitterroot National Forest. The upper part of the unit is dominated by patches of small subalpine fir left by the logging. The original stand supported a mixed forest dominated by large whitebark pine. White pine blister rust infections are common, but have not yet caused much damage in this area. Proposed treatments include prescribed burning of fir thickets and an underburn of a decadent old whitebark pine stand to encourage pine regeneration. We will measure success of both artificial and natural regeneration of whitebark pine, and will test plant stock from apparent rust-resistant trees in heavily infected stands 30 miles farther west. In an adjacent young mixed stand that arose after a 1930's wildfire, we will test release cutting to favor existing whitebark pines.
The project is guided by a memorandum of understanding between the Bitterroot N.F. and the Intermountain Research Station. Project coordinators are Cathy Stewart for the Bitterroot N.F. and Clint Carlson (Missoula Forestry Sciences Laboratory) for the Intermountain Station.
SETTING: The Glacier View Ranger District is located just west of Glacier National Park and south of the Canadian border in the Flathead River drainage. The district is characterized by a deep valley and high ridge topography ranging from 3200 to 8000 feet in elevation. Recently retired silviculturist George Wilson has estimated one-third of the district's 300,000 acres have the potential to grow viable whitebark pine stands. Much of the species is in decline, weakened by blister rust and killed by mountain pine beetle. Since this area supports some of the largest concentrations of grizzly bear in the continental United States, implications for loss of whitebark pine habitat are tremendous, both for wildlife management and numerous other resources.
CURRENT ACTIVITIES: We have been active in initiating activities to support regeneration of whitebark pine in high mortality areas. One activity is the Hornet-Wedge timber sale, scheduled to be offered this summer. Six harvest units in the proposed action are located in stands that, previous to mortality, contained approximately fifty percent mature whitebark pine. The prescription calls for combinations of dozer piling and broadcast burning to create areas of bare mineral soil. In addition to facilitating the operational planting of lodgepole pine, it is hoped the site preparation will allow for Clark's nutcracker caching of whitebark pine seeds. Some live whitebark pine on adjacent and nearby ridge tops have been identified as being free of blister rust cankers and therefore possibly somewhat rust resistant. Future stand operations, such as precommercial thinning, will favor whitebark pine over all other tree species. A larger treatment area would have been desirable for whitebark pine management but unfavorable cumulative effects to other resources in the Hornet-Wedge area limited the acreage proposed to be treated in the whitebark pine zone.
FUTURE ACTIVITIES: We may be involved this summer with whitebark pine cone collections for Ray Hoff's adaptive genetic variation study. Tree improvement personnel may collect at least ten cones from each of ten trees in three different stands. If cone crops are not adequate for collecting this summer, this project may need to be delayed to later years.
ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT PROJECTS: The Flathead National Forest has recently been allocated funding for the initiation of two large Ecosystem Management projects. One of the projects will be the formulation of a comprehensive management plan for the whitebark pine resource in the Whitefish Divide mountain range. Planning will be conducted on National Forest, private, and state lands. The planning team will consider the use of large area prescribed burning, innovative silviculture techniques, and other state-of-the-art methodologies to help ensure the long term viability of whitebark pine ecosystems. Initial activities will include development and implementation of stand exam and ECODATA inventory procedures. This inventory will be designed to be useful for a wide range of ecologists and whitebark pine researchers. The planning team will be relying on the cooperation of individuals who are working with whitebark pine and high elevation ecosystems for new and innovative ideas. Those interested may contact Ken Meckel, planning team leader, at the Glacier View Ranger District.
Research News and Notes
In many localities in Idaho and Montana, whitebark pine has been decimated by blister rust, leaving just a few individuals per acre. Many of these remnant stands are adjacent to burns or clearcuts, and, in many cases, these openings contain high numbers of whitebark pine seedlings and saplings. There can be little doubt that this regeneration came from parents trees that are resistant to blister rust or, at least, have some genes for resistance that have enabled them to survive while others have died. If the new population had, for example, 500 trees per acre and if resistance to blister rust was just 10%, 50 mature trees would be expected to survive and have higher resistance than there parents. Each generation would add to the gain. What needs to be done is some very careful management. Whitebark pine is a poor competitor and therefore its growing area must be cleaned of other trees or competing shrubs. As a bonus this cleaning would make it possible to grow whitebark pine at somewhat lower elevations similar to its occurrence in the large burns of the past centuries. This would speed up the process of producing a new variety by permitting whitebark pine to reach its full potential growth rate.
We have found that whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis Engelm.) regenerates similarly to European and Asian stone pines. Our knowledge of this process is essential for management of whitebark pine.
Early research found that the Clark's nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana Wilson) is the primary seed dispersal agent for whitebark pine - extracting and caching seed up to 22 km from the source. Germination begins immediately after snow melt the following summer and continues through early September. Studies have shown that germination is influenced by 1) seed placement, 2) microsite factors such as shading and soil type, 3) seed dormancy mechanisms, 4) recovery by the Clark's nutcracker, and 5) discovery by other seed consumers such as rodents. Nearly 10 to 15 percent of whitebark pine seed germinate under natural conditions while nearly 90 percent germinate in the laboratory when portions of these hard seed coats are removed following stratification. Delayed germination of whitebark pine occurs for at least 3 years following sowing. Seedling survival is affected by biotic and microsite factors including drought, insolation, rodents, and frost heaving.
Results of plantation studies indicate that survival of planted whitebark is dependent on several environmental and biotic factors. Factors affecting plantation survival and growth are physiographic location in relation to cold air drainage, shading, aspect, vegetation type, and amount of pocket gopher activity.
Further research is needed to evaluate natural and artificial regeneration over a wider range of microsite/habitat type combinations.
Whitebark pine regeneration in the greater Yellowstone area by Diana Tomback
During the 1988 Yellowstone fires, whitebark pine forest communities in several areas, both inside and outside Yellowstone National Park, were burned in stand-replacement and mixed-mortality fires. Prior to the fires, these subalpine forests had served as critical grizzly bear habitat as well as home to a variety of wildlife. In cooperation with the Intermountain Station, Some graduate students and I began a five-year study of post-fire whitebark regeneration in the Greater Yellowstone Area in 1990. We placed 150 permanent plots north of Cooke City and 125 plots west of MT Washburn, divided among different ecological site types in both areas. To date, whitebark pine regeneration is underway, but some interesting patterns have emerged.
Despite an abundant cone crop in 1989, with Clark's nutcrackers observed to harvest and cache seeds, followed by few or no new cones in 1990, we saw virtually no whitebark pine regeneration until the 1991 field season. In 1991, whitebark pine seedlings, many in clusters from multi-seed nutcracker caches, occurred on all ecological site types but one (dry, unburned forest) at densities up to 0.030 regeneration sites per m2. In 1992 we had some new regeneration on moist, burned plots in both study areas, even though cone production in 1991 was sparse. Seedling survivorship from 1991 to 1992 was high, and total regeneration densities ranged from 0.002 to 0.038 sites per m2.
The yearly regeneration patterns we observed most likely resulted from delayed germination of whitebark pine seeds cached by nutcrackers in 1989. This phenomenon is rare among conifers, but common in whitebark pine. We reported on its occurrence in our post-fire regeneration studies in western Montana, and Ward McCaughey gathered experimental field data pertaining to delayed germination in his doctoral studies of whitebark pine regeneration. Delayed germination results in some continuity of regeneration over a period of several years. Seeds may respond to favorable moisture and temperature regimes.
Current Publications:
Keane, R.E., and S.F. Arno. 1993. Rapid decline of whitebark pine in western Montana -- Evidence from 20 year remeasurements. Western Journal of Applied Forestry (due out April 1993)
Events:
There will be a workshop on whitebark pine put on by the Gallatin National Forest on April 23 from 9:00 to 4:00. It will be held at the Montana State University Campus in Room 276 of the Student Union Building. All those interested should call Ward McCaughey for details (406-994-5036).
Author Addresses
Steve Arno, IFSL, P.O. Box 8089, Missoula, MT 59807 (S.ARNO:S22L01A)
Wally Bennett, FMO, Hungry Horse RD, Flathead National Forest, P.O. Box 340, Hungry Horse, MT 59919 (W.BENNETT:R01F10D06A)
Dave Bunnell, Fire Mgt Staff Officer, Flathead National Forest, 1935 3rd Ave East, Kalispell, MT 59901 (D.BUNNELL:R01F10A)
Seth Diamond, Wildlife Biologist, Lewis and Clark National Forest, Rocky Mountain District, 1102 Main Ave NW, Choteau, MT 59422 (S.DIAMOND:R01F15D01A)
Bryan Donner, Silviculturalist, Glacier View District, Flathead National Forest, P.O. Box W, Columbia Falls, MT 59912 (B.DONNER:R01F10D07A)
Ray Hoff, FSL, 1221 So. Main St., Moscow, ID 83843 (R.HOFF:S22L04A)
Ward McCaughey, FSL, South 7th Ave, Bozeman, MT 59717 (W.MCCAUGHEY:R01F11A)
Cathy Stewart, Silviculturalist, Bitterroot National Forest, Stevensville RD, 88 Main St, Stevensville, MT 59870 (C.STEWART:R01F03D01A)
Diana Tomback, Associate Professor, Dept Biology and Center for Environ. Sciences, University of Colorado at Denver, Denver, CO
Aims and Scope: The idea of creating NUTCRACKER NOTES developed spontaneously during a discussion on a whitebark pine field trip, while Clark's nutcrackers were chattering in the trees. Twenty of us were talking about the management needs in whitebark pine ecosystems on the Flathead National Forest. Someone mentioned the vital need for a newsletter for sharing information about these complex and perhaps threatened, but little-known, environments. And so, NUTCRACKER NOTES was born.
NUTCRACKER NOTES will be a forum for information on all facets of whitebark pine ecosystems. Summaries of research results and management projects in whitebark pine forests are presented to provide readers state-of-the-art information. Observations and ideas about whitebark pine ecosystems are also welcome. Many whitebark pine landscapes are experiencing profound changes. For example, recent studies have shown dramatic declines in whitebark pine populations in Northwest Montana with mortality rates averaging 42% over a 20 year period. The purpose of this newsletter is to distribute timely information so that land managers and scientists can understand and deal with these changes. Issues of NUTCRACKER NOTES will be numbered consecutively and published 1-3 times a year depending on available material.
Submission of Articles: Everyone is invited to submit news briefs to NUTCRACKER NOTES. These articles should be mailed to Nutcracker Notes, c/o Bob Keane, Intermountain Fire Sciences Lab, P.O. Box 8089, Missoula, MT 59807. If possible, they should be submitted electronically to B.KEANE:S22L01A over the Data General, or written to a floppy disc (WordPerfect text processing) and then mailed. You are encouraged to submit articles to improve this information network.
Newsletter Format: Articles submitted to NUTCRACKER NOTES will be presented in the newsletter under three main categories: Management News and Notes, Research News and Notes, and Publication and Events Alert. Management News describes current activities, problems, observations, conditions planned or implemented by land management agencies in whitebark pine forests. Research News describes current or planned research projects in these ecosystems. Publication and Events Alert is simply a list of current events and published information that may be of interest to readers of the newsletter. At the end of the newsletter the reader will find a complete list of all authors that submitted articles along with their addresses. Bob Keane, Editor
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