Research still underway after Camp Williams fire
Despite the recent fires at Camp Williams, no research being done through the USU department of wildland resources was affected because the findings were already completed before the fires could do damage.
Jamin Johanson, an ecological site specialist, said one of the three ecological sites he was working on at Camp Williams was affected by the fire, but the research had already been conducted. Now the site will be watched to see how quickly and what kind of species of plants will regrow.
“Much of the area that burned was a Gambel Oak site that had not burned in several decades,” Johanson said. “I suspect these acres will respond with rapid regrowth of the native species that previously dominated the area.”
Among the site where the fire occurred was an area that had been burned several times in the past 30 years. Johanson said this site will likely have a different outcome than the area where fires were not common. This outcome, he said, may not be very positive for Camp Williams.
“The high fire return interval will likely result in a reduction of native plant diversity and vigor, which will be replaced by increased Gambel Oak density and the undesirable grasses cheatgrass and bulbous bluegrass,” Johanson said. “Once these grasses dominate the Gambel Oak understory, Camp Williams may never be rid of them.”
The Gambel Oak could re-sprout this fall, Johanson said, if the weather remains warm enough through October. However, he said it is more likely the majority of “vigorous resprouting” will occur next May.
Johanson started working on his research in January 2009 and said he plans on defending his thesis this semester. His work had two primary functions, he said, the first, to classify and describe distinctive plant communities on range lands and second, to diagram possible changes in each plant community over time as a result of disturbance.
Johanson said this research is meant to inform land managers and researchers about the factors that drive plant community change on range lands.
“The principles outlined in the state-and-transition model for an ecological site can be applied anywhere in the region where that particular site is found,” he said.
Camp Williams has 12 distinctive plant communities, Johanson said. These 12 are found throughout the northeastern Great Basin and northern Wasatch Mountains. He said the decision was made to diagram three ecological sites: the grassland, sagebrush, and Gambel Oak sites.
“In order to see all of the existing plant communities for these three sites, we mapped each site using soil surveys and then drove all over northwestern Utah to find sampling locations,” Johanson said. “The resulting plant community diagrams (known as state-and-transition models) should help Camp Williams decide how to manage their range lands to achieve the desired plant community.”
The concept of ecological sites and state-and-transition models are relatively new, Johanson said, and posed many questions. However, there are no published studies like the one he is working on in journals. He said this is what made him interested in this work.
“I had already begun work for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Logan developing ecological sites and state-and-transition models when this research opportunity came about, and I had my own questions and ideas to pursue with this research,” Johanson said. “I hope our work on this project will improve our understanding of how ecological sites should be described and state-and-transition models developed.”
However, since this is the first study of its kind, the most important product, in Johanson’s opinion, is “the outline of principles for future state-and-transition model development.” He said standard guidelines were issued for USDA employees who were given the task to develop these models on a national scale.
Johanson said the most important part of his research as far as Camp Williams is the new framework for making management decisions based on a broader view of plant community dynamics and their ecological sites.
“Currently their management decisions are not organized this way,” he said.
– megan.b@aggiemail.usu.edu