1 00:00:14,340 --> 00:00:15,173 Good morning, everybody. 2 00:00:15,173 --> 00:00:17,490 I'm Ryan Rebozo, Director of Conservation Science 3 00:00:17,490 --> 00:00:19,320 with the Vermont Center for Ecostudies. 4 00:00:19,320 --> 00:00:22,440 I'm gonna talk today about a pilot monitoring project 5 00:00:22,440 --> 00:00:23,790 we got off the ground with our partners 6 00:00:23,790 --> 00:00:26,370 at Raritan Valley Community College and also in partnership 7 00:00:26,370 --> 00:00:29,313 with the Green Mountain National Forest and TNC. 8 00:00:30,471 --> 00:00:32,730 (indistinct) In just a minute, 9 00:00:32,730 --> 00:00:35,370 a real quick minute here on the natural community type 10 00:00:35,370 --> 00:00:36,990 that we're interested in. 11 00:00:36,990 --> 00:00:38,850 Dry oak forests can be found 12 00:00:38,850 --> 00:00:40,680 in all the states in FPMC region. 13 00:00:40,680 --> 00:00:43,230 They're considered an uncommon natural community. 14 00:00:43,230 --> 00:00:45,240 They're S3 in Vermont. 15 00:00:45,240 --> 00:00:47,220 As the name suggests, the components 16 00:00:47,220 --> 00:00:50,220 of sand and the soil maintain relatively dry conditions 17 00:00:50,220 --> 00:00:52,770 and it's dominated by red oak. 18 00:00:52,770 --> 00:00:55,380 To me, I'm interested in this natural community 19 00:00:55,380 --> 00:00:58,620 because as the use of fire 20 00:00:58,620 --> 00:01:00,150 is gaining interest in the Northeast 21 00:01:00,150 --> 00:01:02,280 as a management tool, and for good reasons, 22 00:01:02,280 --> 00:01:04,680 this is the type of habitat that kind of stands out 23 00:01:04,680 --> 00:01:08,292 as the potential, you know, use of fire 24 00:01:08,292 --> 00:01:10,440 to maintain this system. 25 00:01:10,440 --> 00:01:12,300 You look at the understories, they're dominated 26 00:01:12,300 --> 00:01:14,010 by Ericaceae shrubs and subshrubs, 27 00:01:14,010 --> 00:01:15,600 again, fire-adapted, 28 00:01:15,600 --> 00:01:17,820 but unlike some other systems that I've worked in, 29 00:01:17,820 --> 00:01:21,270 and luckily we're gonna hear more about in the next talk, 30 00:01:21,270 --> 00:01:23,640 pitch vines that are very fire-adapted. 31 00:01:23,640 --> 00:01:25,080 There's a lot of questions about the use 32 00:01:25,080 --> 00:01:27,030 of fire in oak systems. 33 00:01:27,030 --> 00:01:27,870 You look at the literature 34 00:01:27,870 --> 00:01:29,430 and you get a little bit of a mixed bag, right? 35 00:01:29,430 --> 00:01:31,680 You have opportunities where you see studies 36 00:01:31,680 --> 00:01:33,780 that have found really good examples 37 00:01:33,780 --> 00:01:35,640 of fire creating the conditions needed 38 00:01:35,640 --> 00:01:40,020 to maintain oak-dominated systems, maintain oak germination. 39 00:01:40,020 --> 00:01:42,960 But then you also have examples where the use 40 00:01:42,960 --> 00:01:46,320 of fire may have had detrimental effects to these species 41 00:01:46,320 --> 00:01:47,430 that we wanna prioritize. 42 00:01:47,430 --> 00:01:50,040 And the question is, how do we best monitor these systems 43 00:01:50,040 --> 00:01:52,320 to tell that story and identify where it's appropriate 44 00:01:52,320 --> 00:01:54,383 and if we're on the right track of management? 45 00:01:56,220 --> 00:01:57,870 All right, well, so we tried 46 00:01:57,870 --> 00:01:59,610 to look at a couple different things here, right? 47 00:01:59,610 --> 00:02:03,570 One is to develop this kind of robust list of variables 48 00:02:03,570 --> 00:02:05,220 that we might monitor 49 00:02:05,220 --> 00:02:07,110 that are gonna complement the common stand exam 50 00:02:07,110 --> 00:02:09,390 that the National Forest was using at the site, right? 51 00:02:09,390 --> 00:02:11,730 The kinds of things that we think can give us an idea 52 00:02:11,730 --> 00:02:14,670 of the conditions on site, initial response to fire, 53 00:02:14,670 --> 00:02:17,700 and how this system might be changing in its trajectory 54 00:02:17,700 --> 00:02:20,700 in time to see if we're reaching our management goals. 55 00:02:20,700 --> 00:02:21,900 Now, you know, the second piece 56 00:02:21,900 --> 00:02:23,280 of this is refining that a little bit. 57 00:02:23,280 --> 00:02:25,650 It's easy to throw out, you know, a bunch of variables 58 00:02:25,650 --> 00:02:27,840 to monitor, but we know as you add more conditions 59 00:02:27,840 --> 00:02:30,660 to look at in a monitoring protocol, takes longer to do 60 00:02:30,660 --> 00:02:31,950 and becomes more expensive. 61 00:02:31,950 --> 00:02:34,740 So my interest is taking a look at that broader scheme 62 00:02:34,740 --> 00:02:36,390 of variables and narrowing that down 63 00:02:36,390 --> 00:02:38,250 to which ones are really telling the story best 64 00:02:38,250 --> 00:02:40,410 and using that as as our monitoring protocol 65 00:02:40,410 --> 00:02:41,670 in moving forward. 66 00:02:41,670 --> 00:02:43,260 The third piece, which I really won't have time 67 00:02:43,260 --> 00:02:45,810 to talk about today, is taking a look at the use 68 00:02:45,810 --> 00:02:48,150 of technology to help us expand 69 00:02:48,150 --> 00:02:49,560 and improve upon our monitoring methods. 70 00:02:49,560 --> 00:02:51,270 So we did this in a few different ways. 71 00:02:51,270 --> 00:02:53,700 I'll touch on our use of drones a little later, 72 00:02:53,700 --> 00:02:55,590 but we used ARUs for some, you know, 73 00:02:55,590 --> 00:02:57,720 sound recordings at the community level. 74 00:02:57,720 --> 00:02:59,970 We used, this is a bad picture, 75 00:02:59,970 --> 00:03:03,330 but that down on the bottom is a BLK360 Leica scanner, 76 00:03:03,330 --> 00:03:06,150 so it allows us to take really high-definition scans 77 00:03:06,150 --> 00:03:08,460 of the forest understory that can really, again, 78 00:03:08,460 --> 00:03:10,290 be a useful tool moving forward. 79 00:03:10,290 --> 00:03:12,240 Again, the question is, are these pieces 80 00:03:12,240 --> 00:03:14,730 of tech worth that upfront cost? 81 00:03:14,730 --> 00:03:16,440 And what are we gonna gain in our kind 82 00:03:16,440 --> 00:03:17,970 of long-term monitoring sites? 83 00:03:17,970 --> 00:03:20,673 How is it gonna improve on our field-based methods? 84 00:03:22,470 --> 00:03:24,840 So I'm just gonna talk about a little piece 85 00:03:24,840 --> 00:03:27,840 of what we looked at that I think has applications 86 00:03:27,840 --> 00:03:30,660 beyond the use of fire, beyond oak habitats. 87 00:03:30,660 --> 00:03:33,540 And I'll just hit on our sites real quick. 88 00:03:33,540 --> 00:03:35,310 This was an opportunistic study, right? 89 00:03:35,310 --> 00:03:37,680 We had a chance to go in and visit a site 90 00:03:37,680 --> 00:03:39,960 after it had been prescribed burn. 91 00:03:39,960 --> 00:03:41,670 This was down in (indistinct) Vermont, 92 00:03:41,670 --> 00:03:42,930 in the Green Mountain National Forest, 93 00:03:42,930 --> 00:03:44,340 a site called the Dome. 94 00:03:44,340 --> 00:03:45,690 It's a pretty great example 95 00:03:45,690 --> 00:03:48,390 of this dry oak natural community. 96 00:03:48,390 --> 00:03:50,760 Conveniently, there's a trail that bisects it 97 00:03:50,760 --> 00:03:53,910 so that one half was subjected to a prescribed burn, 98 00:03:53,910 --> 00:03:56,370 the other half was left as an adjacent control. 99 00:03:56,370 --> 00:03:58,890 We also added a satellite control site up in Fairhaven. 100 00:03:58,890 --> 00:04:00,990 This is a property of the Great Ledge Natural Area, 101 00:04:00,990 --> 00:04:03,930 another prime example of dry oak habitat 102 00:04:03,930 --> 00:04:06,573 that's owned and managed by the Nature Conservancy. 103 00:04:07,710 --> 00:04:09,720 So I keep saying management, right? 104 00:04:09,720 --> 00:04:11,250 Prescribed fire is a management tool. 105 00:04:11,250 --> 00:04:12,930 So if you have it, if you're using a management tool, 106 00:04:12,930 --> 00:04:14,020 you have some management goals, right? 107 00:04:14,020 --> 00:04:16,860 So if we take a look at the five-year goals for the use 108 00:04:16,860 --> 00:04:20,130 of fire in these sites, it's going to address concerns 109 00:04:20,130 --> 00:04:22,020 with changes in species composition, right? 110 00:04:22,020 --> 00:04:24,210 The national forest is working to be good stewards 111 00:04:24,210 --> 00:04:25,860 of this natural community on their land 112 00:04:25,860 --> 00:04:26,693 and they're concerned 113 00:04:26,693 --> 00:04:29,130 that we have conditions of mesophication 114 00:04:29,130 --> 00:04:31,710 where you have species specifically called out beech 115 00:04:31,710 --> 00:04:35,370 and maple that are creating conditions that are beneficial 116 00:04:35,370 --> 00:04:37,770 to the germination of conspecifics 117 00:04:37,770 --> 00:04:40,020 more so than than some priority species, 118 00:04:40,020 --> 00:04:41,760 in this case red oak. 119 00:04:41,760 --> 00:04:43,500 So some of the five-year goals, 120 00:04:43,500 --> 00:04:46,080 reduce stem density of these species. 121 00:04:46,080 --> 00:04:47,880 In addition to beech and maple, 122 00:04:47,880 --> 00:04:50,070 birches and cherries were called out in the plan, 123 00:04:50,070 --> 00:04:52,800 and also use fire to increase the competitiveness of, 124 00:04:52,800 --> 00:04:55,710 in this case, red oak to maintain an oak-dominant system. 125 00:04:55,710 --> 00:04:58,620 So that is maintaining oak as the dominant canopy tree 126 00:04:58,620 --> 00:05:01,680 and also promoting oak seedling germination as well. 127 00:05:01,680 --> 00:05:03,690 That's the big, you know, five-year plan. 128 00:05:03,690 --> 00:05:05,520 But every specific fire 129 00:05:05,520 --> 00:05:07,080 has its own management goals as well. 130 00:05:07,080 --> 00:05:09,390 And we followed a bay fire where the goals 131 00:05:09,390 --> 00:05:13,350 were to introduce on the order of about 75% mortality 132 00:05:13,350 --> 00:05:16,440 to the sapling class, consume the duff layer about one 133 00:05:16,440 --> 00:05:18,963 to three inches, and reduce fuel load overall. 134 00:05:20,520 --> 00:05:22,620 Again, we kind of had this nice opportunity. 135 00:05:22,620 --> 00:05:25,050 It was again, opportunistic, taking advantage of management 136 00:05:25,050 --> 00:05:28,290 that was already ongoing on site to kind of pilot some 137 00:05:28,290 --> 00:05:29,520 of these strategies and some 138 00:05:29,520 --> 00:05:31,170 of these techniques in an area 139 00:05:31,170 --> 00:05:35,460 that was within the first year of regeneration after fire, 140 00:05:35,460 --> 00:05:38,430 and then control sites as well. 141 00:05:38,430 --> 00:05:40,830 So how do we do this? 142 00:05:40,830 --> 00:05:43,560 We wanted to start off with methodology that was accepted 143 00:05:43,560 --> 00:05:45,750 by the Forest Service and was easily replicated. 144 00:05:45,750 --> 00:05:47,910 So we worked with FIA Phase 3. 145 00:05:47,910 --> 00:05:49,770 A lot of you probably are familiar with this FIA. 146 00:05:49,770 --> 00:05:52,170 Forest Inventory Analysis has different phases 147 00:05:52,170 --> 00:05:54,540 and each phase gets a little more comprehensive. 148 00:05:54,540 --> 00:05:56,610 So Phase 3 I think does a good job 149 00:05:56,610 --> 00:05:59,550 of telling the story from our canopy trees, saplings, 150 00:05:59,550 --> 00:06:00,960 shrub layer, herbaceous plants, 151 00:06:00,960 --> 00:06:04,320 and things like woody debris, ground cover. 152 00:06:04,320 --> 00:06:05,670 It kind of paints a good picture 153 00:06:05,670 --> 00:06:08,430 and is, like I said, I think easy to replicate. 154 00:06:08,430 --> 00:06:10,980 I kind of have a little drawing there on the top right. 155 00:06:10,980 --> 00:06:13,740 Each of our sampling locations is broken up into subplots, 156 00:06:13,740 --> 00:06:15,630 micro plots, quadrants, transects, 157 00:06:15,630 --> 00:06:17,850 so that we're sampling at the appropriate scale 158 00:06:17,850 --> 00:06:20,100 for the variables that we're interested in. 159 00:06:20,100 --> 00:06:22,140 We won't really be able to hit on too many of these, 160 00:06:22,140 --> 00:06:23,820 but I'm gonna, again, just focus on one piece 161 00:06:23,820 --> 00:06:26,100 that I think is interesting that will tell us a story. 162 00:06:26,100 --> 00:06:27,570 Hopefully we can continue this 163 00:06:27,570 --> 00:06:30,480 and really get this idea of changes 164 00:06:30,480 --> 00:06:32,250 and succession over time. 165 00:06:32,250 --> 00:06:33,690 Don't worry about the colors here. 166 00:06:33,690 --> 00:06:35,130 They represent different species. 167 00:06:35,130 --> 00:06:37,290 I'll touch on that a little bit in the next slide. 168 00:06:37,290 --> 00:06:39,120 But what we're looking at is stem density 169 00:06:39,120 --> 00:06:40,260 by size classes, right? 170 00:06:40,260 --> 00:06:42,677 If we start on the left, our highest densities 171 00:06:42,677 --> 00:06:44,430 are in the seedling size classes, right? 172 00:06:44,430 --> 00:06:45,510 Exactly what we'd expect. 173 00:06:45,510 --> 00:06:48,660 These are gonna be first year plants that even in the case 174 00:06:48,660 --> 00:06:51,300 of the burn sites are germinating after the fire 175 00:06:51,300 --> 00:06:53,550 and they haven't experienced the mortality that we expect 176 00:06:53,550 --> 00:06:54,810 to see in this light class, right, 177 00:06:54,810 --> 00:06:56,430 where that density is gonna drop down. 178 00:06:56,430 --> 00:06:57,960 If we go over to the far right, 179 00:06:57,960 --> 00:06:59,880 these are our two largest size classes. 180 00:06:59,880 --> 00:07:02,720 These are your canopy trees, four to 10-inch dbh, 181 00:07:02,720 --> 00:07:06,540 and 10 plus plus inch dbh. 182 00:07:06,540 --> 00:07:08,190 You expect lower densities here, right? 183 00:07:08,190 --> 00:07:09,690 Larger trees, more space. 184 00:07:09,690 --> 00:07:11,508 They've been under competition for a longer time. 185 00:07:11,508 --> 00:07:13,170 These are the ones that are up in the canopy. 186 00:07:13,170 --> 00:07:15,570 I think I'm most interested in what's going on 187 00:07:15,570 --> 00:07:18,468 in these sapling categories, right? 188 00:07:18,468 --> 00:07:20,310 The ones that I'm particularly interested. 189 00:07:20,310 --> 00:07:23,730 The three- to five-foot saplings, five- to 10-foot saplings, 190 00:07:23,730 --> 00:07:25,710 and 10 plus foot saplings, right? 191 00:07:25,710 --> 00:07:27,390 I think what's interesting about these 192 00:07:27,390 --> 00:07:29,400 is they're obviously the connection 193 00:07:29,400 --> 00:07:31,200 between our seedling class 194 00:07:31,200 --> 00:07:33,690 that we wanna see recruited into the canopy, right? 195 00:07:33,690 --> 00:07:36,030 We wanna see kind of as much of the stem density 196 00:07:36,030 --> 00:07:37,200 as we can to survive 197 00:07:37,200 --> 00:07:39,870 and ultimately make their way into the canopy. 198 00:07:39,870 --> 00:07:41,160 It's also interesting to me 199 00:07:41,160 --> 00:07:43,440 because this is the size classes that from some 200 00:07:43,440 --> 00:07:45,810 of our previous work, and again with my partners 201 00:07:45,810 --> 00:07:47,850 at Raritan Valley College, we found that, 202 00:07:47,850 --> 00:07:51,510 you know, impacts to the sapling size class 203 00:07:51,510 --> 00:07:54,330 can take on the order of 10 to 15 years to recover. 204 00:07:54,330 --> 00:07:56,610 So this is kind of, you know, telling the story 205 00:07:56,610 --> 00:07:59,460 of what our trajectory is gonna look like. 206 00:07:59,460 --> 00:08:02,910 So we see lower densities in that size class. 207 00:08:02,910 --> 00:08:04,620 And now if we look at species composition, 208 00:08:04,620 --> 00:08:06,660 I think this tells another piece of the story, right? 209 00:08:06,660 --> 00:08:09,540 Some of that reduced density is by design, right? 210 00:08:09,540 --> 00:08:12,210 One of the management goals was to reduce stem density 211 00:08:12,210 --> 00:08:14,460 in the sapling layer by about 75%. 212 00:08:14,460 --> 00:08:16,440 And that was a success, right? 213 00:08:16,440 --> 00:08:18,630 It was on the order of about 90% for the three- 214 00:08:18,630 --> 00:08:22,410 to five-foot size class, 80% for the five- to 10-foot class, 215 00:08:22,410 --> 00:08:27,030 about 55% for 10 plus foot saplings. 216 00:08:27,030 --> 00:08:29,030 If we pay attention to just one color here for now, 217 00:08:29,030 --> 00:08:31,650 and not to, you know, get too crazy here, 218 00:08:31,650 --> 00:08:33,810 the dark blue is what we're looking for 219 00:08:33,810 --> 00:08:35,700 if we're interested in red oaks, right? 220 00:08:35,700 --> 00:08:38,280 So if we start on the right, we can see that the canopy, 221 00:08:38,280 --> 00:08:41,130 the largest diameter trees are still very much dominated 222 00:08:41,130 --> 00:08:42,270 by red oaks. 223 00:08:42,270 --> 00:08:44,670 If we work our way back over to the seedling class, 224 00:08:44,670 --> 00:08:46,830 we see that oaks are a component, 225 00:08:46,830 --> 00:08:48,840 but they're sharing space with a greater diversity 226 00:08:48,840 --> 00:08:50,340 of species at this size class. 227 00:08:51,450 --> 00:08:54,990 Slightly less seedling germination post-fire. 228 00:08:54,990 --> 00:08:57,510 And that, you know, probably makes good sense. 229 00:08:57,510 --> 00:08:58,740 You're gonna have some acorns consumed 230 00:08:58,740 --> 00:09:02,010 after the fire, those that weren't insulated by the duff. 231 00:09:02,010 --> 00:09:04,317 But even in our control sites, we had between 10% 232 00:09:04,317 --> 00:09:06,780 and 30% of the seedling community 233 00:09:06,780 --> 00:09:08,400 was still made up of red oak. 234 00:09:08,400 --> 00:09:10,530 What we're missing now is we're starting to see some 235 00:09:10,530 --> 00:09:12,270 of these oaks drop off when we're getting 236 00:09:12,270 --> 00:09:13,590 into that sapling class. 237 00:09:13,590 --> 00:09:14,640 And again, I think I tend 238 00:09:14,640 --> 00:09:17,310 to come at this from a population level, 239 00:09:17,310 --> 00:09:20,460 and if we're thinking about, you know, population viability 240 00:09:20,460 --> 00:09:21,690 of in this case oaks, 241 00:09:21,690 --> 00:09:24,210 we wanna see which life stage transitions 242 00:09:24,210 --> 00:09:25,410 will make the biggest impact 243 00:09:25,410 --> 00:09:26,850 to that viability in time, right? 244 00:09:26,850 --> 00:09:28,830 We don't have those data yet to make those assessments 245 00:09:28,830 --> 00:09:30,690 since it's kind of just our first stab at it. 246 00:09:30,690 --> 00:09:32,580 But it seems to me pretty likely 247 00:09:32,580 --> 00:09:35,040 that that transition from the seedling stage 248 00:09:35,040 --> 00:09:37,110 to have greater survivorship into the sapling 249 00:09:37,110 --> 00:09:40,680 is gonna really tell the story of the success of this site. 250 00:09:40,680 --> 00:09:43,740 Again, it's doesn't seem to be the case of fire 251 00:09:43,740 --> 00:09:47,760 for this low red oak composition in the sapling community 252 00:09:47,760 --> 00:09:52,143 because we're finding it in our two control sites as well. 253 00:09:53,370 --> 00:09:55,740 Kind of to round this out and try to identify what some 254 00:09:55,740 --> 00:09:57,540 of these selection pressures might be 255 00:09:57,540 --> 00:09:58,920 from going into the size class, 256 00:09:58,920 --> 00:10:00,690 we took a look at a couple other things, 257 00:10:00,690 --> 00:10:03,300 two of which included insect herbivory and deer browse. 258 00:10:03,300 --> 00:10:04,680 And probably not surprising to many, 259 00:10:04,680 --> 00:10:05,910 we found pretty high levels 260 00:10:05,910 --> 00:10:07,020 of deer browse on site on the order 261 00:10:07,020 --> 00:10:10,170 of about 80% in some of our sampling (indistinct). 262 00:10:10,170 --> 00:10:12,330 So what we did is we decided to take a good look 263 00:10:12,330 --> 00:10:15,600 at deer density on site, local densities, 264 00:10:15,600 --> 00:10:18,840 and we used a infrared camera on a drone for this. 265 00:10:18,840 --> 00:10:20,640 We did this in April. 266 00:10:20,640 --> 00:10:22,890 There's a couple reasons for that, right, prior to leaf out, 267 00:10:22,890 --> 00:10:25,140 so you have really good contrast of the deer 268 00:10:25,140 --> 00:10:26,700 with the surrounding area around them. 269 00:10:26,700 --> 00:10:29,310 So we have good confidence in our local estimates. 270 00:10:29,310 --> 00:10:30,900 It also, I believe, 271 00:10:30,900 --> 00:10:32,580 will give us the most conservative estimate 272 00:10:32,580 --> 00:10:33,570 of deer density on site 273 00:10:33,570 --> 00:10:35,310 because it's after the hunting season, 274 00:10:35,310 --> 00:10:38,220 after winter mortality, but before fawns are born, right? 275 00:10:38,220 --> 00:10:41,310 So we did this, we took into account average home range 276 00:10:41,310 --> 00:10:42,630 for deer in New England. 277 00:10:42,630 --> 00:10:44,850 We ran parallel transect lines 278 00:10:44,850 --> 00:10:46,830 with the drone about 500 feet apart. 279 00:10:46,830 --> 00:10:48,720 And you know, to me it's a way to have 280 00:10:48,720 --> 00:10:51,300 a really good confidence in your deer density 281 00:10:51,300 --> 00:10:53,850 and cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time. 282 00:10:53,850 --> 00:10:54,683 So what do we find? 283 00:10:54,683 --> 00:10:57,600 We found 10 and 12 deer per square mile, 284 00:10:57,600 --> 00:11:01,650 10 Green Mountain, 12 up at the Great Ledge Natural Area. 285 00:11:01,650 --> 00:11:05,340 And I think this might, you know, begin to round out 286 00:11:05,340 --> 00:11:08,160 that story about deer browse we're seeing on site. 287 00:11:08,160 --> 00:11:10,440 This is about the density that the literature suggests 288 00:11:10,440 --> 00:11:12,750 you start to see impacts to preferred browse species, 289 00:11:12,750 --> 00:11:13,800 and we certainly know red oak 290 00:11:13,800 --> 00:11:15,700 is a preferred browse species of deer. 291 00:11:16,560 --> 00:11:18,720 I think a couple other things to point out here, 292 00:11:18,720 --> 00:11:22,020 as I mentioned taking, doing these surveys in April 293 00:11:22,020 --> 00:11:24,270 to have our most conservative estimate, 294 00:11:24,270 --> 00:11:28,590 I think the last time I checked, some the estimates 295 00:11:28,590 --> 00:11:33,590 of the number of fawns per per doe in Vermont are about 1.6. 296 00:11:33,990 --> 00:11:36,180 So, you know, we're looking at about 10 297 00:11:36,180 --> 00:11:37,320 to 12 year per square mile. 298 00:11:37,320 --> 00:11:39,510 That number can go up as much as 60% 299 00:11:39,510 --> 00:11:41,430 during the brown season. 300 00:11:41,430 --> 00:11:43,260 I kind of highlight this specifically. 301 00:11:43,260 --> 00:11:45,270 This is just a piece of our larger monitoring 302 00:11:45,270 --> 00:11:48,120 because again, I mentioned I think this has applications 303 00:11:48,120 --> 00:11:49,650 beyond just fire and oaks, 304 00:11:49,650 --> 00:11:52,680 but can certainly tell a story here of one 305 00:11:52,680 --> 00:11:54,180 of these other conditions 306 00:11:54,180 --> 00:11:57,540 that we wanna take into account when we start 307 00:11:57,540 --> 00:12:00,150 judging our kind of management, our goal, 308 00:12:00,150 --> 00:12:02,130 our progress towards management goals, right? 309 00:12:02,130 --> 00:12:03,300 Are we getting there? 310 00:12:03,300 --> 00:12:04,860 What might be selection pressures? 311 00:12:04,860 --> 00:12:06,990 So fire did a few things successful 312 00:12:06,990 --> 00:12:08,850 right after introduction, right? 313 00:12:08,850 --> 00:12:11,670 It was able to consume the leaf litter, 314 00:12:11,670 --> 00:12:13,650 kind of working on that seed bed. 315 00:12:13,650 --> 00:12:15,870 We saw that in that we continued 316 00:12:15,870 --> 00:12:17,640 to get oak seedling germination 317 00:12:17,640 --> 00:12:19,950 after the fire, that same year after the fire. 318 00:12:19,950 --> 00:12:23,070 The targets for sapling mortality were reached. 319 00:12:23,070 --> 00:12:24,720 Invasives did not make their way into the sites. 320 00:12:24,720 --> 00:12:28,080 But that's another piece that I won't have time to get into. 321 00:12:28,080 --> 00:12:29,670 Time is gonna tell how our shrub 322 00:12:29,670 --> 00:12:32,070 and seedling response is gonna work, right? 323 00:12:32,070 --> 00:12:34,530 But as of now there is still good seedling germination. 324 00:12:34,530 --> 00:12:36,990 There's on the existing seed bed. 325 00:12:36,990 --> 00:12:40,050 One piece of the study was also taking a look at rare plants 326 00:12:40,050 --> 00:12:42,300 on site with the hope 327 00:12:42,300 --> 00:12:44,040 that if we continue this we can get an idea 328 00:12:44,040 --> 00:12:47,970 of how those populations track with fire, 329 00:12:47,970 --> 00:12:51,420 both initial response and long-term response. 330 00:12:51,420 --> 00:12:53,580 In addition to rare plant species themselves, 331 00:12:53,580 --> 00:12:56,850 we had a particular interest in plant species in genera 332 00:12:56,850 --> 00:12:59,160 that support rare or specialist pollinators. 333 00:12:59,160 --> 00:13:02,400 I think that's an interesting component 334 00:13:02,400 --> 00:13:04,320 if we're looking at more community level responses 335 00:13:04,320 --> 00:13:06,900 to fire to work into this monitoring plan. 336 00:13:06,900 --> 00:13:10,350 But some of the concerns is duff layer consumption 337 00:13:10,350 --> 00:13:13,530 wasn't reached, and that's not surprising, right? 338 00:13:13,530 --> 00:13:16,020 Duff layer holds a lot of moisture, gets compacted 339 00:13:16,020 --> 00:13:17,070 with snow load. 340 00:13:17,070 --> 00:13:19,890 It's very hard to consume that with a first 341 00:13:19,890 --> 00:13:22,190 or even sometimes second introduction to fire. 342 00:13:23,100 --> 00:13:25,830 So that's something that comes presumably in time. 343 00:13:25,830 --> 00:13:28,140 We're introducing more intense burns. 344 00:13:28,140 --> 00:13:30,990 And deer density does appear to be driving 345 00:13:30,990 --> 00:13:33,180 the life stage transition from some 346 00:13:33,180 --> 00:13:35,370 of these seedlings we have on site to saplings, 347 00:13:35,370 --> 00:13:37,890 probably more, or at least in addition 348 00:13:37,890 --> 00:13:40,320 to interspecific competition 349 00:13:40,320 --> 00:13:43,290 and what we think the fire might be doing onsite. 350 00:13:43,290 --> 00:13:46,290 So, you know, some concern on that level. 351 00:13:46,290 --> 00:13:48,450 I mentioned a little bit about these rare species. 352 00:13:48,450 --> 00:13:50,220 I think I'm just probably at time, 353 00:13:50,220 --> 00:13:52,020 so I'll take any questions you have. 354 00:14:00,060 --> 00:14:01,080 Yep. 355 00:14:01,080 --> 00:14:03,090 [Participant] Yeah, there's been a lot 356 00:14:03,090 --> 00:14:05,250 of controversy about oak dependence 357 00:14:05,250 --> 00:14:07,440 on fire, oak regeneration. 358 00:14:07,440 --> 00:14:12,210 Do you have any evidence of fires in these two places 359 00:14:12,210 --> 00:14:14,460 before you started the experiment? 360 00:14:14,460 --> 00:14:17,850 So, charcoal, historical records, that kind of thing? 361 00:14:17,850 --> 00:14:19,890 Yeah, not from my own data collection, 362 00:14:19,890 --> 00:14:22,530 but the Forest Service has done that work in the past 363 00:14:22,530 --> 00:14:24,570 and we have found fires in the past century 364 00:14:24,570 --> 00:14:25,530 at these sites. 365 00:14:25,530 --> 00:14:26,730 I think you're right, though. 366 00:14:26,730 --> 00:14:27,690 There is a lot of question 367 00:14:27,690 --> 00:14:31,920 and I think my interest was in dry oak habitat specifically 368 00:14:31,920 --> 00:14:33,540 because of that understory community 369 00:14:33,540 --> 00:14:36,090 that really suggests fire-adapted. 370 00:14:36,090 --> 00:14:38,490 I think there's a lot of questions as I'll turn, you know, 371 00:14:38,490 --> 00:14:42,150 what was past fire return interval, past intensities, right? 372 00:14:42,150 --> 00:14:43,590 I think there's a lot of questions there, 373 00:14:43,590 --> 00:14:45,960 more so than other fire-adapted systems, 374 00:14:45,960 --> 00:14:47,220 but I think there are some signs 375 00:14:47,220 --> 00:14:50,490 that suggest fire has played a role here in the past. 376 00:14:50,490 --> 00:14:51,450 Good question. Yep. 377 00:14:51,450 --> 00:14:53,490 [Participant] On that note, do we have any information 378 00:14:53,490 --> 00:14:55,890 about seasonality of fire historically, 379 00:14:55,890 --> 00:14:56,940 because at least in my region, 380 00:14:56,940 --> 00:14:59,220 we have hugely different responses 381 00:14:59,220 --> 00:15:00,930 from at least the (indistinct) community 382 00:15:00,930 --> 00:15:03,150 based on what season you burn in, 383 00:15:03,150 --> 00:15:04,590 whether it's spring or winter. 384 00:15:04,590 --> 00:15:05,940 Yeah, I think that's a big piece 385 00:15:05,940 --> 00:15:07,530 of fire management in general, right? 386 00:15:07,530 --> 00:15:09,150 I think if you're managing 387 00:15:09,150 --> 00:15:12,090 for fire-adapted species response, it's likely 388 00:15:12,090 --> 00:15:14,670 that growing season burns are gonna create the conditions 389 00:15:14,670 --> 00:15:16,470 that we often talk about fire doing, right? 390 00:15:16,470 --> 00:15:18,090 I think sometimes we talk about the use 391 00:15:18,090 --> 00:15:20,190 of fire in generalities that you're gonna introduce fire 392 00:15:20,190 --> 00:15:22,260 and you're gonna create all this early successional habitat 393 00:15:22,260 --> 00:15:23,280 or you're gonna consume duff layer. 394 00:15:23,280 --> 00:15:25,710 But that's often very difficult when fires are happening 395 00:15:25,710 --> 00:15:27,390 in late winter, early spring. 396 00:15:27,390 --> 00:15:30,630 I think, you know, under natural conditions sometimes spring 397 00:15:30,630 --> 00:15:32,430 and fall become the fire seasons 398 00:15:32,430 --> 00:15:34,920 because the leaf litter can dry a lot faster 399 00:15:34,920 --> 00:15:35,973 without the cover. 400 00:15:36,840 --> 00:15:37,958 But I think you're right. 401 00:15:37,958 --> 00:15:39,060 I think some of the limitations 402 00:15:39,060 --> 00:15:41,040 we might've seen, specifically with the duff layer, 403 00:15:41,040 --> 00:15:43,540 were due to the season in which the fire happened. 404 00:15:46,500 --> 00:15:47,490 Oh, yep. 405 00:15:47,490 --> 00:15:48,390 An online question. 406 00:15:48,390 --> 00:15:49,223 Sylvia? 407 00:15:50,670 --> 00:15:51,503 Hi, Ryan. 408 00:15:51,503 --> 00:15:52,530 This is Lindsay Ray Sylvia. 409 00:15:52,530 --> 00:15:53,430 Can you hear me all right? 410 00:15:53,430 --> 00:15:54,413 Yep. Yeah. 411 00:15:54,413 --> 00:15:56,010 Hey, field technician 412 00:15:56,010 --> 00:15:57,540 from the Green Mountain National Forest. 413 00:15:57,540 --> 00:15:59,010 To answer that first question 414 00:15:59,010 --> 00:16:01,920 or just to help provide a little more intel, 415 00:16:01,920 --> 00:16:05,100 we did have a sample of a red pine tree 416 00:16:05,100 --> 00:16:08,533 from the Dome analyzed by Dr. Mike Stambaugh, 417 00:16:08,533 --> 00:16:11,130 a dendrochronologist out of University of Missouri. 418 00:16:11,130 --> 00:16:15,630 And his analysis provided that the fire historical, 419 00:16:15,630 --> 00:16:19,800 like return interval was about that six to nine years apart. 420 00:16:19,800 --> 00:16:22,080 And that was up until guess when. 421 00:16:22,080 --> 00:16:23,675 Early 1900s, right? 422 00:16:23,675 --> 00:16:24,990 When fire suppression 423 00:16:24,990 --> 00:16:28,020 became more common on the landscape. 424 00:16:28,020 --> 00:16:30,600 So I just wanted to provide that as some intel 425 00:16:30,600 --> 00:16:33,480 to that original question about fire return 426 00:16:33,480 --> 00:16:34,893 and history on site. 427 00:16:35,970 --> 00:16:37,290 I think that's kind of an interesting piece 428 00:16:37,290 --> 00:16:39,300 because that's a very high fire return interval, 429 00:16:39,300 --> 00:16:40,350 especially for an oak forest, 430 00:16:40,350 --> 00:16:43,290 so that six to nine years is, thank you. 431 00:16:43,290 --> 00:16:45,990 [Participant] I'm curious what the canopy cover was 432 00:16:45,990 --> 00:16:47,557 and if you felt that there was too much 433 00:16:47,557 --> 00:16:49,557 overstory tree canopy in there 434 00:16:49,557 --> 00:16:51,870 and how that might've influenced, 435 00:16:51,870 --> 00:16:53,220 you know, the effects of the fire. 436 00:16:53,220 --> 00:16:54,060 Good question. 437 00:16:54,060 --> 00:16:56,400 In most cases where we kind of had that intact canopy 438 00:16:56,400 --> 00:16:59,190 was about 85% covered, so 15% openness. 439 00:16:59,190 --> 00:17:02,430 I think, you know, locally there was probably more light 440 00:17:02,430 --> 00:17:03,540 reaching the forest floor than that 441 00:17:03,540 --> 00:17:06,480 because there was plenty of signs of diseased beech 442 00:17:06,480 --> 00:17:07,650 and then we know that there has been 443 00:17:07,650 --> 00:17:10,563 spongy moth impacts there in the recent past. 444 00:17:11,670 --> 00:17:13,113 Another online question. 445 00:17:20,400 --> 00:17:21,683 [Participant] Hi. Thank you. 446 00:17:22,980 --> 00:17:25,650 I was just curious if you're aware 447 00:17:25,650 --> 00:17:28,890 of any fire-adapted communities 448 00:17:28,890 --> 00:17:32,820 that have kind of already succumbed to mesophication 449 00:17:32,820 --> 00:17:37,290 and whether you're aware of kind of what the threshold is 450 00:17:37,290 --> 00:17:41,310 or kind of like the point of no return for pulling those out 451 00:17:41,310 --> 00:17:42,993 of that process. 452 00:17:44,040 --> 00:17:45,720 That's a good question too. 453 00:17:45,720 --> 00:17:47,280 You know, I've read about examples 454 00:17:47,280 --> 00:17:49,140 of some of these areas that have gone 455 00:17:49,140 --> 00:17:50,490 through species composition change, 456 00:17:50,490 --> 00:17:52,950 whether they're oak forests or other fire-adapted systems. 457 00:17:52,950 --> 00:17:54,720 The point of no return is an interesting one 458 00:17:54,720 --> 00:17:56,760 and I don't think I have a good sense 459 00:17:56,760 --> 00:17:59,910 of what that might be, and that's probably specific 460 00:17:59,910 --> 00:18:00,930 to the natural community. 461 00:18:00,930 --> 00:18:03,000 It's probably specific to fire history 462 00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:03,833 and how, you know, 463 00:18:03,833 --> 00:18:06,060 fire could even have a chance to return it. 464 00:18:06,060 --> 00:18:08,810 But I don't have a good answer for that, unfortunately. 465 00:18:12,330 --> 00:18:14,190 [Participant] How thick is duff layer, 466 00:18:14,190 --> 00:18:16,253 and what kind of soil is it? 467 00:18:17,202 --> 00:18:19,760 So we did take a look at... 468 00:18:20,790 --> 00:18:21,810 It's a sandy loam, 469 00:18:21,810 --> 00:18:25,800 and I'm blanking on the name of the exact soil type. 470 00:18:25,800 --> 00:18:27,510 If it comes to me, I'll let you know. 471 00:18:27,510 --> 00:18:31,110 Duff layer was about five to six inches. 472 00:18:31,110 --> 00:18:34,770 And again, that was pretty consistent 473 00:18:34,770 --> 00:18:39,030 among both our two control sites and the burn site. 474 00:18:39,030 --> 00:18:44,030 Leaf litter at the burn site was much closer 475 00:18:44,580 --> 00:18:46,380 to what we had in our satellite control site, 476 00:18:46,380 --> 00:18:47,880 which had good seedling germination. 477 00:18:47,880 --> 00:18:51,246 So even with that thick duff layer, I think we have 478 00:18:51,246 --> 00:18:54,420 a seed bed that has the potential 479 00:18:54,420 --> 00:18:56,190 to kind of still maintain oak germination 480 00:18:56,190 --> 00:18:59,120 because we're seeing that on that satellite control side. 481 00:18:59,120 --> 00:19:00,450 [Announcer] I think that's all we had time for. 482 00:19:00,450 --> 00:19:02,226 We're gonna get them together for the next one. 483 00:19:02,226 --> 00:19:04,059 -Thank you. -All right.