Record Details
Small mammal responses to silvicultural fuels treatments in southwest Oregon
ScholarsArchive at Oregon State University
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Title | Small mammal responses to silvicultural fuels treatments in southwest Oregon |
| Names |
Manning, Jeffrey A.
(creator) Edge, W. Daniel (advisor) |
| Date Issued | 2002-09-13 (iso8601) |
| Note | Graduation date: 2003 |
| Abstract | Despite the belief that fuels management, a form of prescribed fire that reduces accumulated fuels in commercially thinned forests, is necessary to restore forest 'health' in the Pacific Northwest, its effects on wildlife has received little attention in the scientific literature. Because fuels management is supported, funded, and implemented nationwide under the Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy, it is imperative to understand how these management activities affect wildlife. In this field experiment, I used mark-recapture methods to examine community, population, and individual responses of small mammals one year following three fuels-management treatments (lop and scatter, pile, and pile/bum) in three commercially thinned Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) forest stands within the Applegate Adaptive Management Area of southwest Oregon. Fifteen species were captured during two years of study, and I found that fuels treatments did not appear to affect species richness or evenness, nor did they affect population densities and survival of the two most abundant species, deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus) and western red-backed vole (Clethrionomys californicus). In study plots where fuels provided variable distributions and amounts of cover, only deer mice used piled fuels significantly more than available while randomly using fuels that were lopped and scattered. Deer mouse numbers decreased and their home ranges increased with increasing distance from piled fuels. Thus, it appears that although these three fuels treatments do not affect the population density of deer mice in my study area, piled fuels do affect the distribution and home range size of individuals within these populations, leading to a shift in their local distribution. I hypothesize that environmental conditions created by the open canopy following thinning in this study may have led to poor-quality forest-floor habitat for small mammals, which could have dampened small mammal community- and population-level responses one year following fuels treatments. I recommend that future studies of wildlife responses to fuels management in the Pacific Northwest consider interactions between commercial thinning, fuels management, and regional climate conditions. |
| Genre | Thesis/Dissertation |
| Topic | Peromyscus maniculatus -- Effect of forest management on -- Oregon -- Jackson County |
| Identifier | http://hdl.handle.net/1957/20454 |
