LITTLE RIVER ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT AREA
RESEARCH
AND MONITORING
Last updated: July 24, 2001
Title:
Sugar Pine Maintenance and Restoration
Purpose: Improve growing and establishment
conditions for sugar pine. Understand what treatments are needed to restore and
maintain sugar pine and minimize disease and insect impacts to this species.
Methods: Develop and test methods of thinning around remaining live
sugar pine trees (variable radius) to restore and maintain sugar pine
populations. Plant sugar pine within clearings in young Douglas-fir plantations
to determine if the species can be reestablished under these conditions.
Monitor: Sugar pine long-term survival, vigor, and regeneration
under different treatments.
Status: Initial Treatments (harvest, planting) completed in
2000. Follow-up work (pruning young
trees, clearing vegetation around remaining live sugar pine trees) to be
completed this year. Post-treatment
data collection is ongoing.
Location: Wolf Pine Timber Sale (FS and BLM) on the
Little River Adaptive management Area
Key Contact: Ellen Goheen, SW Oregon Forest Insect
& Disease Technical Center; Barbara Fontaine, Umpqua NF; Anne Boeder,
Roseburg BLM
Title:
Late-Successional Forests Prone to Fire
Purpose: Change unnaturally dense live and dead
standing vegetation structure in the surrounding landscape adjacent to the
northern spotted owl core areas to minimize risk of large catastrophic fires in
these forests. Asking how can forest structure be restored to more natural
densities to minimize fire risks and maintain habitat for late-successional
species?
Treatments: Develop and test methods using a
combination of thinning, group openings, prescribed understory fire, and snag
creation to restore late-successional forest structure that approximates the
natural fire regime on warm/dry slopes within the Little River Watershed.
Monitor: Pre- and post-treatment structure and composition of the
forest and develop a model to predict effects of prescribed fires on tree
survival under different burning parameters.
Status: EA completed in 1998.
Project enjoined by court order.
Location: Withrow Timber Sale (FS), Little River
Adaptive Management Area
Key Contact:
Barbara Fontaine, Umpqua NF; Ray Davies, Umpqua NF
Title:
Diversity in Douglas-fir Plantations
Issue: Much of the gentle terrain, moist/warm growing sites in
the watershed are managed as Douglas-fir plantations. These areas have little
diversity in vegetation structure and composition, unlike the forests that
preceded them. Historically, these sites burned less frequently, supporting a
high proportion of late-successional forests throughout the watershed. In their
current state, watershed processes in these areas, especially along riparian
systems, are impaired, and the plantations are unsuitable habitat for a wide
variety of animal and plant species.
Purpose: Provide future, late-successional forests and interior
forest habitats that reflect the aquatic and terrestrial species diversity and
conditions of the area prior to the 1940's. A 1,000-acre area in the White
Creek vicinity, harvested and planted in the late 1940's is undergoing thinning
and forest enhancement.
Treatments: Test the effectiveness of thinning
techniques to enhance biological diversity within both upland and riparian
plantations.
Learning: Determine how effective thinning
prescriptions are to increase bird species diversity and complexity of forest
structure while enhancing tree growth.
Monitor: Bird populations and plant abundance patterns.
Status: Breeding bird communities were sampled prior to thinning in
1996-1999. Treatments of
"traditional thinning" (remove 1/3 of the basal area) and thinning
with small (1/4 acre) size gaps will be compared to unthinned sites. Approximately 1/2 of the thinning has been occurred.
Location: Whitecap and Shadow Timber Sales (FS)
Key Contact: Mark Huff, PNW; Barbara Fontaine, Umpqua
NF
Title:
Restoration of Compacted Soils
Issue: Over the past several decades, routine tree harvesting
practices (e.g., using tractors) have compacted fine-textured soils on gentle slopes throughout the watershed.
In this area, reduced tree growth, shallow root development, trees prone to
windthrow, and poor soil water infiltration have been observed. Forest
productivity is reduced up to 30 percent compared to similar sites with
uncompacted soil.
Purpose: Determine if mechanical restoration methods are effective
and efficient for restoring soil structure in uncompacted soils.
Treatments: In 40+-year-old plantations, trees were
harvested in (6) 5-acre blocks, treatment was applied, and area was planted
with Douglas-fir and incense cedar.
Learning: Establish if subsoiling adn spot cultivation are practical methods
for restoring soil structure and functions in these fine-textured soils, as has
been found for coarser soils in eastern Oregon.
Monitor: Tree growth and changes in soil structure.
Current Status: Study was implemented and post-treatment
data collecion is on-going.
Location: Little River Adaptive Management Area,
Whitecap Timber Sale (FS)
Key Contact: Robert Powers, Sliviculture Research Lab,
Eureka, CA; Don Morrison, Umpqua NF
Title:
Water Quality Monitoring
Issue: Recent water quality monitoring in the Little River
Watershed has shown that many locations are exceeding state water quality
standards, which may be lethal to some aquatic organisms. Problems include high
pH and water temperatures, algae blooms, excessive sedimentation, and peak
flows that exceed natural conditions.
Purpose: Establish long-term monitoring stations to evaluate trends
in water quality throughout the watershed, including stream flow, pH,
temperature, dissolved oxygen, and other water chemistry parameters. Understand
the underlying causes and processes of the problems and develop corrective measures.
Learning: This baseline information will help
isolate the causes of these problems and guide future land management
activities to improve water quality.
Status: Two hydrolabs have been installed in Cavitt Creek and
Little River. Data will be posted to
the Little River AMA website.
Location: Little River Adaptive Management Area
Key Contact: Ed Rumbold, Roseburg BLM; Steve Hofford,
Umpqua National Forest;
Title:
Spawning Gravel Sedimentation Monitoring
Issue: Spawning habitat for anadromous fish is affected
negatively by sedimentation of "fine" materials by suffocating fish
during their early development.
Status: Sediment levels have been measured; the data were analyzed
and a summary report was completed.
Location: Little River Adaptive Management Area
Key Contact:
Barbara Fontaine, Umpqua NF;
Title:Proportional
Size Class Thinning
Issues: Stagnated tree growth and inadequate overstory diversity
in plantations.
Purpose: Increase spacing to improve growth and vigor of individual
trees of different size classes (structural diversity), enhance and prolong
habitat conditions suitable for Northern Spotted Owl foraging and dispersal,
and increase understory plant diversity in riparian and upland areas.
Methods: Use a proportional thinning approach to
retain trees across all diameter classes.
Learning: Measure changes in overstory and
understory composition and structure over time; use by spotted owls.
Status: Pretreatment data was collected and harvesting has been
completed. Initial post-treatment data
collection for the purpose of implementation monitoring has been completed.
Location: BLM: Sampson Butte commercial thinning.
Key Contact: Anne Boeder, Roseburg BLM
Title:
Retrospective Thinning Study
Purpose: How have past manipulation of overstory
tree density effected the growth and development of overstory and understory
vegetation in second-growth Douglas-fir stands throughout western Oregon.
Methods: Measure the woody composition and growth response to
historic thinnings by examining current stand conditions.
Status: Sampling completed; summary report completed and
published.
Specific projects: National Biological Service and BLM:
Component of regionwide retrospective study.
Key contacts: Anne Boeder, Roseburg BLM
Title:
Restoration of the Umpqua Mariposa Lily
Purpose: Umpqua mariposa lily (Calochortus umpquaensis) is endemic
to Oregon, restricted to serpentine soils, and listed as endangered by the
state of Oregon. This study will test ways to maintain or increase populations
of C. umpquaensis through habitat manipulations and maintenance programs.
Methods:
Evaluate the
effectiveness of proactive treatment on endangered species restoration. Follow the conservation strategy for this
species which includes prescribed burning, tree girdling, and thinning of
competing vegetation.
Status:
In the Little
River AMA, two projects are underway at Ace Williams Mountain. The first is a
research project where the effects of thinning (gap development) and burning on
calochortus growth and reproduction was tested. Two years of pre-treatment and
two years of post-treatment data was collected. Project design requires 7 years of post-treatment data. The
second project was a prescribed burn. The burn was conducted in October of 1999
and was limited to meadow habitat. The objective was to maintain habitat by
removing young invading conifers.
Key Contacts: Russ Holmes, Roseburg BLM; Nan Vance,
Pacific Northwest Research Station
Title:
Community Partnerships: Education and Ecosystem Management
Purpose: To provide local students with experiences that are
practical, problem solving, and educational in natural resources and ecosystem
management. Also to provide useable water quality information to the agencies.
Methods: Give hands-on experience with collecting water quality
data, geographic information systems, and internet communications. Characterize
water quality conditions throughout the Little River watershed using the local
community involvement. Water quality
data will be collected according to interagency protocols using portable
instrumentation.
Status: The Glide school
is in their 4th year of participation in this project.
Location: Glide School Memorandum of Understanding
(MOU).
Key Contacts: Anne Boeder, Roseburg BLM
Title:
E-Mile Regeneration Harvest and Commercial Thin
Purpose: The primary emphasis for the Little River AMA is to
develop and test approaches to the integration of intensive timber production
with restoration and maintenance of high quality riparian habitat. The project
will address annual harvest commitments and maintain or improve riparian
habitat and water quality.
Methods: Monitor point source erosion and impacts of road
restoration.
Status: EA completed. Project on hold to legal challenges.
Key Contacts: Anne Boeder, Roseburg BLM
Title:
Effects of Fire on Landscape Patterns and Processes
Purpose: Determine (1) the historical landscape
patterns and processes associated with fire events and compare these conditions
to current conditions and (2) how fire has effected landscape pattern and
processes historically.
Methods: Fire history was sampled from 125 sites selected from a
grid over the entire watershed.
Status: Master of Science
thesis was completed in 1998 by Kelli Van Norman at Oregon State University. A
review team of scientists and managers assessed the findings in the context of
stand and landscape management options. Further investigations into the use of
uneven-aged management to approximate fire disturbance are planned.
Location: Entire Little River AMA.
Key Contacts: Mark Huff, PNW; Kelli Van Norman, OSU
Title:
Juvenile Fish Outmigration Monitoring
Purpose: Establish a long-term monitoring station to evaluate
trends in juvenile fish production in the Little River basin, and determine
life history strategies and relative abundance of the different anadromous fish
species that use the basin.
Methods: rotary-screw smolt trap is used to trap, identify, and
count fish migrating from Little River from April through June.
Status: Annual monitoring.
Key contacts: Charley Wheeler, Roseburg BLM; Glenn Harkleroad, Umpqua NF