Pacific Southwest Research Station

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In The News

• Snorkeling With The Salmon In A Northern California River - Oregon Public Broadcasting (Nov. 1, 2018)
• The California Indigenous Peoples Using Fire for Agroforestry - Pacific Standard (Oct. 16, 2018)
• How Carbon Trading Became a Way of Life for California's Yurok Tribe - The New Yorker (Oct. 10, 2018)
• Why Many Northwest Animals And Plants Need Wildfire - Oregon Public Broadcasting (Oct. 5, 2018)

Recent News Releases

• Researchers piece together disparate records as disease closes in on western bats
  (Nov. 1, 2018)
• Smoke from wildfires has cooling effect on water temperatures
  (Oct. 9, 2018)

PSW Publications List

• August - October 2018
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PSW on the USDA Blog

• New tool helps California land managers predict tree mortality
  (February 5, 2018)

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• Researchers piece together disparate records as disease closes in on western bats
• Smoke from wildfires has cooling effect on water temperatures
• New publication to aid ecological restoration decisionmaking
• The draft Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) science synthesis is online
• Video: Learn about Rapid Ohia Death affecting ohia trees on Hawaii Island

A concerted effort by the scientific community has produced one of the largest and most complete datasets of recorded hibernacula in the western United States.

Smoke generated by wildfires can cool river and stream water temperatures, according to a new study in California’s Klamath River Basin.

Download our latest research paper, "Using species distribution models with climate change scenarios to aid ecological restoration decisionmaking for southern California shrublands."

PNW and PSW have developed the draft Northwest Forest Plan science synthesis, to help provide a scientific foundation for Forest Service land management plans in the northwest.

The Ohia: The Story of Hawaii's Tree is a video featuring PSW researchers explaining the Ohia tree and the impacts of Rapid Ohia Death.

Science that makes a difference.

The Pacific Southwest Research Station is a world leader in natural resources research through our scientific excellence and responsiveness to the needs of current and future generations.

We represent the research and development branch of the USDA Forest Service in the states of California and Hawaii and the U.S. affiliated Pacific Islands. Our mission is to develop and communicate science needed to sustain forest ecosystems and their benefits to society.

Restoring forest heterogeneity with thinning and prescribed fire

Download "Creating More Resilient Forests Through Active Management" to get additional information on how to create resilient landscapes.

Many western U.S. forests have become much denser and more homogenous in the relative absence of wildfire. Thinning can be used to reduce density, but standard thinning approaches do not typically restore the diverse structure of historical forests, consisting of groups of trees intermixed with small gaps.

On the Stanislaus-Tuolumne Experimental Forest, PSW researchers compared the structure created using a new thinning approach – variable density thinning - with more evenly thinned (low variability) stands and an unthinned control, all with or without prescribed fire.

Our results show that high variability thinning coupled with prescribed burning resulted in a forest better aligned with the conditions present in historical frequent-fire forests, which were known to be more resilient to both wildfire and drought.

The research was published in the journal, Forest Ecology and Management, and is available via Treesearch.

Passive monitoring techniques for evaluating atmospheric ozone and nitrogen exposure and deposition to California ecosystems

(GTR-PSW-257)

In this report, several alternative approaches for estimating N deposition are also considered as a guide for selecting appropriate techniques in ecosystem-effects studies in California and elsewhere.

Proceedings of the Coast Redwood Science Symposium—2016: past successes and future direction. Proceedings of a workshop

(GTR-PSW-258)

With its limited range and high value, the coast redwood forest is a microcosm of many of the emerging science and management issues facing today’s forested landscapes.

OP-Yield Version 1.00 user’s guide
(GTR-PSW-259)

OP-Yield is a Microsoft Excel™ spreadsheet with 14 specified user inputs to derive custom yield estimates using the original Oliver and Powers (1978) functions as the foundation. It presents yields for ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Lawson & C. Lawson) plantations in northern California.