Project Description: High-severity wildfires have been identified as a significant threat to the Jemez Mountains Salamander (JMS) that results in the loss of critical habitat elements and initiates rapid population declines (USFWS 2013). Fuels treatments (forest thinning and prescribed fire) that reduce fuel loads on the forest floor are planned as a strategy to reduce high-severity fire. Without adequate information to guide design and implementation, treatments may adversely alter JMS critical habitat elements and long-term population trajectories. No studies to date have evaluated the performance of fuels treatments for reducing the risk of high-severity fires, while protecting critical habitat elements for JMS. Without this effort, Valles Caldera National Preserve (VALL) and partners will not be able to make informed decisions, possibly resulting in further habitat loss and unintentional harm to JMS populations. Although the species was listed as federally-endangered in 2013, a recovery plan has not been developed in part because of a lack of information about how ongoing forest fuels management impacts JMS populations. Without this information, we will not be able inform range-wide recovery actions.
At present no information exists to enable an evaluation of the tradeoffs between treatment impacts and benefits to JMS populations in core habitat areas versus the potential of wildfire impacts. The proposed work expands on several years of research effort by the Principal Investigators, conducted in the Jemez Mountains and including: 1) refinement of methods for monitoring populations of P. neomexicanus, Karraker, unpublished data, 2018-2019; 2) assessments of site occupancy and surface activity patterns for P. neomexicanus associated with environmental monitoring (rainfall, surface temperature and relative humidity, subsurface temperature and moisture (Karraker and Loehman, unpublished data, 2020-present); 3) landscape-scale, spatial modeling of fire regimes and forest structure (Loehman, 2016-2019); and 4) instrumental monitoring of soil properties (biological activity and chemistry; surface and subsurface soil heating associated with varying fuel loads) before and after fuel treatments and prescribed fire (Loehman, unpublished data, 2018-2020). We also leverage decades of salamander surveys (1940s-present), forest inventories (National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service fire ecology monitoring networks, 1990-present), and spatial data characterizing fire severity, management activities, and stand composition and structure to evaluate the impacts of
active forest and fuels management versus wildfires of varying severities. The specific objectives of this work are to:
1) Quantify the relationships among JMS populations, forest characteristics, and temperature and moisture regimes prior to and following fuels treatments.
2) Identify surface active periods for JMS relative to temperature and moisture.
3) Create science-based BMPs and recovery actions for JMS.
Lead Principal Investigator: Dr. Nancy Karraker, University of Rhode Island
Partner Institution: University of Rhode Island
Federal Agency: National Park Service
Federal Agency Technical Contact: Robert Parmenter
Project Type: Research
Project Discipline: Natural Resources
Project Sub-Discipline: Biological (Ecology, Fish, Wildlife, Vegetation, T&E)
Start Year: 2023
End Year: 2025
Initial Funding Amount: $89,400.00
Federal Grant Number: P23AC00979
National Park or Protected Area: Valles Caldera (NPS)
State(s): New Mexico
Products Associated with this Project:
- No products found.