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Implications of sudden oak death for wildland fire management
Get PDFHuman activities and climate change have altered historical disturbance regimes, introduced disturbances, and encouraged novel interactions between multiple disturbances. Ecosystems and the species that comprise them may be poorly equipped to withstand or recover from these altered disturbance regimes. In the fire-prone coastal forests of California and Oregon, sudden oak death (SOD), caused by the pathogen Phytophthora ramorum, is an emerging, non-native plant disease that causes widespread tree mortality and associated implications for fire regimes. Disease-related tree mortality alters fuel loads, with patterns of fuel accumulation varying depending on stand composition, disease severity, and time since pathogen invasion. Simulations and observational studies suggest these altered fuel profiles can impact subsequent fire behavior, and the extent of this interaction may depend on the severity and timing of disease impacts. Initial tree death can elevate the risk of crown ignition, while latter stages can increase surface fuel loading and have been linked to increased fire severity in wildfires. Further, disease history can also influence fire severity with cascading effects leading to unexpected increases in mortality of non-susceptible tree species and changes in nutrient cycling. The longer-term impacts of SOD-fire interactions on system resilience and recovery remain to be seen, but increased fire severity, changed stand structure, and altered biogeochemical cycling may have important consequences for post-fire regeneration and future ecosystem function. Fuels management strategies that diminish crown fire hazards at early stages and mitigate surface fuel hazards at later stages offer some promise, but have yet to be tested in large landscapes. Given SOD-wildfire interactions, further integration of disease- and fire-related management plans will be essential to minimizing impacts of these compounded disturbances
Forest stand conditions after Phytophthora ramorum management in northern California: post-treatment observations inform future responses
Get PDFIn 2006, several isolated Phytophthora ramorum infested locations were selected just outside an 800-ha infested area in southern Humboldt County, California, for silvicultural treatments that targeted the removal and/or reduction of tanoak (Notholithocarpus densiflorus) and California bay laurel (Umbellularia californica), the main tree hosts supporting sporulation of P. ramorum. The treatments included cutting of hosts, cutting with burning, and herbicide removal. Important differences emerged between the treatment responses in shrub cover, tanoak resprouting, fuel loads, and host tree regeneration. In 2010, another isolated infestation was verified in northern Humboldt County. This infestation was 80 km away from the core infested area in southern Humboldt. Stand-level P. ramorum disease dynamic models and forest growth simulations parameterized with data collected in this northern infestation suggested that California bay laurel and tanoak thinning treatments may slow tanoak mortality, foster a greater component of mature tanoak over the next 100 years, and contribute to greater amounts of live-tree carbon. Reviewing these long-running, landscape-scale P. ramorum management projects provides a platform to inform future adaptive management of P. ramorum. This paper summarizes two presentations from the Sixth Sudden Oak Death Science Symposium held in June 2016 in San Francisco, California
Trumpestilence
Get PDFSince the contributions to this Special Issue consist of relatively brief statements, the Editorial Board of Konturen has decided to forego abstracts this time around. Please click on "html" or "pdf" below for the full document of this essay
How Do Undergraduates Research? A User Experience Experience
Get PDFIn 2010, the Oregon Tech Library moved to a new campus-wide content management system. This change, and the popularization of products such as LibGuides and Library a la Carte, inspired Oregon Tech librarians to develop new subject guides. As a means of participating in the new system and of saving money, the library created a subject guide format to be used on the web content management system, Sitefinity. The guide format was designed by a committee with librarian and library staff input, but without assistance from students— the target audience. As a result, the guides that were developed tended to be text heavy and riddled with library jargon that did not make sense to students. In addition, the guides were difficult to edit, resulting in dated content and frequent broken links. While instruction librarians would push relevant guides in their classes, they never caught on among students.
By 2014, Oregon Tech librarians were aware of problems with their subject guides and had begun to consider technology and formatting changes to make the guides more accessible. Two librarians attended usability courses (through Library Juice Academy and Acquia) and decided to employ usability research methods to design a guide format that would better meet student needs
Your Personal Librarian: Connecting First-Year Students to the Library at Reed College
Get PDFThink back to your first year of college. How did you feel? Eager? Excited? Maybe also fearful, anxious about fitting in, making friends, or being successful? First-year students have a lot on their minds. It can be challenging to help them forge a meaningful connection with the library. Amidst the internal cacophony generated by the transition to college and the slew of departments and services competing for their attention when they arrive on campus, they may not realize that the library is here to help, too.
The Reed College Library has had a Personal Librarian program for our first-year students since the 2011 academic year.1 We started our program after realizing that we were having a difficult time connecting with first-year students, for many of the reasons listed above. We were also inspired to start our program after realizing that our liaison model, in which each academic department at Reed is assigned a specific librarian as their subject liaison, might not be reaching students who had yet to declare a major. Finally, like many academic libraries, we were often facing slow traffic at our reference desk and were curious to explore alternative service models
Political Action and Your Library Association
Get PDFPolitical action. Libraries. The two seem to intersect more often than one might expect (unless one is a library worker, supporter, or patron; in which case it doesn’t seem terribly unusual). People in our line of work are often called upon to assume the mantle of library-worker-activists. These calls to action affect us in our various roles as professionals, as private citizens, and as members of the Oregon Library Association.
Our association supports Oregon libraries, the people who work in them, and the communities we serve. That commitment casts a wide net in a large state full of people with diverse backgrounds and different political ideas on both local and national levels. We may have a spectrum of personal political beliefs, but we have a unifying body of core values as library workers.
The people in leadership positions in the association, such as the president, vice president, and other executive board members are elected to serve you, the OLA members. We all work hard to speak up and stand up for Oregon libraries. That’s definitely a team effort. This work is ongoing, and we have guiding principles to direct us when issues appear murky
Antique Cloisonné Japanese Beads
Get PDFIntricate cloisonné beads in Japan track the 19th-century upheavals in technological development and society. While late Edo Japan had developed its own aesthetic based upon Chinese sources, the Meiji quest for Western technology produced a uniquely Japanese cloisonné industry unmatched elsewhere in the world. Cloisonné beads mirror this change, beginning in the 1830s with decorative motifs derived from Ming cloisonné and Edo glass beads, and morphing throughout the Meiji era into tiny masterpieces demonstrating a uniquely Japanese art form captured in advanced enamel technology
Change is the only Constant: Serving the Latinx Community With Help From REFORMA Oregon
Get PDFPart of the reason “change is the only constant” is cliché is because it holds true in many different contexts. Libraries are not what they were one hundred years ago. One could argue they are not even what they were fifty years ago. Societies evolve, populations fluctuate, and norms shift. As librarians, we are called to meet the needs of our patrons, though who or what falls under the umbrella term of “patrons” often depends on the library’s mission statement.
For the last few decades, the Latinx community has been seen as flourishing. Even with the recent decline in the growth rate following the recession discussed by Stepler and Lopez at the Pew Research Center (2016), the Latinx population continues to factor greatly into the changing social outlook of the United States. While not a perfect comparison, Columbia Gorge Community College Library (CGCC Library) has elements reflective of the phenomenon as a whole, though the evidence is more pronounced in the larger U.S. population. Compared to institutions in the Southwestern and Northeastern states, the Pacific Northwest, and rural Oregon in particular, appear to be taking longer to feel the fluctuations in Latinx demographics. This seems evident because public libraries in general have had a lengthier history of working with Latinxs than a very small, rural, Pacific Northwest, community college’s academic library like CGCC. Consequently, librarians like myself have an excellent opportunity to reflect more closely on what other libraries have accomplished so far and how it can be translated to institutions like ours. The REFORMA tagline is “the national association to promote library and information services to Latinxs and the Spanish-speaking,” and it’s five primary goals include activities like “advocacy on behalf of the information needs of the Latino community” and “development of Spanish-language and Latino-oriented library collections” (“About REFORMA,” n.d.). REFORMA OR is one chapter of this larger organization. The people that make up REFORMA OR represent many types, sizes, and populations of Oregon libraries; their workplaces run the gamut from tiny county libraries to large public research university libraries and everything in between. This characteristic of the chapter and organization — the variation in the libraries that REFORMA OR represents — is one of the primary benefits
