2,923 research outputs found
Marriage record of Stephens, Wallace L. and James, Amanda L.
No full textMarriage license for Wallace L. Stephens and Amanda L. James. Scott Bartley was the officiant
Mind Your Eye!
No full text1861-08-10Davis and Stephens are portrayed as jugglers attempting to control cannonballs labeled "McClellan," "McDowell," "Scott," and "Fremont." They are struggling as Stephens holds his foot in pain and an off-balance Davis is struck in the face by a cannonball. A sign in the background reads, "For a Short Time the Sepoy Brothers Davis & Stephens Wonderful Jugglers." At the start of the war Davis and his Vice President Stephens were forced to combat threats on many fronts with meager forces at hand. This forced them to juggle forces to meet threats at all points
Silvicultural implications from analyzing light induced height growth development of eight North American juvenile tree species in mixed-conifer forests
No full textCorrespondence regarding the construction of a museum
No full textThis 1945 correspondence, from Thurman Leatherwood to George M. Stephens, discusses the construction of a museum in Swain County, North Carolina. The letter is among the Horace Kephart papers. Horace Kephart (1862-1931) was a noted naturalist, woodsman, journalist, and author and promoter of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.|<?4-5"
c c
o o
p EDWARDS & LEATHERITOOD p
y Attorneys at Law y
Bryson City, N. G.
April 3, 1945
Mr. George M. Stephens
c/o Stephens Press
48 Vlalnut Street
Asheville, N. G.
Dear Mr. Stephens:
Mr. Stupka, of the Park Service, x'jas here a few days
ago to see about the Kephart property.
As I understand they plan to construct a museum in Swain
County as soon as possible after the war and would like to
place the property in the museum. This would be a fine thing
and I believe would meet the approval of all Mr. Kephart!s
friends. In the meantime, however, until the museum is constructed, I think it ?jould be well for us to hold the property.
I have talked with Mr. Kelly Bennett, who is a member of the
Kephart committee, and this, of course, meets with his approval,
Yours truly,
Sgd. Thurman Leatherwood.
L/
From Abolitionists to Fundamentalists: The transformation of the Wesleyan Methodists in the nineteenth and twentieth Centuries
No full textThis article analyzes the cultural trajectory of a small, but influential denomination that formed in 1843. Wesleyan Methodism first emerged as an abolitionist protest against the Methodist compromise with slavery. It drew in members who championed a range of antebellum social reforms, including abolitionism, pacifism, women’s rights, and temperance. By the early 20th century Wesleyans would become closely identified with fundamentalism, waging war against modernism, championing personal holiness, and maintaining a militant brand of protestant orthodoxy. This article places Wesleyans within a larger religious and cultural context of the Civil War era and the late 19th century disenchantment of the Gilded Age and Progressive Eras. It also traces the reasons for the Wesleyans shifting focus away from social reform and toward matters of personal holiness
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Managing novel forest ecosystems: understanding the past and present to build a resilient future
No full textUnprecedented anthropogenic global changes challenge the ability of societies to sustain desirable features of the environment. Some argue that we have entered a new global epoch where human activity is the major driver of environmental change. This is resoundingly true for American western forests, which have seen dramatic changes in disturbance regimes, species composition, and hydrologic and nutrient cycles due to fire suppression, air pollution, land use change, and climate change. These novel stressors have resulted in unprecedented conditions that may require new adaptive approaches to management focused on building resilience. The following research examines novel approaches to revitalizing a disturbance-dependent foundation tree species in the Sierra Nevada and reconstructs temporal and spatial components of historical fire regimes in the Sierra Nevada. These research threads help us understand how Sierran ecosystems functioned before Euro-American management, how these ecosystems are behaving today, and give insight into how we can manage for ecological resilience in the century to come.Aspen (Populus tremuloides) comprises only a small fraction (1%) of the Sierra Nevada landscape, yet contributes significant biological diversity to this range. There is currently a high level of concern in the Western United States about declining vigor in mature aspen stands that often lack sufficient regeneration to ensure their long-term persistence. It is also highly uncertain if aspen will be able to accommodate the rapid climate changes predicted for the next century via migration through seedling establishment. I the first two studies following, I report on the efficacy of aspen revitalization management strategies, post-wildfire regeneration dynamics, experimental human assisted migration, and recent aspen seedling establishment in the Lake Tahoe Basin and eastern Sierra Nevada. I find substantial evidence that greater disturbance severity yields increased aspen sprout density and growth rates. I also find compelling evidence that post-fire aspen ramets are robust transplant material, having higher transplant survival rates than ramets from unburned stands as well as greenhouse-grown seedlings. Fire is a key ecological process in dry mixed-conifer forests that historically burned frequently. Many of these forests on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada have been highly altered by a century of fire suppression, mining, logging, and land-use change, which have homogenized forest structure over large areas. Historical spatial and temporal patterns of fire can be used to inform current and future disturbance-based management seeking to restore ecosystem heterogeneity and resilience that had been supported by frequent low to moderate-severity fires prior to the twentieth century. Temporal patterns of historical fire are well known in these forests, but there is a high degree of uncertainty regarding the spatial dynamics of the pre-settlement fire regime. In the final study presented here, I reconstruct the spatial and temporal dynamics of wildfire from 1750-1900 in a 3000 ha mixed-conifer forest in the southern Sierra Nevada using data from 118 fire scared tree samples. Fire was once common in these forests that have not burned for 80-100 years, with mean fire return intervals from both spatially explicit and non-spatial temporal reconstructions ranging from 3-11 years. A vast majority of fires in this area (97%) occurred late in the growing season or during tree dormancy, and no significant controls on fire frequency were identified by slope aspect. Spatially explicit fire frequency reconstructions can aid in landscape-scale disturbance-based management aimed at increasing forest resilience and reducing fire risk
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California forest and shrubland ecosystem changes in relation to fire, fuel hazard, and climate change
No full textFire is an integral ecological process, however fire’s impacts have been dramatically altered by people. In this dissertation I researched how fire ecology use to work and the vulnerability of ecosystems to fuel hazard reduction treatments by using a combination of experiments and landscape scale natural experiments throughout California. One of the best places to understand past fire behavior are the Wildland Fire Use areas in Sierran mixed conifer where I revealed that a forests’ environment, local-scale fire experiences, and regional fire experiences foster a rich, but sparse understory plant community. Throughout Yosemite National Park’s mixed conifer zone I examined the fire ecology of climate change refugia which have unique fire occurrence and severity patterns in frequent-fire mixed conifer forests of California’s Sierra Nevada: cold-air pool refugia have less fire and if it occurs, it is lower severity. In Northern California’s chaparral I examined fuel hazard reduction treatments and found that mastication and fire each have negative, yet unique influences on plant communities and fuel hazards which warrant examining other methods to protect people from chaparral fires. Overall these studies allow greater insight into our ecosystems and may help managers make informed fire management decisions
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The Role of Fire in California’s Landscapes Across Spatial and Temporal Scales
No full textThe role of fire in California’s landscapes has dramatically changed in recent centuries with the arrival of European cultures and later by the influence of rapid climate change. Novel challenges face land and fire management in the forms of invasive species, human encroachment, severe fuel loads, and fire regime shifts. Because fire is a critical land management tool and natural process in California ecosystems, reintroducing prescribed fire to our ecosystems is increasingly necessary, but also more challenging than ever. It is now of utmost importance that we investigate and seek to understand the modern role of fire in historic, modern, and future ecosystems at multiple scales. First, I investigate the micro-scale effects of fire in an invaded ecosystem to elucidate how novel plant community dynamics in the face of fire. Studying fire-use related plant species interactions at the 1-m scale informs how we can expect plant communities to shift due to fire in the face of invasive species. This technique is a useful tool for managers and scientists to experiment with variations in fire-use to find ideal fire regimes in novel communities, and to prepare for fire-effects on plant communities. Second, I investigate prescribed fire effects across an invaded site of a similar plant community knowledge using information gained from these micro-scale investigations. Here I implement the knowledge gained from the micro-scale study, while incorporating more diverse investigations of fire effects, including soil nutrient and seedbank dynamics. This exploration allows for a more holistic understanding of fire-ecosystem interactions in these novel communities. The use of these intensive monitoring techniques on prescribed fire empower adaptive management by informing scientists and land managers of prescribed fire effects, and allowing for informed adjustments to practices based on results. Finally, I study the role of fire at a much larger scale through an investigation of seasonal conifer xylogenesis. By better understanding annual cambial development of California’s common mixed conifers, we can more accurately interpret fire scars and, in turn, California’s fire history. We can then also use this information to look to the future and inform decisions regarding management of our landscapes and firescapes in the face of rapid climate change
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Long-term Effects of Fire Hazard Reduction Treatments in the Southern Cascades and Northern Sierra Nevada, California
No full textHistoric fire regimes in the dry conifer forests of the southern Cascade and northern Sierra Nevada regions of California were characterized by relatively frequent fires of low and mixed severity. Human management practices since the mid-19th century have altered the disturbance role of fire in these dry yellow pine and mixed conifer forest ecosystems. Fire suppression, high-grade timber harvesting, and livestock grazing have reduced the frequency of burning and caused a shift in the structure and species composition of forest vegetation. These changes, including high levels of accumulated fuel and increased structural homogeneity and dominance of shade-tolerant tree species, combined with a warming climate, have rendered many stands susceptible to high-severity fire. In many forests of the western United States, wildfires are increasingly difficult and costly to control, and human communities are regularly threatened during the fire season.Treating wildland fuels to reduce wildfire hazards has become a primary focus of contemporary forest management, particularly in the wildland-urban interface. The specific objectives of treatment are diverse, but in general, treatments address accumulated surface fuels, the fuel ladders that carry fire into the forest canopy, and surface and canopy fuel continuity. These modifications to forest fuels can alleviate the severity of a future wildfire and support suppression activities through improved access and reduced fire intensity. While fuel reduction treatments are increasingly common in western forests, the long-term structural and ecological effects of treatment remain poorly understood. This dissertation uses a chronosequence of treated stands to examine the temporal influence of treatment on forest structure, the understory plant community, and wildfire hazard.The first chapter examines the effects of fuels reduction treatment on stand structure, overstory species composition, and ground and surface fuels. The stand structures and reduced surface fuel loads created by fuels modification are temporary, yet few studies have assessed the lifespan of treatment effects. The structural legacies of treatment were still present in the oldest treatment sites. Treatments reduced site occupancy (stand density and basal area) and increased quadratic mean diameter by approximately 50%. The contribution of shade-tolerant true firs to stand density was also reduced by treatment. Other stand characteristics, particularly timelag fuel loads, seedling density, and shrub cover, exhibited substantial variability, and differences between treatment age classes and between treatment and control groups were not statistically significant. The second chapter evaluates fuel treatment longevity based on potential wildfire behavior and effects on vegetation. Forest managers must divide scarce resources between fuel treatment maintenance, which is necessary to retain low hazard conditions in treated stands, and the construction of new treatments. Yet the most basic questions concerning the lifespan of treatment effectiveness have rarely been engaged in the literature. In this study, field-gathered fuels and vegetation data were used to aid fuel model selection and to parameterize a fire behavior and effects model, Fuels Management Analyst Plus. In addition, a semi-qualitative, semi-quantitative protocol was applied to assess ladder fuel hazard in field sampling plots. Untreated sites exhibited fire behavior that would challenge wildfire suppression efforts, and projected overstory mortality was considerable. In contrast, estimated fire behavior and severity were low to moderate in even the oldest fuel treatments, those sampled 8-26 years after treatment implementation. Findings indicate that in the forest types characteristic of the northern Sierra Nevada and southern Cascades, treatments for wildfire hazard reduction retain their effectiveness for more than 10-15 years and possibly beyond a quarter century.Fuel treatment activities disturb the forest floor, increase resource availability, and may introduce non-native plant propagules to forest stands. Non-native plant invasions can have profound consequences for ecosystem structure and function. For these reasons, there is concern that treatment for fire hazard reduction may promote invasion by exotic species. Several short-term studies have shown small increases in non-native abundance as a result of treatment, but the long-term effects have rarely been addressed in the literature. The final chapter examines treatment effects on the understory plant community and on cover of the forest floor, as mineral soil exposure has been linked to invasion. Regression tree analysis provided insights into the influence of treatment and site characteristics on these variables. Treatments increased forb and graminoid cover, but temporal trends in abundance were opposite. An initial increase in forb cover in the most recently treated sites was followed by a gradual decline, while mean graminoid cover was highest in the oldest treatments. Shrubs dominated live plant abundance. Shrub cover showed few temporal trends, but was negatively associated with canopy cover. Mineral soil exposure was increased by treatment and declined slowly over time, remaining elevated in the oldest treatments. Non-native plant species were very rare in the treatment sites sampled in this study. Despite the availability of bare mineral soil and the proximity of transportation corridors, a source of non-native propagules, non-natives were recorded in only 2% of sampling plots. This study suggests that forest disturbance associated with treatment for hazardous fuels reduction may not produce significant invasions in these forest types
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The role of disturbance in vegetation distribution, composition and structure at the landscape scale for two western US ecosystems
No full textDisturbance plays a key role in determining the structure, composition and function of ecosystems. Understanding disturbance regimes and their impacts on ecosystems is critical to understanding and managing these systems. This research examines how disturbance structures ecosystems at the landscape scale and how different disturbance agents interact. It is focused on two western US ecosystems: scrub and mixed evergreen forests of coastal northern California, USA and conifer forests of the western slope of the Cascade Mountains, Oregon, USA.Fire is one of the most important disturbances in western US ecosystems. Variations in the frequency, intensity and spatial scale of fire strongly influence patterns of plant community regeneration. However, because of the unpredictable nature of fire events, fire-vegetation dynamics are not well understood in some ecosystems. For example, the impacts of fire on landscape scale vegetation patterns in coastal northern California have previously not been documented. The first chapter documents landscape scale changes in vegetation communities at Point Reyes National Seashore following the 1995 Vision Fire. Following fire, I found substantial areas had transitioned from coastal scrub to ceanothus scrub (Ceanothus thyrsiflorus Eschsch.) or bishop pine (Pinus muricata D. Don) forest. Transitions from shrub to tree vegetation following fire have rarely been documented in this region. Logistic regression analysis was used to examine the factors influencing the post-fire distribution of bishop pine and ceanothus scrub. Proximity to pre-fire bishop pine stands and pre-fire vegetation type were the most important predictors of post-fire bishop pine regeneration. Pre-fire vegetation type, burn severity and topography were the most important predictors of post-fire ceanothus scrub distribution. Fire also has the potential to interact with other disturbance agents. In the Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii Mirb. Franco) and redwood (Sequoia sempervirens (D.Don) Endl.) forests of Point Reyes National Seashore, introduction of the non-native pathogen Phytophthora ramorum (S. Werres, A.W.A.M. de Cock), which causes the disease Sudden Oak Death (SOD), has led to landscape scale mortality of tanoaks (Notholithocarpus densiflorus (Hook. & Arn.) Manos, Cannon & S.H. Oh). As tanoaks die and fall to the forest floor, they not only change forest structure and composition, but also change fuel loads and potentially fire behavior. The second chapter documents increases in fuel loads over time in long term monitoring plots in Sudden Oak Death infested forests. Throughout the study, I observed a significant positive relationship between dead tanoak basal area and surface fuels. I used the fire behavior modeling program BehavePlus to compare potential fire behavior between diseased and healthy stands. Model outputs indicated the potential for longer flame lengths, higher rates of spread and more intense surface fire in diseased stands. Analysis of the relationship between dead tanoak basal area and understory composition indicated that non-native forb cover is increasing in response to increasing SOD-mortality. The third chapter focuses on the role of fire at the landscape scale in the conifer forests of the western Cascades at Crater Lake National Park, Oregon, USA. The west side forests of Crater Lake National Park are unique in that they represent one of the few places in the Cascade Range where an elevational gradient from low-elevation mixed conifer to high-elevation mountain hemlock forests remains intact and has never been logged. This presents a unique opportunity to study fire ecology in a place where fire can still function at the landscape scale. I examined stand structure, demography and reconstructed fire history using tree cores and fire scar data across an approximately 7000 hectare study area. Our plots were located in mountain hemlock (Tsuga mertensiana (Bong.) Carr), red fir (Abies magnifica A. Murr.), lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta Loudon) and mixed conifer forest types. Stand demography data from high elevation mountain hemlock forests showed continuous regeneration since the early 1600's with no fire scars present which is characteristic of very infrequent and/or low severity fire. Red fir forests showed a combination of both continuous and episodic regeneration over the past several centuries providing evidence for a mixed severity fire regime. Lodgepole pine stands were even-aged with no fire scar evidence and likely established following high severity fire events. Mixed-conifer forests were uneven-aged with the majority of trees established between 1880 and 1920. The median point fire return intervals for red fir and mixed conifer forests was 37.5 years. Taken collectively, these chapters illustrate the important role of disturbance, and specifically of fire, in shaping the two ecosystems studied here. This work also demonstrates the potential for other disturbance agents, in this case a non-native pathogen, to impact fire behavior and fire effects. Understanding the ecological role of disturbance is critical to land management and conservation, particularly in the context of climate change. As land managers move from concepts of "historic range of variability" to more sophisticated guiding principles, such as resilience, a strong mechanistic understanding of ecosystem function, including disturbance ecology, will be more critical than ever
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