PA C I F I C
Quarterly
N O R T H W E S T
Forest Inventory
& Analysis
Issue 6 / Spring 2006
Inside:
A Message From the Program Manager......1
Employee Profiles............................................2
Air Quality and FIA.........................................2
Recent PNW-FIA Publications......................4
Noteworthy Dates:
April 13, 2006: PNW-FIA client meeting,
Sacramento, CA. For more information,
see: http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/fia/news/
2006meeting.shtml
May 1, 2006: California, Oregon, and
Washington FIA field crews begin field work
May 30, 2006: Alaska FIA field crews begin
field work
June 1, 2006: PNW-FIA client meeting,
Anchorage, AK. For more information, call
Sally Campbell, 503-808-2034
June 30, 2006: 2000–2005 annual data for
Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and California
sent to the national FIA database (FIADB)
August 28–30, 2006: Nearest Neighbors
workshop, Minneapolis, MN. Sponsored
by the University of Minnesota. For more
information, see http://knn.gis.umn.edu/
meeting/
October 3–5, 2006: Inventory short course,
Portland, OR. Sponsored by the Western
Forestry and Conservation Association.
For more information, see: http://www.
westernforestry.org/largeinventory/
largeinventory.htm
October 16–19: National FIA science
symposium, Monterey, CA. For more
information, see: http://www.fia.fs.fed.us/
symposium/
Forest Inventory and Analysis
http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/fia/
Pacific Northwest Research Station
P.O. Box 3890
Portland, OR 97208-3890
Pacific Southwest Research Station
Box 245
Berkeley, California 94701
A Message From the Program Manager
Spring is here and we are diligently working on processing the 2005 data,
gearing up for the 2006 field season, making progress on satellite duty stations
for field crews, hiring energetic new employees, preparing for client meetings,
analyzing data, and concentrating on safety.
The Pacific Northwest Forest Inventory and Analysis (PNW-FIA) Safety committee, which was established to solve safety problems and provide emphasis
and information on safety issues, has been in place for 1 year. Last year’s topics
included poison oak (our most common incident); slips, trips, and falls (our
second most common incident type and the most costly); and general safety
awareness (which was presented through posters, newsletters, and surveys).
This year’s topics include guidelines for working alone in the woods (quality
assurance [QA] staff specifically), safety awareness, tailgate sessions, and more.
We will again be surveying the employees for their attitudes and issues.
Preparation for field season is in full swing. We are transitioning to satellite
duty stations for the majority of the crews, which will locate them in a variety of
cities throughout California, Oregon and Washington. The goal is to provide a
permanent base for crews to work out of rather than being assigned to Portland.
This will provide some continuity to the workforce and hopefully reduce costs
and improve morale.
We are filling a number of positions this year including a coordinator for
interior Alaska whom we hope will be on board soon. Interest in the interior
inventory is increasing so we are looking forward to having someone who can
help with the current coastal Alaska inventory while keeping an eye on the
logistics for the future. We are also filling the California data collection coordinator position as Paul Guarnaccia left us recently to pursue a career with the
National Forest System.
The 2005 data are scheduled for release in June 2006. In addition, we are
working with our partners in Region 5 and Region 6 of the Forest Service to
process, edit, and compile their intensified plot data that have been collected
over the last several years.
We are well along in the development of the 5-year reports for Oregon
and California. Meetings with our clients and partners provided a wealth of
topic ideas to help us describe the status, trends, and current issues within
the forested resources of each state.
On the research side of the program, we are actively involved in several
light detection and ranging (LIDAR) projects trying to (continued on page 2)
P A C I F I C
N O R T H W E S T
Forest Inventory & Analysis Quarterly
Employee Profiles
In each issue of our newsletter we profile some of
our employees and their roles and responsibilities
in the PNW-FIA program.
Meet Sally Campbell
A 26-year employee of the
Forest Service, Sally has been
with the PNW-FIA Program
for the last 5 years as the
Inventory Reporting Team
Leader. After receiving her
M.S. in plant pathology from
Oregon State University,
she was hired by the Forest
Service as a forest pathologist, specializing in
nursery diseases. The main focus of her current
job is providing leadership to a team responsible
for summarizing and communicating results of
forest inventories conducted in Alaska, California, Oregon, Washington, and the Pacific Islands,
developing quality assurance procedures for
annual inventories, and providing statistical
support to the program. She also has been closely
involved with protocols and analyses of insect
and disease, ozone injury, and other forest health
measurements, and is currently the leader of the
national analysis band (team). In her free time,
Sally gardens, cooks, plays music, and tries to keep
track of her sons who just graduated from the
University of Oregon and a husband who works
for the Forest Service in Prineville, Oregon.
Meet Sarah Jovan
Sarah is a lichenologist and
ecologist working at the
Pacific Northwest Research
Station. She is a recent addition to the PNW-FIA Inventory Reporting team,
working under a postdoctoral fellowship with Oregon
State University. Sarah received her Ph.D. from Oregon State University
last July (2005) under the guidance of Dr. Bruce
McCune, and her dissertation focused on applying
FIA lichen community data for air quality and
climate biomonitoring in California. Her research
continues at the Station where her current duties
involve working with the FIA lichen-air quality
models designed for California as well as the Pacific Northwest. She will be spending some time this
spring and summer in Alaska, training FIA crews in
lichen protocol and performing QA checks.When
not at work, Sarah likes to hike, look for mosses
and lichens, and participate each year in the Burning Man festival in Black Rock City, Nevada.
Issue 6 / Spring 2006
2
A Message From the Program Manager
(from page 1) understand the possibilities for using the technology to
enhance both data collection and the application of the inventory results.
We are getting closer to having an automated program to evaluate the
economics and risk impacts of fuels treatments (BioSum). We are also
working on invasive species, down woody material, riparian area
sampling, and spruce budworm impacts.
—Sue Willits, PNW-FIA Program Manager
Air Quality and FIA
Air pollution has the potential to affect forest productivity, structure,
and function. The FIA Program has two ecological indicators that we
measure to monitor the impacts of air pollution on our forest resources:
lichen communities and ozone biomonitoring.
Lichen Communities
Lichens are formed, as the old
saying goes, when a fungus and
algae take a “lichen” to each other.
Lichens are especially notorious
for their sensitivity to air quality,
which is an increasingly important stressor in our region. Forest
Inventory and Analysis crews
sample epiphytic (“tree-dwelling”)
lichens on a subsample of FIA
plots to determine the number of
species and the abundance of each;
the samples are then identified by
lichen experts. Analysts use this
lichen community data to build
models for estimating air quality and mapping patterns across
the landscape. Essentially these
models work by comparing the
presence and abundance of characteristically pollution-tolerant and
pollution-sensitive species living
on a plot.
We have recently made tremendous progress developing and
implementing this program (also
known as the “FIA Lichen Community Indicator”) in California,
Oregon, and Washington. Currently our region has three complete
models:
Most of the lichen is made up of the
fungal partner, which provides the
delicate algae partner shelter from
the elements. The algae photosynthesizes carbohydrates used by both
partners for food. Some species
are curiously hardy (some even inhabiting frozen rock in Antarctica!)
whereas others are exceptionally
sensitive to environmental change.
(1) Pacific Northwest Westside
model (includes Oregon and Washington forests west of the Cascades
crest, (2) the greater Central Valley
of California, and (3) the greater
Sierra Nevada of California. Some
notable highlights of this research
include:
• Nitrogen (N) appears to be an
important pollutant in all three
model areas. Ammonia-loving
(NH3) lichen indicator species
(like Xanthoria polycarpa) were
common or (oftentimes) prolific
in forests experiencing the worst
air quality. Pollution-sensitive
species (like Lobaria pulmonaria)
were usually rare at these impacted sites.
• The models suggested that
the worst air quality occurs in
forests near major metropolitan
P A C I F I C
N O R T H W E S T
Forest Inventory & Analysis Quarterly
health in the model areas. These
pollutants are quite common and
ecologically damaging in the Eastern
United States and parts of Europe.
For more information about the FIA
lichen indicator, visit http://www.fia.
fs.fed.us/program-features/indicators/
lichen/.
Ozone Biomonitoring
Xanthoria polycarpa, a pollution-tolerant
species.
Lobaria pulmonaria, a pollution-sensitive
species.
areas (e.g., Seattle, Portland, Sacramento, and Fresno) and agricultural
valleys. Poor air was likewise detected at some stands lying downwind
in the Cascades and Sierra Nevada
foothills.
• Other pollution hotspots include
forests near Yosemite and Sequoia
National Parks in the southwestern
Sierra Nevada, where lichen communities suggest elevated N deposition. Air also appears degraded in
the Columbia River Gorge National
Scenic Area.
• On the bright side, we can conclude
that sulfur-based pollutants are not
major, widespread threats to forest
Issue 6 / Spring 2006
3
Washington, and Alaska, crews visit
sites (biosites) that have several ozonesensitive species, evaluate foliage of 30
plants of each species, and record the
amount and severity of injury on any
•Number of California biosites visited
in 2005 = 65
•Number of biosites where one or
more indicator species showed ozone
injury (validated by expert) = 24
One of the forest health measure•Percentage of biosites with injury = 37
ments made by FIA is the amount and
•Indicator species with validated injury:
severity of injury caused by groundponderosa pine, Jeffrey pine, blue
level ozone (O3 ) to susceptible forest
elderberry, and skunkbush
plants (bioindicator plants). Groundlevel O3 is produced by the reaction,
damaged plants. Samples of injured
via sunlight, of oxygen with ozoneplant species are sent to an expert for
precursors emitted by automobiles
verification that the injury is truly
and various industries. Exposure
caused by ozone;
to phytotoxic
insects, freezing
levels of ozone
weather, or other
causes distinctive
pollutants can
symptoms to
cause leaf or needle
foliage, ranging
symptoms that can
from chlorotic
be confused with
(yellow) mottling
ozone injury. There
on pine needles
are over 60 ozone
to black-purple
biomonitoring sites
spotting between
in California, 35
the leaf veins of
in Oregon, 32 in
broad-leaved plants.
Washington, and
Field and laboratory
4 in Alaska (where
(fumigation)
we have just begun
experiments have
monitoring). The
identified ozone
same sites are
sensitive species.
revisited each
In the West, these
year. Ozone injury
include ponderosa
has been found
and Jeffrey pine,
Severe ozone injury on ponderosa pine.
almost exclusively
and red and blue
in California. Injury has been detected
elderberry, among others. Ozone
at only one site in Washington, in the
biomonitoring begins in the middle to
Columbia River Gorge, and at no sites
end of the summer, toward the end of
in Oregon and Alaska.
the growing season when plants are
For more information about the
fully leafed out and sunny weather has
FIA ozone indicator, visit http://
promoted an extended period of ozone
www.fiaozone.net/.
production. In California, Oregon,
Fried, J.S.; Gilless, K.J.; Spero, J. 2006.
Analysing initial attack on wildland fires
using stochastic simulation. International
Journal of Wildland Fire. 15: 137–146.
Radeloff, V.C., Hammer, R.B.; Stewart,
S.I.; Fried, J.S.; Holcomb, S.S.; McKeefry,
J.F. 2005. The wildland-urban interface in
the United States. Ecological Applications.
15(3): 799–805.
Vogt, C.A.; Winter, G.; Fried, J.S. 2005.
Predicting homeowners’ approval of
fuel management at the wildland-urban
interface using the theory of reasoned
action. Society and Natural Resources.
18: 337–354.
Waddell, K.L.; Barrett, T.M. 2005. Oak
woodlands and other hardwood forests
of California, 1990s. Resour. Bull. PNWRB-245. Portland, OR: U.S. Department
of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific
Northwest Research Station. 94 p.
Please visit our Web page at:
http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/fia/
Published by the
Pacific Northwest Research Station
P.O. Box 3890
Portland, OR 97208-3890
Sally Campbell, Managing Editor
scampbell01@fs.fed.us
(503) 808-2034
Keith Routman, Layout
kroutman@fs.fed.us
(503) 808-2129
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PACIFIC NORTHWEST
Bilek, E.M.; Skog, K.E.; Fried, J.; Christensen,
G. 2005. Fuel to burn: economics of
converting forest thinnings to energy
using BioMax in southern Oregon. Gen.
Tech. Rep. FLP-GTR-157. Madison, WI:
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest
Service, Forest Products Laboratory.
27 p.
Gray, A.N.; Azuma, D.L. 2005. Repeatability
and implementation of a forest vegetation
indicator. Ecological Indicators. 5: 57–71.
News for Pacific Northwest Research Station,
Forest Inventory and Analysis Clients, Employees,
and Retirees
Quarterly
Bevers, M.; Barrett, T. M., tech. comps.
2005. Systems analysis in forest resources:
proceedings of the 2003 symposium. Gen.
Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-656. Portland, OR:
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest
Service, Pacific Northwest Research
Station. 366 p.
Gray, A. 2005. Eight nonnative plants in
western Oregon forests: associations
with environment and management.
Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 100: 109–127.
Forest
Service
Forest Inventory
& Analysis
Barrett, T.M.; Gatziolis, D.; Fried, J.S.;
Waddell, K.L. 2006. Sudden oak death in
California: What is the potential? Journal
of Forestry. 103(9): 1–4.
United States
Department of Agriculture
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Pacific Northwest Research Station
Portland Forestry Sciences Laboratory
620 SW Main, Suite 400
P.O. Box 3890
Portland, OR 97208-3890
Recent PNW-FIA Publications