We are using remotely sensed data, field-sampled data, and geostatistical modeling to describe landscape-scale patterns of plant diversity and exotic invasions on the Cerro Grande Wildfire Site, Los Alamos, New Mexico.

The Cerro Grande fire began as a prescribed fuel treatment by Bandelier National Monument in May, 2000. The fire escaped control and became a wildfire that burned for three weeks over nearly 20,000 ha of land.



Portions of the burned Ponderosa pine forest had been thinned by prescribed burns before the wildfire. Post-fire burn severity and fuels sampling are helping us understand the effectiveness of such treatments, which are currently being applied to forests across the west. In addition, extensive areas have been seeded post-fire, and vegetation sampling over time is clarifying the fate of seeded species, their interaction with native species, and their contribution to the non-native species component of the biodiversity and fuels systems.

On Cerro Grande, we have established 100 multiscale vegetation plots in vegetation types ranging from low-elevation pinyon-juniper woodlands to high-elevation mixed conifer forests. The integration of remotely sensed data and GIS using geospatial statistics is a useful way to describe large and small scale variability on the landscape. Our spatial models are helping predict plant species richness of both native and exotic plant species (hotspots of diversity) and patterns of exotic plant invasions.

Also see:

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

Rocky Mountain National Park