By Kevin Robertson, PhD, Fire Ecology Program Director
In October, the Fire Ecology lab completed the eight annual census of the plant communities burned at various fire frequencies in half-acre plots on Pebble Hill Plantation. Within two 100 m2 plots per whole plot, we identify the species of every plant that can be found. The long-term objective is to determine how burning at different fire frequencies influences plant species composition, and how those changes relate to the fires themselves versus changes in plant competition during the fire-free intervals. The study was recently streamlined to focus on three fire frequencies, those with 2-year, 3-Year, and 5-year fire return intervals.
On average, the 100 m2 plots contain 97 species, and 367 species have been identified within the plots as a whole. After a few more years and a summary analysis, the project will identify ideal fire frequencies for maximizing plant biodiversity while shedding light on life history characteristics of many individual species as they relate to fire.
Chick survival and late quail hatch result in above average fall quail numbers
By Theron Terhune, PhD, Game Bird Program Director
Covey call counts on many properties in the Red Hills region and Albany area indicate populations are up from last year about 30% on average with some areas seeing even higher bumps than others. We attribute this uptick to both solid over-winter survival, carrying good bird numbers into the breeding season from the previous fall, and decent amounts of rainfall, which was fairly well distributed throughout the nesting season. Our new research using thermal imagery to count bobwhite chicks indicated that chick survival was good throughout the season with the exception of a short period in early July; more than 9 inches of rain occurred in 10 days with no respite of sunny days, which moderately taxed chicks on the ground during that time. Click on the following link to view a bobwhite chick brood via a FLIR thermal camerahttps://vimeo.com/80478365. (This video has been slowed down 25% to facilitate counting of the 12-day old chicks scattering when approached.)
In addition to good chick survival, we also observed a stellar late hatch this year. Greater than 40% of hens (Figure 1) in late-August and early-September were incubating nests and a large proportion of those successfully hatched. Many managers in the Albany and Red Hills regions corroborated this late hatch by seeing lots of young birds in September and October, which bodes well for fall recruitment.
Figure 1. Daily proportion of radio-tagged hens incubating nests during the 2013 breeding season. The red arrows in this graph indicate 3 primary peaks in nest incubation in terms of proportion of radio-tagged hens incubating nests.
Typically when good over-winter survival, good chick survival, a good late hatch, and favorable weather align in the same breeding season one would expect an increase in fall bobwhite abundance. However, looking at fall bobwhite densities on Tall Timbers (Figure 2), we did not observe the 30% increase like many other sites in the Red Hills region.
Figure 2. Autumn bobwhite density on Tall Timbers Research Station, 2007 – 2013.
We believe this is linked to high predator abundance reducing the amount of successful nesting attempts on Tall Timbers. In fact, we observed one of the lowest nest success rates (39%) ever documented at Tall Timbers this breeding season. High nest predation resulted in a very low overall brood (chick) production (see Figure 4) on Tall Timbers. Predator abundance on Tall Timbers this year was higher than our long-term average and much higher than the recommended predator index threshold (Figure 3).
Figure 3.Predator index estimated using scent stations on Tall Timbers, 2003 – 2013.
We have found that a predator index below 15% is the preferred range for optimal bobwhite production. For more information on how to implement scent stations and how to estimate the predator index click here.
During 2004 – 2006, as part of a larger research project on the effects of mammalian nest predation on northern bobwhite populations, Tall Timbers underwent an extensive trapping program to remove mammalian nest predators. However, since this time no trapping has occurred. Figure 3 demonstrates how quickly the predator population can respond when predation management ceases. In this study, we were interested in determining how changes in predator abundance influenced nesting success. Since 2006, despite higher than recommended predator indices, nesting success was relatively high (e.g., above 50%; see Figure 4).
Figure 4.Number of nests and broods per 100 hens on Tall Timbers, 2008 – 2013.
A key lesson here is that, despite high predator abundance and low nesting success, quail abundance remained above one quail per acre. This underpins the importance of sound management including maintenance of quality habitat and supplemental feeding, which are critically important to sustaining high survival of adults. When adult birds survive they can re-nest and ultimately produce young. At the same time, to maximize quail abundance, or grow a new or recovering quail population from low numbers, predator management is often necessary. In addition to high survival, this was a year of favorable weather, good chick survival, and a stellar late hatch (despite the predators) counterbalancing low nest productivity.
By Theron Terhune, PhD, Game Bird Program Director
The previous couple of hunting seasons (2011/12 and 2012/13) were tough, but the story for this hunting season was much more satisfying. Many factors during the past couple of years such as high over-winter survival and good hatches contributed to overall ample bird numbers at the start of the 2013/14 hunting season. This combined with cold and wet weather throughout the winter made for good hunting conditions for much of the season. However, the colder winter weather also brought with it a significant hawk migration. We observed higher than average hawk numbers during January and April (see Figure 1) compared to long-term trends as well as an increased number of Cooper’s hawk mortalities on radio-tagged birds at the peaks. This underscores the importance of effective burn timing and scale to minimize overall avian predation on bobwhites during the burning season. Burning in small blocks, 40 -75 acres, and staggering burns through time increases available cover in an area, gives cover a chance to rebound following a burn, and reduces bobwhite movement while increasing their chance for survival.
Figure 1. Raptor survey results for Tall Timbers during 2008 – 2013 (running 7-year average) and the first part of 2014.
A plethora of rainfall over the past 4-6 weeks has provided for a quick rebound in cover on recently burned sites which may lighten the potential impact of migrating hawks and other sources of predation on bobwhites. Despite higher than average hawk numbers this winter, bobwhite survival remains about average to only slightly below average, and we have managed to carry about half of last year’s birds into this breeding season. Based on bird behavior of radio-tagged individuals, covey break up is ongoing, and we suspect pairing and nest building is right around the corner, if not already underway. With a little rain, good management and some luck it is shaping up to be a strong hatch this year.
Tall Timbers has partnered with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), the Georgia Department of Natural Resources – Wildlife Resources Division (GADNR),and Quail Forever to help the northern bobwhite (quail) and youth shooting programs in Florida and Georgia.
All four organizations have signed a memorandum of agreement pledging that they will each provide mutually beneficial support to a project called the Florida/Georgia Quail Coalition, whose goal is to enhance, promote and conserve quality habitat for northern bobwhite and to promote and support youth shooting sports programs and education.The term of the agreement is for three years, and the four organizations each will appoint one authorized representative to serve on the Coalition’s steering committee.
Representatives from the Florida/Georgia Quail Coation, L-R: Howard Vincent, Pheasants/Quail Forever; Dan Forster, GADNR; Nick Wiley, FWC and Bill Palmer, Tall Timbers. They celebrated the partnership agreement, Wednesday, April 16 at Tall Timbers.
Quail Forever will provide one shared full-time position employee and one part-time position staff member. The organization also is charged with providing funding to establish, manage and monitor quail populations and habitat on public and private lands in Florida and Georgia, and to work with the Coalition to increase youth hunting opportunities on some of these lands once adequate bird populations and habitat have been restored. Also, Quail Forever is to provide funding from its local chapters to help pay the cost of youth shooting sports programs and scholastic shooting teams.
“Being a Georgia native and having been raised in a family which respects our upland hunting tradition, I am eager to see the positive effects which will be generated by this landmark partnership,” said Talbott Parten, Quail Forever’s regional representative for Georgia and Florida. “Knowing the commitment of the partners involved, it is my, and Quail Forever’s, firm belief that in the years to come, future generations of Georgia and Florida outdoorspeople will be able to look back at this partnership as a pivotal moment for the conservation of the bobwhite quail in the Southeast.”
Tall Timbers will serve as the fiscal agent to receive and disburse money provided by local Quail Forever chapters to pay for approved Coalition quail habitat projects. The Coalition enhances efforts of the Upland Ecosystem Restoration Project (UERP), which is housed at Tall Timbers. For more information on UERP, visit http://talltimbers.org/gb-UERP.html. Tall Timbers also agrees to house both Coalition employees by providing them office space and administrative support. “Coalition activities will energize restoration efforts by our agency partners in Florida and Georgia, and hold great promise to recover quail populations and other grassland birds on public lands,” Tall Timbers President/CEO Bill Palmer said.
Both states’ wildlife and conservation agencies have similar duties and responsibilities as outlined in the agreement. The FWC and GADNR are charged with providing leadership for youth shooting sports and quail habitat projects, and for the planning, implementation, monitoring and auditing of such projects and events.
“Only through collaborative efforts like the Florida/Georgia Quail Coalition will we be able to reach our conservation goals of more substantial habitat restoration for bobwhite quail and all species that depend on early successional habitat,” said GADNR’s Wildlife Resources Division Director Dan Forster. “Conservation and hunting go hand in hand so through supporting youth shooting sports programs and education we will complete the cycle that leads to success.”
“I feel really good about the partnership we have created here and the level of leadership,” said FWC Executive Director Nick Wiley. “I am confident that we have the ability and commitment to make some positive changes to help quail restoration in both our states.”
To increase and enhance quality quail habitat, money for projects will be spent on frequent small-scale prescribed burning, removing oak trees, roller-chopping dense palmettos and hardwood thickets and thinning rows of planted pine trees. The result of such management practices will create a forest and canopy that is more open, allowing sunlight to reach the forest floor, so that native grasses and weeds can grow, which provide quail food and cover from predators.
Effects of fuel and weather on fire behavior in longleaf pine-wiregrass communities
By Kevin Robertson, PhD, Fire Ecology Program Director
Upon wrapping up the ninth year of work at the Pebble Hill Fire Plots long-term research project on fire in longleaf pine-wiregrass communities, we have completed the first set of analyses examining the complex relationships among fire regime (1-4 year fire intervals in May-September for growing season burns and January-February for dormant season burns), fuel characteristics, and fire behavior. Our primary interest for this part of the project was to determine how time since fire changes the fuel bed, which leads to changes in fire behavior. This kind of information helps us predict what effects prescribed fire and wildfire have on fuel consumption, smoke production, and effects on plants and wildlife habitat.
We analyzed our data using Structural Equation Modeling, which is a method for analyzing multiple complex relationships among variables at the same time to better interpret how the system works as a whole. One of our preliminary findings was that the moisture of dead fine fuels, such as dead grasses and pine needle litter, does not have a strong influence on how much or how fast the fuel is consumed, although it appears to affect how fast fire spreads. Apparently the moisture in dead fine fuel is driven off by pre-heating prior to combustion as the fire approaches, such that the combustion processes themselves are similar regardless of initial moisture. Considering that this community type has an abundance of fine fuels in the form of grass and pine needles, this result helps explain why it is so flammable even under conditions of high relatively humidity and following very recent rain.
We also found that time since fire, which corresponds to fine fuel accumulation over time, surprisingly did not have a strong overall effect on reaction intensity, which is how fast heat is released per area of ground within the flaming front. This observation is in contrast to the typical prediction by fire behavior models such as BEHAVE, which is that reaction intensity increases with higher fuel loads. The lack of overall effect appears to be because of the canceling influences of higher fuel loads and total heat released tending to increase reaction intensity, while greater density of the fuel bed with time since fire and fuel accumulation tend to decrease reaction intensity. These results suggest that even relatively high fine fuel loads in pine savannahs following several years of fire exclusion, which is typical of restoration burns, can be managed with appropriate ignition techniques to minimize reaction intensity and associated tree crown scorch and rate of smoke production.
Our results will be used to evaluate and suggest improvements to fire behavior models where needed in order to provide more accurate fire behavior and effects predictions for fire practitioners. Our ultimate goal is to more effectively use fire to restore and maintain healthy pine communities and reduce wildfire risk in a manner protects public health and safety.
The M-CORES program, which includes the proposed Suncoast Connector Toll Road in Jefferson County, passed through the Florida Legislature at breakneck speed with little review or analysis. Tall Timbers has a number of concerns given the potential for significant and wide spread impacts. These include fragmenting public and private conservation lands, robbing business from Main Street Monticello, impacting our rivers and other water resources, and making prescribed fire more difficult and costly.
Join us in asking the Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners to OPPOSE the Suncoast Connector toll road and its path through Jefferson County.
Take action now with our easy email form.
Send an email to all five Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners with one click!
Burn prioritization modeling seminars and fire modeling tools are supported by Wildland Fire Science to train managers in the important planning stages of prescribed fires.
Educating and guiding the next generation of fire researchers and managers is a key goal of Wildland Fire Science and a resource for testing new ideas in fire research.
Tall Timbers hosts the premier fire technology transfer organization—the Southern Fire Exchange. This JFSP funded effort helps connect research to management through webinars, workshops, and support of the Prescribed Fire Science Consortium.
Working with partners in the Prescribed Fire Science Consortium, the program is building nexgen 3-D fuel beds using terrestrial LiDAR and novel sampling techniques to power new fire behavior models for prescribed fire managers. This work links to Tall Timbers work in wildlife habitat usage and ecological forestry.
The Longleaf Legacy landscape prescribed fire burn team arm of Wildland Fire Science works directly with landowners and partners to effectively put fire on the ground and promote prescribed fire throughout the region.
Tall Timbers is leading an effort to map fire regimes at the landscape scale. Staff work with numerous agencies to evaluate fire records and satellite imagery to build this critical conservation database. https://skfb.ly/6DqOY
Tall Timbers hosts the Prescribed Fire Science Consortium, a national network of researchers and managers who promote integrated research and management to advance next generation tools for fire practitioners. https://arcg.is/1DSjDT
We are linking physics and field observations to understand the fluid dynamics of fire behavior surface fire regimes. Our work combines field observations using advanced thermal imaging techniques, laboratory studies, and coupled fire-atmospheric modeling to help managers improve outcomes of managed fire regimes.
Selected Publications authored by Wildland Fire Science staff.
Staff and researchers support Federal fire training by serving as a cadre for NWCG training courses, ranging from basic wildland fire to advanced fire effects.
(PFTC) specializes in training fire fighters the principles and techniques of prescribed fire through practical hands-on experience. https://www.fws.gov/fire/pftc/
Private land owners are the largest source of prescribed fire in the country. These land owners and the culture of fire that was maintained by them during decades of suppression are a part of why Tall Timbers is a world-wide center for prescribed fire science. Workshops and fire training are a critical focus of the Longleaf Legacy Landscape Burn Team and our support of the Georgia Forestry Commission Prescribed Fire Center in Marion County.
The conserved lands of the Greater Red Hills region are found on working, income-producing properties that support agriculture, forestry, and recreational hunting. These properties contribute $272 million annually to local economies and support 2,300 jobs. [link to Planning & Advocacy section] The landowners’ strong stewardship ethic preserves their working lands while replenishing drinking water supplies, protecting water quality, and providing wildlife habitat for dozens of rare and endangered species. Tall Timbers’ conservation easements on these working properties encourage landowners to retain their traditional livelihood by keeping farms in family ownership.
Home to world-class wild quail populations, the Greater Red Hills region contains the largest concentration of gamebird preserves in the United States. These preserves also support the largest community of Red-cockaded woodpeckers on private lands. Indicators of high quality habitat found here include the gopher tortoise, Bachman’s sparrow, fox squirrel, and many amphibians. Tall Timbers’ conservation easements identify and protect the critical habitats of these species.
The region also boasts outstanding aquatic resources. Large river systems, like the Flint/Apalachicola, Ochlockonee, and Aucilla, flow from Georgia and feed into the Gulf of Mexico to support some of the world’s most productive estuaries. Large disappearing sinkhole lakes, like Iamonia, Miccosukee, and Jackson, provide habitat for an array of aquatic species and migratory birds. Tall Timbers’ conservation easements protect these vital watersheds and wetlands that are the lifeblood for the ecological health of the region.
Once dominated by longleaf pine, our pine woodlands support abundant wildlife and local economies. These forests need prescribed fire to stay healthy. Herbert L. Stoddard and his associates Ed and Roy Komarek were pioneers in this emerging scientific field during the mid-20th century. Tall Timbers continues that legacy with applied research on prescribed fire and land management. Today, there is a tremendous need to expand prescribed fire use beyond the Red Hills to ensure ecosystem health and reduce wildfire risk. Additionally, Tall Timbers uses conservation easements to permanently protect private woodlands while balancing the need for economic return from selective timbering.
“I feel really good about the partnership we have created here and the level of leadership,” said FWC Executive Director Nick Wiley. “I am confident that we have the ability and commitment to make some positive changes to help quail restoration in both our states.”
