Advisors:
Dr. Rebecca Hufft, Dr. Michael Moore, and Dr. Diana Tomback
Date: April 29th, 2026
Time: 11:00am – 12:00pm
Location: Botanic Gardens FNC Classroom 3
Long-Term Impacts of Aerial Seeding During Fire Recovery in Lodgepole Pine (Pinus Contorta) Communities: Beaver Creek Fire, Colorado Case Study
Wildfires are continuing to increase globally in size, severity, and frequency. High severity wildfires cause land degradation and soil erosion, which may need to be mitigated via emergency stabilization practices. Land management agencies must determine and implement effective and efficient stabilization treatments to avoid further damage downstream with the most common practice being aerial seeding. Monitoring plots post-treatment informs agencies if the treatment is effective and how the landscape is recovering after significant disturbance. However, most monitoring efforts cease after the first year, and few studies are conducted in lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) communities. This study used trend data from the Assessment, Inventory and Monitoring Program (AIM) protocol utilized by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to assess the long-term effects of post-wildfire aerial seeding in a lodgepole pine community in Colorado after the Beaver Creek Fire. A previous 3-year study was compared to results collected 7 years after the fire to determine 1) if the vegetative recovery benchmarks created by the BLM were met in year 5 post-wildfire using the 7-year data, 2) if seeded versus non-seeded plots differ in lodgepole forest recovery vegetation metrics after 3 and 7 years post-treatment, 3) if the qualitative assessment from the original 3-year assessment have changed with the addition of the 7-year data, and 4) if the determination of impacts of post-high severity fire aerial seeding in a Lodgepole Pine community have changed with the 7-year data compared to the original 3- year assessment. Varying revegetation and bare soil metrics were analyzed using data from 2017, 2019, and 2024 to determine if seeded versus non-seeded plots located in high burn severity areas differed in forest recovery. This recovery showed to not be significantly different between treatment types based on almost every metric tested, except for Lodgepole Pine regeneration and an increase in native species diversity. Using long-term studies such as this can help influence and encourage adaptive management within land management agencies as the threat of historic wildfires continues to increase.