In Oregon the fire season typically lasts from mid-May to late September. As the climate changes so do the frequency and severity of the blazes. New generations of scientists are needed to help study the impact these natural disasters can have on the populations of fish and large fauna in the area. However, a less obvious ecosystem that can be affected by the fires is the microenvironment. We’ll hear more about that from this week’s guest Meagan White.
Meagan is a 3rd year M.S. student in the lab of Dr. Ivan Arismendi, a part of the Fisheries and Wildlife Department here at OSU. Meagan originally came to OSU from UC Santa Cruz. Interested in science from a young age, Meagan’s high school biotech teacher connected her with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The rest is history that we have the pleasure of hearing about on Inspiration Dissemination.
Tune into KBVR 88.7 FM at 7 pm PST on October 19th to hear Meagan talk about how a fire changed her research plans and how being a parent in graduate school has led her on an inspiring path.
Eastern Oregon consists of a multitude of landscapes such as high desert plains, rugged mountain ranges, and sweeping sagebrush steppe. Volcanic plateaus, deep river canyons, and wide valleys carved by ancient floods create a sense of space and solitude. However, despite the arid climate, much of Oregon’s agriculture thrives here. Supported by rivers and aquifers, farmers produce wheat, alfalfa, and hay and ranchers raise cattle and other livestock. Small farming and ranching communities anchor the area, where traditional agricultural practices blend with newer practices of sustainable land management and dryland farming.
But what happens when the rich agricultural landscape meets the rugged and wild natural ecosystems of eastern Oregon? Fourth year PhD student Lara Mengak aims to answer some of these questions. Her dissertation work is trying to understand what social and ecological threats impact ranchers in Oregon. What kinds of conflicts exist between natural predators, such as wolves, and livestock? What are the best ways to mitigate these conflicts? How do we manage landscapes to support wildlife conservation and agriculture? How do these things vary as a function of climate change or drought?
Lara at her field site in eastern Oregon, Starkey Experimental Forest and Range.
Lara’s work is unique in that she aims to blend social science and field-based ecological research to develop a deep understanding of human-wildlife conflict in eastern Oregon. Her surveys have brought in over 700 responses from ranchers across the entire state. In addition to these types of data, she spent two field seasons collecting data in the Starkey Experimental Forest and Range. She uses vegetation data to understand what types of plants are available to grazing animals like elk and livestock, and she also collected scat to use DNA metabarcoding to identify exactly which plant species are being grazed. She describes DNA metabarcoding, a technique that uses short, standardized sections of DNA, called barcodes, to identify species, similar to how a supermarket scanner uses barcodes to identify items in the store.
Lara assisting another graduate student in the capture of a Greater Sage-Grouse.
Lara had a variety of experience before starting her doctoral degree at Oregon State University. Originally from Georgia, she completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Georgia. She received her master’s degree at Virginia Tech in 2018, and has also worked as a research technician at various field sites across the country. She spent two years in Anchorage, Alaska, working for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game as a Wildlife Biologist. We are so excited to talk to Lara about her past work experiences and her current social and ecological research on October 12th at 7pm on KBVR 88.7, and afterwards, find her episode anywhere you listen to podcasts!
Got to keep those data sheets dry! Lara working on data collection in Starkey Experimental Forest and Range
To many of us inhabiting the Western half of the US, wildland firefighters are the heroes that put their lives on the line to save our lives, homes, and treasured natural landscapes. Behind the scenes however, researchers put in countless hours trying to understand the factors that contribute to forest fires, and the ecological impact that follows. Laken Alles, a masters student in the department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Sciences at OSU, has been on the front lines fighting fires and is now researching fire and habitat ecology in the lab of Lisa Ellsworth.
Laken’s work focuses on the Great Basin in Utah, which is also where he spent the majority of his career wildland firefighting. Nowadays Laken is observing how the implementation of different fuel treatments (fuel in this case being any flammable material in the ecosystem) affect future wild fires, as well as how invasive species like cheat grass can take hold in regions after a fire has burned through. Cheat grass is a highly invasive annual grass, and it is causing unprecedented ecological impacts in sagebrush ecosystems. Fire tends to favor cheatgrass over native plant species like sagebrush, so preventing fire-related invasions has been a major focus of cheatgrass mitigation efforts.
Tune in to 88.7FM at 7PM PST on October 5th, 2025 to hear all about the intricacies of wild fires, invasive cheat grass, and how one goes from the fire front lines to modeling fire outcomes. You can also listen live on KBVR’s website or wherever you get podcasts!
For more info about sagebrush restoration visit sagestep.org
