THE AUTHORS 



DAVID L NELSON is plant pathologist with the Station's 

 shrub improvement and revegetation project at Provo, 

 Utah. His training in plant pathology is from Utah State 

 University and the University of California, Berkeley. He 

 studied native rusts of western conifers for the Station at 

 Logan, Utah, prior to his present assignment. 



CHARLES F. TIERNAN is ecologist for Cooperative 

 Forestry and Pest Management, Northern Region, 

 Missoula, Mont. He received a B.S. degree in 1963 in 

 forest management and an M.S. degree in 1965 in forest 

 entomology from Syracuse University, New York. Since 

 beginning Forest Service research in 1965, he has worked 

 on insecticide evaluation for the Pacific Southwest 

 Station, Berkeley, Calif.; interdisciplinary forestry and 

 teaching at Tuskegee Institute, Ala., for the Southern 

 Station; and research on the ecology of wildland shrub 

 insects at Reno, Nev., and Provo, Utah, and effect of 

 spruce budworm on seed production at Missoula, Mont., 

 for the Intermountain Station. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



The authors acknowledge the contribution of the many 

 USDA Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and 

 State Divisions of Wildlife Resources units throughout the 

 Western United States whose observations and survey re- 

 ports made this publication possible. E. Arlo Richardson, 

 State climatologist, at the Utah State Department of 

 Agriculture, gave valuable assistance to our interpretation 

 of weather records and insight into the winter injury 

 phenomenon. 



RESEARCH SUMMARY 



Extensive winter injury of native wildland shrubs 

 occurred in the Western United States during the winter 

 of 1976-77. Artemisia tridentata was damaged most 

 extensively followed by Ceanothus spp., Arctostaptiylos 

 spp., Purshia spp., and 32 other species of shrubs. The 

 record low precipitation during this period, and conse- 

 quential low snow cover in areas of normally heavy snow 

 cover, combined with other factors that led to the injury. 



Cover Photo— A mountain valley at the headwaters of the Big Lost River on the Challis National 

 Forest in south-central Idaho. Virtually all mountain big sagebrush plants were killed. 



