Fire Ecology & Effects
Webinar recording.
Description: Changing disturbance regimes and climate can overcome forest ecosystem resilience. Following high-severity fire, forest recovery may be compromised by lack of tree seed sources, warmer and drier postfire climate, or short-interval reburning. A potential outcome of the loss of resilience is the conversion of the prefire forest to a different forest type or nonforest vegetation. Conversion implies major, extensive, and enduring changes in dominant species, life forms, or functions, with impacts on ecosystem services. The webinar will synthesize a growing body of evidence of fire-driven conversion and our understanding of its causes across western North America. Increasing forest vulnerability to changing fire activity and climate compels shifts in management approaches, and we propose key themes for applied research coproduced by scientists and managers to support decision-making in an era when the prefire forest may not return.
Presenters: Jonathan Coop, Western Colorado University; Sean Parks, US Forest Service; Camille Stevens-Rumann, Colorado State University
This open access book synthesizes leading-edge science and management information about forest and rangeland soils of the United States. It offers ways to better understand changing conditions and their impacts on soils, and explores directions that positively affect the future of forest and rangeland soil health. This book outlines soil processes and identifies the research needed to manage forest and rangeland soils in the United States. Chapters give an overview of the state of forest and rangeland soils research in the Nation, including multi-decadal programs (chapter 1), then summarizes various human-caused and natural impacts and their effects on soil carbon, hydrology, biogeochemistry, and biological diversity (chapters 2-5). Other chapters look at the effects of changing conditions on forest soils in wetland and urban settings (chapters 6-7). Impacts include: climate change, severe wildfires, invasive species, pests and diseases, pollution, and land use change. Chapter 8 considers approaches to maintaining or regaining forest and rangeland soil health in the face of these varied impacts. Mapping, monitoring, and data sharing are discussed in chapter 9 as ways to leverage scientific and human resources to address soil health at scales from the landscape to the individual parcel (monitoring networks, data sharing Web sites, and educational soils-centered programs are tabulated in appendix B). Chapter 10 highlights opportunities for deepening our understanding of soils and for sustaining long-term ecosystem health and appendix C summarizes research needs. Nine regional summaries (appendix A) offer a more detailed look at forest and rangeland soils in the United States and its Affiliates.
View literature review.
To inform future restoration efforts, we reviewed the known effects of fire and habitat management and restoration on hummingbirds in four key habitat types in North America. We examined seven species that most commonly occur west of the Rocky Mountains: Rufous (Selasphorus rufus), Calliope (S. calliope), Broad-tailed (S. platycercus), Costa’s (Calypte costae), Black-chinned (Archilochus alexandri), Anna’s
(Calypte anna), and Allen’s (S. sasin). Our review found that most western hummingbird species respond positively to wild or prescribed fire in forested and chaparral habitats of the western United States, although some hummingbird occurrence declines following fire, possibly due to the loss of preferred nesting habitat in mature forests. Restoration practices that eradicate exotic plants, encourage the regeneration of native shrubs
and flowering plants (especially understory vegetation), and promote early and midsuccessional habitats connected with native stand trees will benefit hummingbirds by providing foraging habitat in migration and on breeding grounds. Restoration practices that encourage the regeneration of native shrubs, understory vegetation, and native epiphytes, while maintaining forest canopy, can also benefit hummingbirds. We also identify many critical
research questions and needs which, if addressed, would improve the quantification of pre- and postfire and habitat management impacts on hummingbirds, especially Allen’s and Rufous populations, which are experiencing steep population declines.
Big sagebrush and scabland sagebrush communities responded uniquely to multiple fires, due to different fuel loadings, fire severities, succession and invasion dynamics. Big sagebrush experienced nearly complete shrub loss and conversion from exotic invaded‐shrubland to exotic annual grassland after only one fire. In contrast, scabland sagebrush retained a minor shrub component and higher relative cover of native herbaceous species, even after three fires. Both communities retained cover of native perennial grasses, including shallow‐ and deep‐rooted species, likely reflecting decreasing fire intensity with number of times burned.
Description: The event will provide leaders intent around the Cohesive Strategy moving forward and context for 2020 implementation to date.
Presenters: Vicki Christiansen, Chief, US Forest Service; Jeff Rupert, Director, Office of Wildland Fire, DOI; George Geissler, State Forester, Washington State DNR. Additional presenters will be announced in the coming weeks based on your suggested topics and questions.
Access the videos ranging from about 1:30-10:00 in length.
Two research fish biologists describe how fish in the Pacific Northwest have evolved with wildfire disturbances, and how considering this history can help inform management prescriptions for both wildfire and fisheries. Creative animation illuminates details of how wildfires can provide beneficial habitat for native fish species.
As MTBS data have been used over the course of many years and for many disparate applications, users should be aware that the MTBS burned area and severity products have been actively reviewed and revised to benefit from more robust satellite image availability and to address any observed quality issues. In a sample of 123 remapped fires, we found no significant change in the burned area boundary products when compared to the original mapped fires; however, significant changes did exist in the distribution of unburned, low, and moderate burn severity pixels within the thematic product.
Grasslands occur on all of the continents. They collectively constitute the largest ecosystem in the world, making up 40.5% of the terrestrial land area, excluding Greenland and Antarctica. Grasslands are not entirely natural because they have formed and developed under natural and anthropogenic pressures. Their importance now is to the variety of ecosystem services that they provide: livestock grazing areas, water catchments, biodiversity reserves, tourism sites, recreation areas, religious sites, wild food sources, and natural medicine sources. An important function of grasslands is their sequestration and storage of carbon (C). Mollisol soils of grasslands have deep organic matter horizons that make this vegetation type almost as important as forests for C fixation and storage. Fire has been and continues to be an important disturbance in grassland evolution and management. Natural wildfires have been a component of grasslands for over 300 million years and were important in creating and maintaining most of these ecosystems. Humans ignited fires over many millennia to improve habitat for animals and livestock. Prescribed fire practiced by humans is a component of modern grassland management. The incidence of wildfires in grasslands continues to grow as an issue as droughts persist in semi-arid regions. Knowledge of fire effects on grasslands has risen in importance to land managers because fire, as a disturbance process, is an integral part of the concept of ecosystem management and restoration ecology. Fire is an intrusive disturbance in both managed and wildland forests and grasslands. It initiates changes in ecosystems that affect the composition, structure, and patterns of vegetation on the landscape. It also affects the soil and water resources of ecosystems that are critical to overall ecosystem functions and processes.
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The avifauna within the Sky Islands of southeastern Arizona includes species found nowhere else in the United States, in part due to the availability of diverse habitats created by the mixing of Madrean and Cordilleran ecosystems. Neotropical migratory bird species visit these mountains, as well as many species typical of western North American montane forests. Birdwatchers from across the globe visit the region, providing a vibrant state and local ecotourism industry. Within the last two decades, the Sky Islands have been under increased stress associated with ongoing droughts and wildfires. Nearly every mountain range in the region has been impacted by wildfires. The largest wildfire was the 2011 Horseshoe Two Fire, which burned 90,307 hectares of the Chiricahua Mountains.