A new approach to ecological land classification for the Canadian boreal forest that integrates disturbances

Grondin, Pierre; Gauthier, Sylvie; Borcard, Daniel; Bergeron, Yves; Noël, Jean

doi:10.1007/s10980-013-9961-2

Cited by 45 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…For instance, we showed that climate and physical environment did not share any fraction of variance, although LDs close to each other were highly likely to share the same climatic and physical characteristics. Without controlling for spatial autocorrelation, a shared contribution-likely related to a type I error-could have been expected, as found by Grondin et al (2014).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

“…The fraction of variance shared between vegetation and physical environment was smaller in analyses performed with current vegetation than with potential vegetation. This could reflect the fact that physical environment is a greater determinant of potential vegetation than current vegetation, while the latter mainly results from the recent disturbance history (Leboeuf et al 2012;Grondin et al 2014). The fraction of variance brought by vegetation alone was greater and the fit of the model was better when using potential vegetation than current vegetation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This variable was used as an indicator of the type of fuel theoretically dominating an LD while minimizing the influence of the last disturbances that occurred. Potential vegetation represents a specific tree assemblage that was determined based on physical environment's characteristics, established vegetation, presence of indicator species, pre-established regeneration, and successional pathways (Grondin et al 2007 (Grondin et al 2014). This variable represents the dominant vegetation type that was present in an LD in 2009 (Leboeuf et al 2012).…”

Section: Vegetationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In fact, we showed that using current vegetation could bias the interpretation of results, mainly because it is highly determined by the recent disturbance history (Grondin et al 2014). First, recently burned LDs were classified as open in the current vegetation classification.…”

Section: Vegetationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Accounting for spatial autocorrelation improves the estimation of climate, physical environment and vegetation’s effects on boreal forest’s burn rates

et al. 2017

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Context Wildfires play a crucial role in maintaining ecological and societal functions of North American boreal forests. Because of their contagious way of spreading, using statistical methods dealing with spatial autocorrelation has become a major challenge in fire studies analyzing how environmental factors affect their spatial variability.Objectives We aimed to demonstrate the performance of a spatially explicit method accounting for spatial autocorrelation in burn rates modelling, and to use this method to determine the relative contribution of climate, physical environment and vegetation to the spatial variability of burn rates between 1972 and 2015. Methods Using a 482,000 km 2 territory located in the coniferous boreal forest of eastern Canada, we built and compared burn rates models with and without accounting for spatial autocorrelation. The relative contribution of climate, physical environment and vegetation to the burn rates variability was identified with variance partitioning. Results Accounting for spatial autocorrelation improved the models' performance by a factor of 1.5. Our method allowed the unadulterated extraction of the contribution of climate, physical environment and vegetation to the spatial variability of burn rates. This contribution was similar for the three groups of factors. The spatial autocorrelation extent was linked to the fire size distribution. Conclusions Accounting for spatial autocorrelation can highly improve models and avoids biased results and misinterpretation. Considering climate, physical environment and vegetation altogether is essential, especially when attempting to predict future area burned. In addition to the direct effect of climate, changes in vegetation could have important impacts on future burn rates.Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Vegetationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Vegetationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Accounting for spatial autocorrelation improves the estimation of climate, physical environment and vegetation’s effects on boreal forest’s burn rates

et al. 2017

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“…Habitat fragmentation results in a reduction in area, an increase in remnant isolation, the creation of edge, and an alteration in the habitat structure of the remnants, all of which may contribute either directly or indirectly to changes in species survival (Newmark et al, 2011). There are also other disturbance factors such as multiple cropping intensity, levels of fertilizer and pesticide use in cropland, and grassland management systems (Grondin et al, 2013;Kleijn et al, 2009;Kuemmerle et al, 2013;Tao et al, 2008;Vačkář et al, 2012;Yan et al, 2013). Different patterns of cropping intensity or land use management systems would exert varying pressure on local biodiversity.…”

Section: Limitations Of This Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Disturbance impacts of land use change on biodiversity conservation priority areas across China: 1990–2010

et al. 2015

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Land use change is one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss. In the last 20 years, China's land use pattern has undergone profound changes. This study constructs an Ecosystem Comprehensive Anthropogenic Disturbance Index (ECADI) to assess disturbance impacts of land use change between 1990 and 2010 on biodiversity conservation priority areas at national and regional scales. Four levels of biodiversity conservation areas were categorized: generally important areas, moderately important areas, important areas, and very important areas. The results indicated a higher ECADI value in 2010 in Central and Eastern China than in Western China, and the values of the moderately important, important and very important regions were lower than the average value of the whole country at all levels. Notably, in recent 20 years, the change extent of ECADI values in Central and Eastern China were much greater compared with that in Western China, and ECADI values in the moderately important, important and very important biodiversity conservation areas all showed increasing trends, with the increasing extent lower than that of whole China at all levels. Due to human activities such as urbanization in Eastern China and cropland reclamation in Northeast China and Xinjiang, ECADI values showed a medium increase trend (the change rate was about 1%-5% in 10 years), which indicated the need for more conservation efforts in those regions. However, ECADI values in the Loess Plateau presented a low decline trend (the change rate was about -1% to -0.1% in 10 years) after 2000 because of the obvious effectiveness of Green for Grain Project. Furthermore, the variation was negligible in the Tibetan Plateau.

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Ecological gradients driving the distribution of four Ericaceae in boreal Quebec, Canada

Thiffault

Grondin

Noël

et al. 2015

Ecology and Evolution

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Understory species play a significant role in forest ecosystem dynamics. As such, species of the Ericaceae family have a major effect on the regeneration of tree species in boreal ecosystems. It is thus imperative to understand the ecological gradients controlling their distribution and abundance, so that their impacts can be taken into account in sustainable forest management. Using innovative analytical techniques from landscape ecology, we aimed to position, along ecological gradients, four Ericaceae found in the boreal forest of Quebec (Canada) (Rhododendron groenlandicum, Kalmia angustifolia, Chamaedaphne calyculata, and Vaccinium spp), to regionalize these species into landscape units relevant to forest management, and to estimate the relative importance of several ecological drivers (climate, disturbances, stand attributes, and physical environment) that control the species distribution and abundance. We conducted our study in boreal Quebec, over a study area covering 535,355 km2. We used data from 15,339 ecological survey plots and forest maps to characterize 1422 ecological districts covering the study region. We evaluated the relative proportion of each ericaceous species and explanatory variables at the district level. Vegetation and explanatory variables matrices were used to conduct redundancy, cluster, and variation partitioning analyses. We observed that ericaceous species are mainly distributed in the western part of the study area and each species has a distinct latitudinal and longitudinal gradient distribution. On the basis of these gradients, we delimited 10 homogeneous landscape units distinct in terms of ericaceous species abundance and environmental drivers. The distribution of the ericaceous species along ecological gradients is closely related to the overlaps between the four sets of explanatory variables considered. We conclude that the studied Ericaceae occupy specific positions along ecological gradients and possess a specific abundance and distribution controlled by the integration of multiple explanatory variables.

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A new approach to ecological land classification for the Canadian boreal forest that integrates disturbances

Cited by 45 publications

References 49 publications

Accounting for spatial autocorrelation improves the estimation of climate, physical environment and vegetation’s effects on boreal forest’s burn rates

Accounting for spatial autocorrelation improves the estimation of climate, physical environment and vegetation’s effects on boreal forest’s burn rates

Disturbance impacts of land use change on biodiversity conservation priority areas across China: 1990–2010

Ecological gradients driving the distribution of four Ericaceae in boreal Quebec, Canada

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