Applying historical fi re‐regime concepts to forest management in the western United States: three case studies

Swanson, Frederick J.; Smith, Edward B.; Buttrick, Steven C.; Kertis, Jane; Rice, Jeanne; Ringo, Chris; Waltz, Amy E. M.; Zanger, Chris; Friesen, Cheryl Ann; Cissel, John H.

doi:10.1002/9781118329726.ch13

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 23 publications

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“…Forests in FRG III (characterized by infrequent, mixed severity fire) represent an intermediate level of departure from historical regimes, with some increases in fire severity (Mallek et al., 2013; Steel et al., 2015). The importance of historical fire regimes is currently recognized by land managers (DeMeo et al, 2012), but quantitative data on responses of entire plant communities have rarely been synthesized beyond the level of individual studies.…”

Section: Study Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are plant community responses to wildfire contingent upon historical disturbance regimes?

Miller

Safford

2020

Global Ecol. Biogeogr.

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Background Ecological disturbance is a major driver of ecosystem structure and evolutionary selection, and theory predicts that the frequency and/or intensity of disturbance should determine its effects on communities. However, adaptations of species pools to different historical disturbance regimes are rarely considered in the search for generalizable community responses to disturbance. To explore how the severity of disturbance affects plant diversity patterns, we review studies of understorey plant community responses to wildfire in conifer forests of western North America across a gradient of departure from historical fire regimes. Review findings We find that post‐fire plant species richness may generally be maximized at disturbance severities that match the predominant historical disturbance regime in a given ecosystem. Studies that examined multiple spatial scales indicate that plant community responses to fire are likely to be scale dependent, suggesting that post‐disturbance monitoring should consider community responses at multiple scales. Synthesis Our review highlights that consideration of historical disturbance regimes might improve the ability to predict the effects of disturbance on communities. We discuss future research needs; quantitative studies that compare community responses to fire at multiple scales across different historical fire regimes would be particularly useful. Ultimately, consideration of disturbance as a multivariate problem is likely to lead to greater inference than traditional bivariate approaches.

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Section: Study Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are plant community responses to wildfire contingent upon historical disturbance regimes?

Miller

Safford

2020

Global Ecol. Biogeogr.

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Corralling a black swan: natural range of variation in a forest landscape driven by rare, extreme events

Donato

Halofsky

Reilly

2019

Ecological Applications

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The natural range of variation (NRV) is an important reference for ecosystem management, but has been scarcely quantified for forest landscapes driven by infrequent, severe disturbances. Extreme events such as large, stand‐replacing wildfires at multi‐century intervals are typical for these regimes; however, data on their characteristics are inherently scarce, and, for land management, these events are commonly considered too large and unpredictable to integrate into planning efforts (the proverbial “Black Swan”). Here, we estimate the NRV of late‐seral (mature/old‐growth) and early‐seral (post‐disturbance, pre‐canopy‐closure) conditions in a forest landscape driven by episodic, large, stand‐replacing wildfires: the Western Cascade Range of Washington, USA (2.7 million ha). These two seral stages are focal points for conservation and restoration objectives in many regions. Using a state‐and‐transition simulation approach incorporating uncertainty, we assess the degree to which NRV estimates differ under a broad range of literature‐derived inputs regarding (1) overall fire rotations and (2) how fire area is distributed through time, as relatively frequent smaller events (less episodic), or fewer but larger events (more episodic). All combinations of literature‐derived fire rotations and temporal distributions (i.e., “scenarios”) indicate that the largest wildfire events (or episodes) burned up to 105–106 ha. Under most scenarios, wildfire dynamics produced 5th–95th percentile ranges for late‐seral forests of ~47–90% of the region (median 70%), with structurally complex early‐seral conditions composing ~1–30% (median 6%). Fire rotation was the main determinant of NRV, but temporal distribution was also important, with more episodic (temporally clustered) fire yielding wider NRV. In smaller landscapes (20,000 ha; typical of conservation reserves and management districts), ranges were 0–100% because fires commonly exceeded the landscape size. Current conditions are outside the estimated NRV, with the majority of the region instead covered by dense mid‐seral forests (i.e., a regional landscape with no historical analog). Broad consistency in NRV estimates among widely varied fire regime parameters suggests these ranges are likely relevant even under changing climatic conditions, both historical and future. These results indicate management‐relevant NRV estimates can be derived for seral stages of interest in extreme‐event landscapes, even when incorporating inherent uncertainties in disturbance regimes.

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Fire Frequency

Curt

2018

Encyclopedia of Wildfires and Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Fires

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Applying historical fi re‐regime concepts to forest management in the western United States: three case studies

Cited by 4 publications

References 23 publications

Are plant community responses to wildfire contingent upon historical disturbance regimes?

Are plant community responses to wildfire contingent upon historical disturbance regimes?

Corralling a black swan: natural range of variation in a forest landscape driven by rare, extreme events

Fire Frequency

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