Effects of fire exclusion on forest structure and composition in unlogged ponderosa pine/Douglas-fir forests

Keeling, Eric G.; Sala, Anna; DeLuca, Thomas H.

doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2006.09.064

Cited by 50 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…4) displays a regeneration pattern in old forests that become susceptible to natural mortality and disturbances and often open large areas or gaps for regeneration. However, there is a small area of forests in age groups 20-60 yr, the consequence of fire suppression for more than half a century, which reduced wildfires and maintained dense stand structure that resulted in low understory recruitment (Donnegan et al, 2001;Gallant et al, 2003;Keeling et al, 2006). A high peak of age groups in the 70-100 yr classes reflects the more usual stand-replacing disturbances that occurred before fire suppression.…”

Section: The Us Rocky Mountain North and South Regionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Age structure and disturbance legacy of North American forests

Pan

Chen²,

Birdsey³

et al. 2011

Biogeosciences

279

218

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Abstract. Most forests of the world are recovering from a past disturbance. It is well known that forest disturbances profoundly affect carbon stocks and fluxes in forest ecosystems, yet it has been a great challenge to assess disturbance impacts in estimates of forest carbon budgets. Net sequestration or loss of CO 2 by forests after disturbance follows a predictable pattern with forest recovery. Forest age, which is related to time since disturbance, is a useful surrogate variable for analyses of the impact of disturbance on forest carbon. In this study, we compiled the first continental forest age map of North America by combining forest inventory data, historical fire data, optical satellite data and the dataset from NASA's Landsat Ecosystem Disturbance Adaptive Processing System (LEDAPS) project. A companion map of the standard deviations for age estimates was developed for quantifying uncertainty. We discuss the significance of the disturbance legacy from the past, as represented by current forest age structure in different regions of the US and Canada, by analyzing the causes of disturbances from land management and nature over centuries and at various scales. We also show how such information can be used with inventory data for analyzing carbon management opportunities. By combining geographic information about forest age with estimated C dynamics by forest type, it is possible to conduct a simple but powerful analysis of the net CO 2 uptake by forests, and the potential for increasing (or decreasing) this rate as a result of direct human intervention in the disturbance/age status. Finally, we describe how the forest age data can be used in large-scale carbon modeling, both for land-based biogeochemistry models and atmosphere-based inversion models, in order to improve the spatial accuracy of carbon cycle simulations.

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Section: The Us Rocky Mountain North and South Regionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Age structure and disturbance legacy of North American forests

Pan

Chen²,

Birdsey³

et al. 2011

Biogeosciences

279

218

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Contemporary experiments provide some suggestions of potential changes in soil nutrient concentrations. For example, DeLuca and Sala (2006) found that forests at Montana and Idaho study sites burning as few as three times in the past 100 years had decreased total soil nitrogen, but greater available nitrogen than less frequently burned forests.…”

Section: Soils and Hydrologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Past, Present, and Future Old Growth in Frequent-fire Conifer Forests of the Western United States

Abella¹,

Covington²,

Fulé³

et al. 2007

E&S

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“…In Arizona, Gildar et al (2004) compared the understory community of a site with 120 years of fire suppression to sites where the historic fire regime has remained relatively intact, and found that plant community structure was related to fire history, but within-site variability was also an important driver. Similarly, Keeling et al (2006) found evidence that fire suppression has altered P. ponderosa-Pseudotsuga menziesi (Mirbel) Franco understories of Idaho and Montana to some degree, though environmental variability was a stronger force in shaping the understory community.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Effects of past logging and grazing on understory plant communities in a montane Colorado forest

et al. 2008

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Throughout Pinus ponderosa-Pseudotsuga menziesii forests of the southern Colorado Front Range, USA, intense logging and domestic grazing began at the time of Euro-American settlement in the late 1800s and continued until the early 1900s. We investigated the long-term impacts of these settlement-era activities on understory plant communities by comparing understory composition at a historically logged and grazed site to that of an environmentally similar site which was protected from past use. We found that species richness and cover within functional groups rarely differed between sites in either upland or riparian areas. Multivariate analyses revealed little difference in species composition between sites on uplands, though compositional differences were apparent in riparian zones. Our findings suggest that settlement-era logging and grazing have had only minor long-term impacts on understories of upland Front Range P. ponderosa-P. menziesii forests, though they have had a greater long-term influence on riparian understories, where these activities were likely the most intense.

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Effects of fire exclusion on forest structure and composition in unlogged ponderosa pine/Douglas-fir forests

Cited by 50 publications

References 28 publications

Age structure and disturbance legacy of North American forests

Age structure and disturbance legacy of North American forests

Past, Present, and Future Old Growth in Frequent-fire Conifer Forests of the Western United States

Effects of past logging and grazing on understory plant communities in a montane Colorado forest

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