Precipitation regime classification for the Mojave Desert: Implications for fire occurrence

Tagestad, Jerry; Brooks, Matthew L.; Cullinan, Valerie I.; Downs, Janelle L.; McKinley, Randy

doi:10.1016/j.jaridenv.2015.09.002

Cited by 18 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Values close to zero indicated little change in precipitation relative to previous years. Seasons are defined in Table and are consistent with seasonal precipitation characterization in the Great Basin (Bates, Svejcar, Miller, & Angell, ) and cluster analyzes of monthly precipitation in other deserts of the region as well (Tagestad, Brooks, Cullinan, Downs, & McKinley, ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 74%

Refining the cheatgrass–fire cycle in the Great Basin: Precipitation timing and fine fuel composition predict wildfire trends

Pilliod

Welty

Arkle

2017

Ecology and Evolution

154

153

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Larger, more frequent wildfires in arid and semi‐arid ecosystems have been associated with invasion by non‐native annual grasses, yet a complete understanding of fine fuel development and subsequent wildfire trends is lacking. We investigated the complex relationships among weather, fine fuels, and fire in the Great Basin, USA. We first modeled the annual and time‐lagged effects of precipitation and temperature on herbaceous vegetation cover and litter accumulation over a 26‐year period in the northern Great Basin. We then modeled how these fine fuels and weather patterns influence subsequent wildfires. We found that cheatgrass cover increased in years with higher precipitation and especially when one of the previous 3 years also was particularly wet. Cover of non‐native forbs and native herbs also increased in wet years, but only after several dry years. The area burned by wildfire in a given year was mostly associated with native herb and non‐native forb cover, whereas cheatgrass mainly influenced area burned in the form of litter derived from previous years’ growth. Consequently, multiyear weather patterns, including precipitation in the previous 1–3 years, was a strong predictor of wildfire in a given year because of the time needed to develop these fine fuel loads. The strong relationship between precipitation and wildfire allowed us to expand our inference to 10,162 wildfires across the entire Great Basin over a 35‐year period from 1980 to 2014. Our results suggest that the region's precipitation pattern of consecutive wet years followed by consecutive dry years results in a cycle of fuel accumulation followed by weather conditions that increase the probability of wildfire events in the year when the cycle transitions from wet to dry. These patterns varied regionally but were strong enough to allow us to model annual wildfire risk across the Great Basin based on precipitation alone.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 74%

Refining the cheatgrass–fire cycle in the Great Basin: Precipitation timing and fine fuel composition predict wildfire trends

Pilliod

Welty

Arkle

2017

Ecology and Evolution

154

153

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“…We extracted attributes of eight variables for each field plot as well as 10,000 points generated randomly across the ecoregion. The variables included elevation (30 m spatial resolution), slope (30 m), aspect (cosine transformed, 30 m), and mean minimum January temperature (1950–2005), mean maximum July temperature (1950–2005), mean wet (November–April), and dry season (May–October) precipitation (1950–2005) from climate data with a native resolution of 860 m (ClimSurf; Alvarez, Guo, Klinger, Li, & Doherty, ), and mean peak normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI, 2000–2010, 250 m native resolution; seasons based on Tagestad et al, ). We used the correlation matrix of the eight variables for the PCA and the Kaiser‐Guttman criterion for retention of PCA axes (McGarigal, Cushman, & Stafford, ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…cicutarium reach their greatest abundance at middle elevations (Brooks & Berry, ). This suggests habitat filtering by climate and topography, but the species are also known to co‐occur (Brooks et al, ; Tagestad, Brooks, Cullinan, Downs, & McKinley, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of invasive plants on fire regimes and postfire vegetation diversity in an arid ecosystem

Underwood

Klinger²,

Brooks³

2019

Ecology and Evolution

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We assessed the impacts of co‐occurring invasive plant species on fire regimes and postfire native communities in the Mojave Desert, western USA. We analyzed the distribution and co‐occurrence patterns of three invasive annual grasses (Bromus rubens, Bromus tectorum, and Schismus spp.) known to alter fuel conditions and community structure, and an invasive forb (Erodium cicutarium) which dominates postfire sites. We developed species distribution models (SDMs) for each of the four taxa and analyzed field plot data to assess the relationship between invasives and fire frequency, years postfire, and the impacts on postfire native herbaceous diversity. Most of the Mojave Desert is highly suitable for at least one of the four invasive species, and 76% of the ecoregion is predicted to have high or very high suitability for the joint occurrence of B. rubens and B. tectorum and 42% high or very high suitability for the joint occurrence of the two Bromus species and E. cicutarium. Analysis of cover from plot data indicated two or more of the species occurred in 77% of the plots, with their cover doubling with each additional species. We found invasive cover in burned plots increased for the first 20 years postfire and recorded two to five times more cover in burned than unburned plots. Analysis also indicated that native species diversity and evenness as negatively associated with higher levels of relative cover of the four invasive taxa. Our findings revealed overlapping distributions of the four invasives; a strong relationship between the invasives and fire frequency; and significant negative impacts of invasives on native herbaceous diversity in the Mojave. This suggests predicting the distributions of co‐occurring invasive species, especially transformer species, will provide a better understanding of where native‐dominated communities are most vulnerable to transformations following fire or other disturbances.

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“…Fire in the Mojave Desert is most prevalent in the eastern part and mid to high‐elevation communities where precipitation is greatest (Tagestad et al . ). The elevational gradient in precipitation results in a similar gradient in woody cover; hence, fire in mid‐and high‐elevation communities is limited more by ignition (lightning) than fuel, while fire in lower elevations is limited more by fuel than ignition (Brooks & Matchett ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…In some years, the number of fires and overall area burned are several orders of magnitude greater than usual, but such years appear to be separated by many decades or even centuries (Brooks & Matchett Brooks, unpublished data). Fire in the Mojave Desert is most prevalent in the eastern part and mid to high-elevation communities where precipitation is greatest (Tagestad et al 2016). The elevational gradient in precipitation results in a similar gradient in woody cover; hence, fire in mid-and high-elevation communities is limited more by ignition (lightning) than fuel, while fire in lower elevations is limited more by fuel than ignition (Brooks & Matchett 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alternative pathways to landscape transformation: invasive grasses, burn severity and fire frequency in arid ecosystems

Klinger

Brooks

2017

Journal of Ecology

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Summary Arid ecosystems are often vulnerable to transformation to invasive‐dominated states following fire, but data on persistence of these states are sparse. The grass/fire cycle is a feedback process between invasive annual grasses and fire frequency that often leads to the formation of alternative vegetation states dominated by the invasive grasses. However, other components of fire regimes, such as burn severity, also have the potential to produce long‐term vegetation transformations. Our goal was to evaluate the influence of both fire frequency and burn severity on the transformation of woody‐dominated communities to communities dominated by invasive grasses in major elevation zones of the Mojave Desert of western North America. We used a chronosequence design to collect data on herbaceous and woody cover at 229 unburned reference plots and 578 plots that burned between 1972 and 2010. We stratified the plots by elevation zone (low, mid, high), fire frequency (1–3 times) and years post‐fire (YPF; 1–5, 6–10, 11–20 and 21–40 YPF). Burn severity for each plot was estimated by the difference normalized burn ratio. We identified two broad post‐fire successional pathways. One was an outcome of fire frequency, resulting in a strong potential transformation via the grass/fire cycle. The second pathway was driven by burn severity, the critical aspect being that long‐term transformation of a community could occur from just one fire in areas that burned at high or sometimes moderate severity. Dominance by invasive grasses was most likely to occur in low‐and high‐elevation communities; cover of native herbaceous species was often greater than that of invasive grasses in the mid‐elevation zone. Synthesis. Invasive grasses can dominate a site that burned only one time in many decades at high severity, or a site that burned at low severity but multiple times in the same time period. However, high burn severity may predispose areas to more frequent fire because they have relatively high cover of invasive annual grass, suggesting burn severity and fire frequency have both independent and synergistic effects. Resilience in vegetation structure following fire in many arid communities may be limited to a narrow window of low burn severity in areas that have not burned in many decades.

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Precipitation regime classification for the Mojave Desert: Implications for fire occurrence

Cited by 18 publications

References 17 publications

Refining the cheatgrass–fire cycle in the Great Basin: Precipitation timing and fine fuel composition predict wildfire trends

Refining the cheatgrass–fire cycle in the Great Basin: Precipitation timing and fine fuel composition predict wildfire trends

Effects of invasive plants on fire regimes and postfire vegetation diversity in an arid ecosystem

Alternative pathways to landscape transformation: invasive grasses, burn severity and fire frequency in arid ecosystems

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