Rain‐shadow forest margins resilient to low‐severity fire and climate change but not high‐severity fire

Harris, Lucas B.; Taylor, Alan H.

doi:10.1002/ecs2.3258

Cited by 15 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 107 publications

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“…Recent trends in high-severity fire effects may contribute to further departures and present impediments to forest regeneration due to limitations on seed dispersal capacity and altered site conditions (Stevens-Rumann et al 2018, Davis et al 2019, Stevens-Rumann and Morgan 2019, particularly in the case of short interval reburns (Stephens et al 2018a, Coop et al 2020. Constraints on tree regeneration may be an inevitable consequence of a warming climate; note, however, that regeneration in semi-arid forest-steppe ecotones exhibited resilience to recent low-severity fires but not high-severity fires (Harris and Taylor 2020). Additionally, recent work shows that the Accepted Article biogeochemical impacts of high-severity fires are much longer-lasting than previously assumed, leading to concern that increased high-severity burning will negatively impact soil organic carbon and nutrient cycling (Dove et al 2020).…”

Section: Accepted Articlementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Constraints on tree regeneration may be an inevitable consequence of a warming climate. Note, however, that regeneration in semiarid forest–steppe ecotones exhibited resilience to recent low‐severity fires but not high‐severity fires (Harris and Taylor 2020). Additionally, recent work shows that the biogeochemical impacts of high‐severity fires are much longer‐lasting than previously assumed, leading to concern that increased high‐severity burning will negatively impact soil organic carbon and nutrient cycling (Dove et al.…”

Section: Evaluating Evidence Of Changementioning

confidence: 99%

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Evidence for widespread changes in the structure, composition, and fire regimes of western North American forests

Hagmann

Hessburg

Prichard

et al. 2021

Ecological Applications

218

140

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Implementation of wildfire-and climate-adaptation strategies in seasonally dry forests of western North America is impeded by numerous constraints and uncertainties. After more than a century of resource and land use change, some question the need for proactive management, particularly given novel social, ecological, and climatic conditions. To address this question, we first provide a framework for assessing changes in landscape conditions and fire regimes. Using this framework, we then evaluate evidence of change and lack of change in contemporary conditions relative to those maintained by active fire regimes, i.e., those uninterrupted by a century or more of human-induced fire exclusion. The cumulative results of more than a century of research document a persistent and substantial fire deficit and widespread alterations to ecological structures and functions. These changes are not necessarily apparent at all spatial scales or in all dimensions of fire regimes and forest and nonforest conditions. Nonetheless, loss of the once abundant influence of low-and moderate-KEYWORDS

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Section: Accepted Articlementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Evaluating Evidence Of Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence for widespread changes in the structure, composition, and fire regimes of western North American forests

Hagmann

Hessburg

Prichard

et al. 2021

Ecological Applications

218

140

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Ascertaining the effects of burn severity and environmental factors on the early restoration of forest ecosystems is the first important step in ecosystem regeneration and species protection [81][82][83][84][85]. In this study, we used Sentinel-2(MSI) intensive time-series imagery to explore the regeneration changes in post-fire forest and shrub communities in the year on a wide spatial scale.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating Effects of Post-Fire Climate and Burn Severity on the Early-Term Regeneration of Forest and Shrub Communities in the San Gabriel Mountains of California from Sentinel-2(MSI) Images

Liu

Chen

et al. 2022

Forests

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Studying the early changes in post-fire vegetation communities may improve the overall resilience of forests. The necessity for doing so was demonstrated by the Bobcat Fire, which seriously threatened the central San Gabriel Mountains and the Angeles National Forest in California. This study aimed to monitor and quantify the effects of climatological and topographic conditions along with burn severity on early (within 1 year) post-fire forests and shrubs community regeneration. In this study, we used Sentinel-2(MSI) intensive time-series imagery (July 2020–October 2021) to make a confusion matrix combined with 389 vegetation sample points on Google Earth Pro. The overall accuracy (OA) and the Kappa coefficient, calculated from the confusion matrix, were used as evaluation parameters to validate the classification results. With multiple linear regression models and Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) historical images, we analyzed the effects of climate and slope aspects on the regeneration of post-fire forest and shrub communities. We also quantitatively analyzed the regeneration rates based on five burn severity types. The results show that the normalized burning rate (NBR) was the most accurate vegetation classification indicator in this study (OA: 92.3–99.5%, Kappa: 0.88–0.98). The vegetation classification accuracy based on SVM is about 6.6% higher than K-Means. The overall accuracy of the burn area is 94.87%. Post-fire climate factors had a significant impact on the regeneration of the two vegetation communities (R2: 0.42–0.88); the optimal regeneration slope was 15–35°; and the fire severity changed the original competition relationship and regeneration rate. The results provide four main insights into the regeneration of post-fire vegetation communities: (1) climate factors in the first regenerating season have important impacts on the regeneration of forest and shrub communities; (2) daytime duration and rainfall are the most significant factors for forests and shrubs regeneration; (3) tolerable low burn severity promotes forests regeneration; and (4) forests have a certain ability to resist fires, while shrubs can better tolerate high-intensity fire ecology. This study could support the implementation of strategies for regionalized forest management and the targeted enhancement of post-fire vegetation community resilience.

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“…As in the piñon forests of CHIR, post-fire recruitment of obligate seeders in pine-oak forests also depends on the presence of a parent seed source [38,84,94]. The numerous large, moderate-to high-severity patches that burned the landscape could present a barrier to obligate seeder regeneration because of a lack of nearby parent seed sources [95][96][97][98] because the relationship between distance to parent tree seed sources and early post-fire seedling recruitment can be predictive of the scale of seedling regeneration success [84,95,99].…”

Section: Wildfire Effects On Pine-oak Forestmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mixed-Severity Wildfire as a Driver of Vegetation Change in an Arizona Madrean Sky Island System, USA

Poulos

Freiburger

Barton

et al. 2021

Fire

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Fire is a powerful natural disturbance influencing vegetation patterns across landscapes. Recent transitions from mixed-species forests to post-fire shrublands after severe wildfire is an increasingly prevalent phenomenon in pine-oak and conifer forest ecosystems in southwestern North America. However, we know little about how variation in fire severity influences other common forest types in the region. In this study, we evaluated fire-induced changes in woody plant community composition and forest structure in Chiricahua Mountains in southeastern Arizona in the United States that hosts a diverse set of vegetation types. Cluster analysis of the pre-fire vegetation data identified three dominant pre-fire vegetation types including juniper woodland, piñon forest, and pine-oak forest. All vegetation types experienced significant tree mortality across a wide range of size classes and species, from forests to shrublands. The magnitude of change within sample plots varied with fire severity, which was mediated by topography. Significant shifts in dominance away from coniferous obligate seeder trees to resprouting hardwoods and other shrubs occurred across all vegetation types in response to the fire. Regeneration from seed can be episodic, but projected increases in aridity and fire frequency may promote continued dominance by hardwoods and fire- and drought-resistant shrub communities, which is a regional forest management concern as wildfire size and severity continue to increase throughout the southwestern USA.

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Rain‐shadow forest margins resilient to low‐severity fire and climate change but not high‐severity fire

Abstract: Rain-shadow forest margins resilient to low-severity fire and climate change but not high-severity fire.

Cited by 15 publications

References 107 publications

Evidence for widespread changes in the structure, composition, and fire regimes of western North American forests

Evidence for widespread changes in the structure, composition, and fire regimes of western North American forests

Evaluating Effects of Post-Fire Climate and Burn Severity on the Early-Term Regeneration of Forest and Shrub Communities in the San Gabriel Mountains of California from Sentinel-2(MSI) Images

Mixed-Severity Wildfire as a Driver of Vegetation Change in an Arizona Madrean Sky Island System, USA

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