Restoring Composition and Structure in Southwestern Frequent-fire Forests PDF Download
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Author: Richard Truman Reynolds
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Forest resilience
Languages : en
Pages : 76
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Book Description
Ponderosa pine and dry mixed-conifer forests in the Southwest United States are experiencing, or have become increasingly susceptible to, large-scale severe wildfire, insect, and disease episodes resulting in altered plant and animal demographics, reduced productivity and biodiversity, and impaired ecosystem processes and functions. We present a management framework based on a synthesis of science on forest ecology and management, reference conditions, and lessons learned during implementations of our restoration framework. Our framework focuses on the restoration of key elements similar to the historical composition and structure of vegetation in these forests: (1) species composition; (2) groups of trees; (3) scattered individual trees; (4) grass-forb-shrub interspaces; (5) snags, logs, and woody debris; and (6) variation in the arrangements of these elements in space and time. Our framework informs management strategies that can improve the resiliency of frequent-fire forests and facilitate the resumption of characteristic ecosystem processes and functions by restoring the composition, structure, and spatial patterns of vegetation. We believe restoration of key compositional and structural elements on a per-site basis will restore resiliency of frequent-fire forests in the Southwest, and thereby position them to better resist, and adapt to, future disturbances and climates.
Author: Richard Truman Reynolds
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Forest resilience
Languages : en
Pages : 76
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Book Description
Ponderosa pine and dry mixed-conifer forests in the Southwest United States are experiencing, or have become increasingly susceptible to, large-scale severe wildfire, insect, and disease episodes resulting in altered plant and animal demographics, reduced productivity and biodiversity, and impaired ecosystem processes and functions. We present a management framework based on a synthesis of science on forest ecology and management, reference conditions, and lessons learned during implementations of our restoration framework. Our framework focuses on the restoration of key elements similar to the historical composition and structure of vegetation in these forests: (1) species composition; (2) groups of trees; (3) scattered individual trees; (4) grass-forb-shrub interspaces; (5) snags, logs, and woody debris; and (6) variation in the arrangements of these elements in space and time. Our framework informs management strategies that can improve the resiliency of frequent-fire forests and facilitate the resumption of characteristic ecosystem processes and functions by restoring the composition, structure, and spatial patterns of vegetation. We believe restoration of key compositional and structural elements on a per-site basis will restore resiliency of frequent-fire forests in the Southwest, and thereby position them to better resist, and adapt to, future disturbances and climates.
Author: United States Department of Agriculture
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781508532194
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 88
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Book Description
Ponderosa pine and dry mixed-conifer forests in the Southwest United States are experiencing, or have become increasingly susceptible to, large-scale severe wildfire, insect, and disease episodes resulting in altered plant and animal demographics, reduced productivity and biodiversity, and impaired ecosystem processes and functions. We present a management framework based on a synthesis of science on forest ecology and management, reference conditions, and lessons learned during implementations of our restoration framework. Our framework focuses on the restoration of key elements similar to the historical composition and structure of vegetation in these forests: (1) species composition; (2) groups of trees; (3) scattered individual trees; (4) grass-forb-shrub interspaces; (5) snags, logs, and woody debris; and (6) variation in the arrangements of these elements in space and time. Our framework informs management strategies that can improve the resiliency of frequent-fire forests and facilitate the resumption of characteristic ecosystem processes and functions by restoring the composition, structure, and spatial patterns of vegetation. We believe restoration of key compositional and structural elements on a per-site basis will restore resiliency of frequent-fire forests in the Southwest, and thereby position them to better resist, and adapt to, future disturbances and climates.
Author: Peter Friederici
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Forest fires
Languages : en
Pages : 8
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Book Description
In contemporary ponderosa pine forests throughout the Southwest the need to thin dense stands in order to reduce the risk of catastrophic fires has become evident. Numerous thinning prescriptions have been implemented. While many prescriptions focus solely on lowering fire risk by removing ladder fuels and reducing crown connectivity, others explicitly aim to alter both forest structure and functioning. This publication examines the benefits of restoration treatments that can lower fire danger while also increasing the overall biological diversity and long-term health of treatment areas.
Author: Maxwell Odland
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Fire suppression in the western United States has significantly altered forest composition and structure, resulting in higher risk from fire and large-scale drought and bark beetle events. Mechanical thinning and prescribed fire are common treatments designed to reduce high-severity fire risk, but few studies have tracked long-term understory plant community response with repeated fire application that emulates historic fire regimes. We evaluate changes in understory plant community diversity and composition and environmental characteristics over two decades following a factorial field experiment that crosses thinning and two applications of prescribed fire at the Teakettle Experimental Forest (TEF) in the southern Sierra Nevada. We compare experimental fuels treatments against nearby old-growth, mixed-conifer forests with frequent, low severity fire regimes in Yosemite and Kings Canyon National Parks. This study points to key differences in how thinning and prescribed fire treatments affect plant understory diversity. Although local understory plant richness initially increased most following thinning combined with prescribed fire, this treatment did not generate understory communities similar to those in reference forests; Intense shrub growth resulted in low understory evenness and beta diversity over time, which a secondary burn treatment did not alter. Burning without thinning retained a more heterogeneous understory over time and, at least in the two years following the second burn treatment, with high understory richness and evenness similar to reference forest understories. Our results suggest management treatments may need to focus on creating heterogeneity in burn effects and environmental conditions to foster diverse forest understories and limit post-treatment shrub cover.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Animal ecology
Languages : en
Pages : 92
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Book Description
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Forest fires
Languages : en
Pages : 38
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Book Description
Author: Cathryn H. Greenberg
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030732673
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 513
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Book Description
This edited volume presents original scientific research and knowledge synthesis covering the past, present, and potential future fire ecology of major US forest types, with implications for forest management in a changing climate. The editors and authors highlight broad patterns among ecoregions and forest types, as well as detailed information for individual ecoregions, for fire frequencies and severities, fire effects on tree mortality and regeneration, and levels of fire-dependency by plant and animal communities. The foreword addresses emerging ecological and fire management challenges for forests, in relation to sustainable development goals as highlighted in recent government reports. An introductory chapter highlights patterns of variation in frequencies, severities, scales, and spatial patterns of fire across ecoregions and among forested ecosystems across the US in relation to climate, fuels, topography and soils, ignition sources (lightning or anthropogenic), and vegetation. Separate chapters by respected experts delve into the fire ecology of major forest types within US ecoregions, with a focus on the level of plant and animal fire-dependency, and the role of fire in maintaining forest composition and structure. The regional chapters also include discussion of historic natural (lightning-ignited) and anthropogenic (Native American; settlers) fire regimes, current fire regimes as influenced by recent decades of fire suppression and land use history, and fire management in relation to ecosystem integrity and restoration, wildfire threat, and climate change. The summary chapter combines the major points of each chapter, in a synthesis of US-wide fire ecology and forest management into the future. This book provides current, organized, readily accessible information for the conservation community, land managers, scientists, students and educators, and others interested in how fire behavior and effects on structure and composition differ among ecoregions and forest types, and what that means for forest management today and in the future.
Author: Jessica Rae Miesel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Conifers
Languages : en
Pages : 190
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Book Description
Abstract: The forests of northern California experienced frequent, low-intensity fire prior to Euro-American settlement, but more than a century of grazing, logging and fire suppression has resulted in changes in tree community structure that contribute to infrequent, high-intensity fires in these forests today. Although ecosystem restoration for reduction of wildfire hazard has received substantial attention in recent years, many ecological questions remain unanswered. For example, it is not yet clear how large-scale forest manipulations, such as reduction of tree density via forest thinning or prescribed fire, differentially affect soil fertility, nor how impacts on soil nutrient availability in turn affect forest productivity. My research in the Klamath National Forest of northern California investigates the impacts of experimental restoration treatments (prescribed fire, mechanical thinning, and their combination) on soil physical, chemical and microbial parameters and forest floor C and N content, and the time lag and duration of response of leaf nutrient concentrations of two dominant tree species to each treatment. Results showed that significant differences existed among treatments in terms of soil nutrient status and microbial activity, with the effect of fire either mediated or enhanced by thinning; however, for most variables the magnitude of effect was small. Prescribed fire had different effects on soil nutrients and microbial activity in unthinned areas than in areas that had been mechanically thinned prior to fire, and the species composition of trees that remain following thinning significantly affected soil nutrient availability and forest floor C and N content. Thinning also affected conifer needle nutrient concentration and size whereas fire alone does not, and the time since treatment as well as the magnitude and direction of response differed between tree species and among treatments. These results provide an intermediate-term evaluation of the effects of fire and thinning on soil and vegetation, and increase understanding of the link between the above- and belowground components of a mixed-conifer ecosystem. This study contributes to an ecosystem-level understanding of forest restoration strategies, and provides information that is directly applicable to fire and forest management policies in the western United States.
Author: Gregg Garfin
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781597264204
Category : Agriculture
Languages : en
Pages : 529
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Book Description
Author: Thomas A. Waldrop
Publisher: Government Printing Office
ISBN: 9780160943959
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 32
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Book Description
Prescribed burning is an important tool throughout Southern forests, grasslands, and croplands. The need to control fire became evident to allow forests to regenerate. This manual is intended to help resource managers to plan and execute prescribed burns in Southern forests and grasslands. A new appreciation and interest has developed in recent years for using prescribed fire in grasslands, especially hardwood forests, and on steep mountain slopes. Proper planning and execution of prescribed fires are necessary to reduce detrimental effects, such as the impacts on air and downstream water quality. Check out these related products: Trees at Work: Economic Accounting for Forest Ecosystem Services in the U.S. South can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/trees-work-economic-accounting-forest-ecosystem-services-us-south Soil Survey Manual 2017 is available here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/soil-survey-manual-march-2017 Quantifying the Role of the National Forest System Lands in Providing Surface Drinking Water Supply for the Southern United States is available here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/quantifying-role-national-forest-system-lands-providing-surface-drinking-water-supply Fire Management Today print subscription is available here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/fire-management-today Wildland Fire in Ecosystems: Fire and Nonnative Invasive Plants can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/wildland-fire-ecosystems-fire-and-nonnative-invasive-plants
