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Fire Effects and Fire Ecology

Displaying 161 - 170 of 313

Towards an understanding of the evolutionary role of fire in animals

Year of Publication
2018
Publication Type

Wildfires underpin the dynamics and diversity of many ecosystems worldwide, and plants show a plethora of adaptive traits for persisting recurrent fires. Many fire-prone ecosystems also harbor a rich fauna; however, knowledge about adaptive traits to fire in animals remains poorly explored.

High-severity fire: Evaluating its key drivers and mapping its probability across western US forests

Year of Publication
2018
Publication Type

Wildland fire is a critical process in forests of the western United States (US). Variation in fire behavior, which is heavily influenced by fuel loading, terrain, weather, and vegetation type, leads to heterogeneity in fire severity across landscapes. The relative influence of these factors in driving fire severity, however, is poorly understood.

A Statement of Common Ground Regarding the Role of Wildfire in Forested Landscapes of the Western United States

Year of Publication
2018
Publication Type

Executive Summary: For millennia, wildfires have markedly influenced forests and non-forested landscapes of the western United States (US), and they are increasingly seen as having substantial impacts on society and nature. There is growing concern over what kinds and amounts of fire will achieve desirable outcomes and limit harmful effects on people and nature.

How does forest recovery following moderate-severity fire influence effects of subsequent wildfire in mixed-conifer forests?

Year of Publication
2018
Publication Type

Given regional increases in fire activity in western North American forests, understanding how fire influences the extent and effects of subsequent fires is particularly relevant. Remotely sensed estimates of fire effects have allowed for spatial portioning into different severity categories based on the degree of fire-caused vegetation change.

Influences of fire–vegetation feedbacks and post‐fire recovery rates on forest landscape vulnerability to altered fire regimes

Year of Publication
2018
Publication Type

In the context of ongoing climatic warming, forest landscapes face increasing risk of conversion to non‐forest vegetation through alteration of their fire regimes and their post‐fire recovery dynamics. However, this pressure could be amplified or dampened, depending on how fire‐driven changes to vegetation feed back to alter the extent or behaviour of subsequent fires.

Multitemporal LiDAR improves estimates of fire severity in forested landscapes

Year of Publication
2018
Publication Type

Landsat-based fire severity maps have limited ecological resolution, which can hinder assessments of change to specific resources. Therefore, we evaluated the use of pre- and post-fire LiDAR, and combined LiDAR with Landsat-based relative differenced Normalized Burn Ratio (RdNBR) estimates, to increase the accuracy and resolution of basal area mortality estimation.