Accounting for spatial autocorrelation improves the estimation of climate, physical environment and vegetation’s effects on boreal forest’s burn rates

Portier, Jeanne; Gauthier, Sylvie; Robitaille, André; Bergeron, Yves

doi:10.1007/s10980-017-0578-8

Cited by 22 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 42 publications

(86 reference statements)

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“…The mean annual burn rate between regions over this period has been found to accurately reflect the historical burn rates for the 1700–2000 period (Portier et al. ) determined in several dendroecological studies (Bergeron et al. , , ) for Québec.…”

Section: Methodssupporting

confidence: 59%

“…The mean annual burn rate between regions over this period has been found to accurately reflect the historical burn rates for the 1700-2000 period (Portier et al 2018) determined in several dendroecological studies (Bergeron et al 2001(Bergeron et al , 2004(Bergeron et al , 2006 for Qu ebec. Given that our data reflect at least 300 yr of regional fire activity and that caribou generation time is estimated at 6 yr (COSEWIC 2014), we estimate that around 50 generations of caribou have been exposed to the historical burn rates we reconstructed.…”

Section: Historical Fire Activitysupporting

confidence: 54%

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Exposure to historical burn rates shapes the response of boreal caribou to timber harvesting

et al. 2019

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Studying the response of wildlife to anthropogenic disturbances in light of their evolutionary history may help explain their capacity to adapt to novel ecological conditions. In the North American boreal forest, wildfire has been the main natural disturbance driving ecosystem dynamics for thousands of years. Boreal caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) is a threatened ungulate for which widespread decline has been associated with the rapid expansion of timber harvesting across its range. Although caribou may not be adapted to this new type of disturbance, cutovers share many similarities with wildfires by producing large landscapes of whole‐stand removal associated with an increased predation risk for caribou. We hypothesized that caribou with more evolutionary experience of fire disturbance should better perceive the cues associated with disturbances and adjust their behavior toward human disturbance accordingly. Given the extensive distribution of caribou populations in the boreal forest, we assessed how their historical exposure to wildfires could explain their behavioral response toward both burned and cutover areas. Our results indicate that caribou from regions with high historical burn rates displayed a consistent avoidance of recent burns (<5 yr old), and that this behavior translated in a similar avoidance of recent cutover, providing support to the cue similarity hypothesis. On the contrary, caribou with less evolutionary experience of wildfires were more likely to select recently disturbed (<5 yr‐old and 6–20 yr‐old) habitats. In the context that timber harvesting and its associated road network has been linked to increased mortality in boreal caribou populations, we discuss how this naïve habitat use of clearcuts can be exacerbated by historical disturbance regimes and become maladaptive for this endangered species.

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Section: Methodssupporting

confidence: 59%

Section: Historical Fire Activitysupporting

confidence: 54%

Exposure to historical burn rates shapes the response of boreal caribou to timber harvesting

et al. 2019

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“…As the spatial autoregressive structure effectively accounted for the spatial autocorrelation in our dataset [Moran's I tests: P = 1.000 (ΔAGB GI ), P = 0.998 (ΔAGB M ), P = 0.999 (ΔAGB)]; based on the distance at which 95% of the plots had at least one neighbour (Portier et al . ), that is 17 km, defined by dnearneigh function in the spdep package (Bivand et al . ), we relied on this approach for the subsequent analyses.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Species‐rich boreal forests grew more and suffered less mortality than species‐poor forests under the environmental change of the past half‐century

2019

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Climate and other global environmental changes are major threats to ecosystem functioning and biodiversity. However, the importance of plant diversity in mitigating the responses of functioning of natural ecosystems to long‐term environmental change remains unclear. Using inventory data of boreal forests of western Canada from 1958 to 2011, we found that aboveground biomass growth increased over time in species‐rich forests but decreased in species‐poor forests, and importantly, aboveground biomass loss from tree mortality was smaller in species‐rich than species‐poor forests. A further analysis indicated that growth of species‐rich (but not species‐poor) forests was statistically positively associated with rising CO2, and that mortality in species‐poor forests increased more as climate moisture availability decreased than it did in species‐rich forests. In contrast, growth decreased and mortality increased as the climate warmed regardless of species diversity. Our results suggest that promoting high tree diversity may help reduce the climate and environmental change vulnerability of boreal forests.

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“…For these reasons, the superior wood volume observed in logged transects compared to the burned ones was expected, as harvesting less productive stands could be an unprofitable endeavor. In contrast, fire is a more stochastic disturbance, driven by a complex combination of climatic factors as well as biotic and abiotic landscape characteristics (Bélisle et al, 2016;Erni et al, 2018;Portier et al, 2018b). Some forest stands may thus be burned repeatedly in a relatively short time period while others may remain unburned for centuries, even millennia (Bergeron et al, 2002;Couillard et al, 2016;Kneeshaw et al, 2018).…”

Section: Differences In Logging and Fire Drivers Explain Their Divergmentioning

confidence: 99%

Compared to Wildfire, Management Practices Reduced Old-Growth Forest Diversity and Functionality in Primary Boreal Landscapes of Eastern Canada

Martin

Grondin

Lambert

et al. 2021

Front. For. Glob. Change

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Large primary forest residuals can still be found in boreal landscapes. Their areas are however shrinking rapidly due to anthropogenic activities, in particular industrial-scale forestry. The impacts of logging activities on primary boreal forests may also strongly differ from those of wildfires, the dominant stand-replacing natural disturbance in these forests. Since industrial-scale forestry is driven by economic motives, there is a risk that stands of higher economic value will be primarily harvested, thus threatening habitats, and functions related to these forests. Hence, the objective of this study was to identify the main attributes differentiating burned and logged stands prior to disturbance in boreal forests. The study territory lies in the coniferous and closed-canopy boreal forest in Québec, Canada, where industrial-scale logging and wildfire are the two main stand-replacing disturbances. Based on Québec government inventories of primary forests, we identified 427 transects containing about 5.5 circular field plots/transect that were burned or logged shortly after being surveyed, between 1985 and 2016. Comparative analysis of the main structural and environmental attributes of these transects highlighted the strong divergence in the impact of fire and harvesting on primary boreal forests. Overall, logging activities mainly harvested forests with the highest economic value, while most burned stands were low to moderately productive or recently disturbed. These results raise concerns about the resistance and resilience of remnant primary forests within managed areas, particularly in a context of disturbance amplification due to climate change. Moreover, the majority of the stands studied were old-growth forests, characterized by a high ecological value but also highly threatened by anthropogenic disturbances. A loss in the diversity and functionality of primary forests, and particularly the old-growth forests, therefore adds to the current issues related to these ecosystems. Since 2013, the study area is under ecosystem-based management, which implies that there have been marked changes in forestry practices. Complementary research will be necessary to assess the capacity of ecosystem-based management to address the challenges identified in our study.

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Accounting for spatial autocorrelation improves the estimation of climate, physical environment and vegetation’s effects on boreal forest’s burn rates

Cited by 22 publications

References 42 publications

Exposure to historical burn rates shapes the response of boreal caribou to timber harvesting

Exposure to historical burn rates shapes the response of boreal caribou to timber harvesting

Species‐rich boreal forests grew more and suffered less mortality than species‐poor forests under the environmental change of the past half‐century

Compared to Wildfire, Management Practices Reduced Old-Growth Forest Diversity and Functionality in Primary Boreal Landscapes of Eastern Canada

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