Controls on spatial patterns of wildfire severity and early post-fire vegetation development in an Arizona Sky Island, USA

Taylor, Alan H.; Poulos, Helen M.; Kluber, Jennifer; Issacs, Rachel; Pawlikowski, Natalie C.; Barton, Andrew M.

doi:10.1007/s10980-021-01260-4

Cited by 12 publications

(14 citation statements)

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“…Fire severity, elevation, and topography regulated the effects of the Horseshoe Two Fire on woody plant community composition and the magnitude of vegetation change over time. While prior research has documented the role of these factors in driving transitions from pine-oak forest to shrubland in the wake of high-severity wildfire [21,33,34,37,61], this study (see also Taylor et al 2021) is one of the first to document such recent fire effects within drier, more open woody vegetation types in the Sky Islands.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 87%

“…It is therefore no surprise that fire-sensitive and thin-barked P. discolor experienced high tree mortality in CHIR when these forests experienced moderateto high-severity fire after almost a century of fire suppression and tree recruitment. Prior age data from within this forest type in CHIR by Baisan and Morino [83] and Taylor, Poulos, Kluber, Issacs, Pawlikowski and Barton [26] and in the eastern Chiricahuas by Barton [44] suggest that P. discolor densities increased dramatically during the fire suppression era without frequent fire. The Horseshoe Two Fire may have partially reversed this effect of fire suppression by killing trees that recruited in the absence of fire, especially on lower-to moderate-severity sites.…”

Section: Wildfire Effects On Piñon Pine Forestmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…Historically, Madrean pine-oak forests in canyons and at intermediate elevations supported a frequent surface fire regime (mean fire interval 4-6 years) [50,51]. In contrast, both higher-elevation mixed-conifer forests and piñon-juniper-oak-shrub vegetation on drier, lower elevation sites burned less frequently and experienced fires with variable severity, including infrequent stand-replacing fires [25,26]. The 2011 Horseshoe Two Fire was the first contemporary landscape fire to burn through CHIR since 1924 [52].…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Within these vegetation types, frequent fires prevented shrub invasion of grasslands, maintained open woodlands, and promoted a mixture of woody plants with diverse fire persistence strategies [16,19,20]. In contrast, piñon and juniper woodlands and high-elevation mixed-conifer forests historically experienced fires with more mixed effects, including some stand-replacing fires [21][22][23][24][25][26]. Such variation in fire regimes in the Sky Islands has promoted a wide range of fire resistance and recovery mechanisms for woody plant persistence within these fire-prone environments.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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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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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Section: Wildfire Effects On Piñon Pine Forestmentioning

confidence: 92%

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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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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“…While these relatively finer‐scale studies are informative, evidence of self‐reinforcing/limiting controls are also likely to emerge as fires interact across landscapes (Peterson, 2002; Taylor et al., 2021; Taylor & Skinner, 2003). The importance of these controls in tundra ecosystems as compared to climate, topography, and vegetation is uncertain, but can be a dominant driver of fire regimes in some ecosystems (Balch et al., 2013; Taylor et al., 2021). Identifying the importance and spatial heterogeneity of reinforcing or limiting controls in tundra fire regimes could improve projections of the future carbon cycle, which is limited by our understanding of terrestrial carbon‐cycle dynamics and feedbacks that constrain carbon budgets (Friedlingstein et al., 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Topography, Climate and Fire History Regulate Wildfire Activity in the Alaskan Tundra

et al. 2022

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Although the link between climate change and tundra fire activity is well‐studied, we lack an understanding of how fire, vegetation, and topography interact to either amplify or dampen climatic effects on these tundra fires at Pan‐Arctic scale. This study investigated the relative influence of fire history, climate, topography and vegetation on fire occurrence and size in Alaskan tundra (1981–2019) and the potential for self‐reinforcing/limiting fire behavior. Regime shift analysis identified a step increase in fire frequency after 2010 with increased average annual area burned (+96%) and area reburned (+61%) over the 2010–2019 period, consistent with climatic thresholds in fire activity being crossed. Correlation analysis shows variation in fire frequency was positively and significantly related to mean summer temperatures. The competing roles of fire history and bio‐climate were investigated via random forest models using (a) environmental conditions and (b) environmental conditions and fire history. Fire occurrence was primarily driven by topographic complexity and elevation, suggesting that areas at 50–200 m elevation with gently rolling terrain such as the Arctic Foothills of the Brooks Range or the Kotzebue Lowlands in northern Alaska will likely become hotspots of fire activity. In contrast, fire size was affected mainly by fire history and winter‐spring climate, which demonstrates the importance of both fuel limitations and self‐reinforcing (e.g., rapid fuel regrowth following smaller‐sized fires) fire‐vegetation interactions in regulating tundra fire activity. Future modeling studies need more nuanced representations of fire‐terrain and fire‐vegetation interactions to accurately project how tundra ecosystems may respond to climatic warming.

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Wildfire and topography drive woody plant diversity in a Sky Island mountain range in the Southwest USA

Barton

Poulos

2021

Ecology and Evolution

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Aim Drastic changes in fire regimes are altering plant communities, inspiring ecologists to better understand the relationship between fire and plant species diversity. We examined the impact of a 90,000‐ha wildfire on woody plant species diversity in an arid mountain range in southern Arizona, USA. We tested recent fire‐diversity hypotheses by addressing the impacts on diversity of fire severity, fire variability, historical fire regimes, and topography. Location Chiricahua National Monument, Chiricahua Mountains, Arizona, USA, part of the Sky Islands of the US–Mexico borderlands. Taxon Woody plant species. Methods We sampled woody plant diversity in 138 plots before (2002–2003) and after (2017–2018) the 2011 Horseshoe Two Fire in three vegetation types and across fire severity and topographic gradients. We calculated gamma, alpha, and beta diversity and examined changes over time in burned versus unburned plots and the shapes of the relationships of diversity with fire severity and topography. Results Alpha species richness declined, and beta and gamma diversity increased in burned but not unburned plots. Fire‐induced enhancement of gamma diversity was confined to low fire severity plots. Alpha diversity did not exhibit a clear continuous relationship with fire severity. Beta diversity was enhanced by variation in fire severity among plots and increased with fire severity up to very high severity, where it declined slightly. Main Conclusions The results reject the intermediate disturbance hypothesis for alpha diversity but weakly support it for gamma diversity. Spatial variation in fire severity promoted variation among plant assemblages, supporting the pyrodiversity hypothesis. Long‐term drought probably amplified fire‐driven diversity changes. Despite the apparent benign impact of the fire on diversity, the replacement of two large conifer species with a suite of drought‐tolerant shrubs signals the potential loss of functional diversity, a pattern that may warrant restoration efforts to retain these important compositional elements.

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Controls on spatial patterns of wildfire severity and early post-fire vegetation development in an Arizona Sky Island, USA

Cited by 12 publications

References 73 publications

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

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

Topography, Climate and Fire History Regulate Wildfire Activity in the Alaskan Tundra

Wildfire and topography drive woody plant diversity in a Sky Island mountain range in the Southwest USA

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