Decreases in Fire Spread Probability with Forest Age Promotes Alternative Community States, Reduced Resilience to Climate Variability and Large Fire Regime Shifts

Kitzberger, Thomas; Aráoz, Ezequiel; Gowda, Juan H.; Mermoz, Mónica; Morales, Juan Manuel

doi:10.1007/s10021-011-9494-y

Cited by 91 publications

(105 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…Specifically, vegetation-fire feedbacks have been proposed as a driver of alternate stable states in tropical forests and humid savannas (Langevelde et al, 2003;Hirota et al, 2011;Staver et al, 2011;Higgins & Scheiter, 2012;Staver & Levin, 2012;Accatino & De Michele, 2013Dantas et al, 2016;D'Onofrio et al, 2018), boreal (Johnstone et al, 2010;Rogers et al, 2015;Abis & Brovkin, 2019) and temperate forests (Kitzberger et al, 2012(Kitzberger et al, , 2016Tepley et al, 2016). Specifically, vegetation-fire feedbacks have been proposed as a driver of alternate stable states in tropical forests and humid savannas (Langevelde et al, 2003;Hirota et al, 2011;Staver et al, 2011;Higgins & Scheiter, 2012;Staver & Levin, 2012;Accatino & De Michele, 2013Dantas et al, 2016;D'Onofrio et al, 2018), boreal (Johnstone et al, 2010;Rogers et al, 2015;Abis & Brovkin, 2019) and temperate forests (Kitzberger et al, 2012(Kitzberger et al, , 2016Tepley et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increased aridity drives post‐fire recovery of Mediterranean forests towards open shrublands

et al. 2019

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Summary Recent observations suggest that repeated fires could drive Mediterranean forests to shrublands, hosting flammable vegetation that regrows quickly after fire. This feedback supposedly favours shrubland persistence and may be strengthened in the future by predicted increased aridity. An assessment was made of how fires and aridity in combination modulated the dynamics of Mediterranean ecosystems and whether the feedback could be strong enough to maintain shrubland as an alternative stable state to forest. A model was developed for vegetation dynamics, including stochastic fires and different plant fire‐responses. Parameters were calibrated using observational data from a period up to 100 yr ago, from 77 sites with and without fires in Southeast Spain and Southern France. The forest state was resilient to the separate impact of fires and increased aridity. However, water stress could convert forests into open shrublands by hampering post‐fire recovery, with a possible tipping point at intermediate aridity. Projected increases in aridity may reduce the resilience of Mediterranean forests against fires and drive post‐fire ecosystem dynamics toward open shrubland. The main effect of increased aridity is the limitation of post‐fire recovery. Including plant fire‐responses is thus fundamental when modelling the fate of Mediterranean‐type vegetation under climate‐change scenarios.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increased aridity drives post‐fire recovery of Mediterranean forests towards open shrublands

et al. 2019

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“…Depending on species composition and environment, early successional forest patches may initially resist reburning at high-severity, but after a decade or more of tree growth can become highly susceptible to fire, depending on site productivity and level of tree establishment (Andrews and Cowlin, 1940;Moritz et al, 2011;Thompson and Spies, 2010). In fact, modeling by Kitzberger et al (2012) showed that when older forests were intermingled with these younger, more flammable forests, landscapes can become unstable. Thus, complex tradeoffs may exist between the amount and the spatial configuration of young forests and the degree of landscape-level fire resistance.…”

Section: Concerns With Overabundant Early Successional Forest Conditionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tamm Review: Management of mixed-severity fire regime forests in Oregon, Washington, and Northern California

Hessburg

Spies

Perry

et al. 2016

Forest Ecology and Management

170

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a b s t r a c tIncreasingly, objectives for forests with moderate-or mixed-severity fire regimes are to restore successionally diverse landscapes that are resistant and resilient to current and future stressors. Maintaining native species and characteristic processes requires this successional diversity, but methods to achieve it are poorly explained in the literature. In the Inland Pacific US, large, old, early seral trees were a key historical feature of many young and old forest successional patches, especially where fires frequently occurred. Large, old trees are naturally fire-tolerant, but today are often threatened by dense understory cohorts that create fuel ladders that alter likely post-fire successional pathways. Reducing these understories can contribute to resistance by creating conditions where canopy trees will survive disturbances and climatic stressors; these survivors are important seed sources, soil protectors, and critical habitat elements. Historical timber harvesting has skewed tree size and age class distributions, created hard edges, and altered native patch sizes. Manipulating these altered forests to promote development of larger patches of older, larger, and more widely-spaced trees with diverse understories will increase landscape resistance to severe fires, and enhance wildlife habitat for underrepresented conditions.Closed-canopy, multi-layered patches that develop in hot, dry summer environments are vulnerable to droughts, and they increase landscape vulnerability to insect outbreaks and severe wildfires. These same patches provide habitat for species such as the northern spotted owl, which has benefited from increased habitat area. Regional and local planning will be critical for gauging risks, evaluating trade-offs, and restoring dynamics that can support these and other species. The goal will be to manage for heterogeneous landscapes that include variably-sized patches of (1) young, middle-aged, and old, closedcanopy forests growing in upper montane, northerly aspect, and valley bottom settings, (2) a similar diversity of open-canopy, fire-tolerant patches growing on ridgetops, southerly aspects, and lower montane settings, and (3) significant montane chaparral and grassland areas. Tools to achieve this goal http://dx

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“…Likewise, even for forest ecosystems known to burn primarily in severe stand-replacing fires, many classical models of fire potential (in this case the instantaneous chance of fire occurrence) assume that fire severity increases with time since the last fire as a result of fuel load accumulation (Johnson and Gutsell, 1994); some research supports this (Steel et al, 2015). Nevertheless, empirical and modeling studies have demonstrated that in many ecosystem types, including temperate forests, flammability is still relatively stable with regard to time since fire (Kitzberger et al, 2012;Perry et al, 2012;Paritsis et al, 2014). We suggest that the predominance of the viewpoint in the western United States that flammability and potential fire severity inexorably increase with time since fire has been an important contributor to the expectation that 20th-century fire suppression-if assumed to have effectively reduced fire frequency-should result in increased, and unnaturally high, fire severity in the modern landscape.…”

Section: Does Time Since Fire Influence Fire Severity?mentioning

confidence: 95%

Setting the Stage for Mixed- and High-Severity Fire

Hanson

Sherriff

Hutto

et al. 2015

The Ecological Importance of Mixed-Severity Fires

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Decreases in Fire Spread Probability with Forest Age Promotes Alternative Community States, Reduced Resilience to Climate Variability and Large Fire Regime Shifts

Cited by 91 publications

References 55 publications

Increased aridity drives post‐fire recovery of Mediterranean forests towards open shrublands

Increased aridity drives post‐fire recovery of Mediterranean forests towards open shrublands

Tamm Review: Management of mixed-severity fire regime forests in Oregon, Washington, and Northern California

Setting the Stage for Mixed- and High-Severity Fire

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