Disequilibrium of fire-prone forests sets the stage for a rapid decline in conifer dominance during the 21st century

Serra‐Diaz, Josep M.; Maxwell, Charles; Lucash, Melissa S.; Scheller, Robert M.; Laflower, Danelle; Miller, Adam D.; Tepley, Alan J.; Epstein, Howard E.; Anderson‐Teixeira, Kristina J.; Thompson, Jonathan R.

doi:10.1038/s41598-018-24642-2

Cited by 85 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 76 publications

(76 reference statements)

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“…Vegetation changes related to fire exclusion and forest management have consequences for patterns of forest resilience and resistance to fire. For example, modeling experiments show that certain conifers increased their abundance and range in dry and mesic mixed forests in response to fire exclusion, and that their current distribution is misaligned with current climate and disturbance regimes (Serra-Diaz et al, 2018). Misalignment has altered stability of fire-vegetation feedbacks with potential cumulative effects on vegetation patterns at local to ecoregion levels.…”

Section: Klamath and Southern Cascade Mountain Forestsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate, Environment, and Disturbance History Govern Resilience of Western North American Forests

et al. 2019

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Before the advent of intensive forest management and fire suppression, western North American forests exhibited a naturally occurring resistance and resilience to wildfires and other disturbances. Resilience, which encompasses resistance, reflects the amount of disruption an ecosystem can withstand before its structure or organization qualitatively shift to a different basin of attraction. In fire-maintained forests, resilience to disturbance events arose primarily from vegetation pattern-disturbance process interactions at several levels of organization. Using evidence from 15 ecoregions, spanning forests from Canada to Mexico, we review the properties of forests that reinforced qualities of resilience and resistance. We show examples of multi-level landscape resilience, of feedbacks within and among levels, and how conditions have changed under climatic and management influences. We highlight geographic similarities and important differences in the structure and organization of historical landscapes, their forest types, and in the conditions that have changed resilience and resistance to abrupt or large-scale Hessburg et al. Resilience in North American Forests disruptions. We discuss the role of the regional climate in episodically or abruptly reorganizing plant and animal biogeography and forest resilience and resistance to disturbances. We give clear examples of these changes and suggest that managing for resilient forests is a construct that strongly depends on scale and human social values. It involves human communities actively working with the ecosystems they depend on, and the processes that shape them, to adapt landscapes, species, and human communities to climate change while maintaining core ecosystem processes and services. Finally, it compels us to embrace management approaches that incorporate ongoing disturbances and anticipated effects of climatic changes, and to support dynamically shifting patchworks of forest and non-forest. Doing so could make these shifting forest conditions and wildfire regimes less disruptive to individuals and society.

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Section: Klamath and Southern Cascade Mountain Forestsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate, Environment, and Disturbance History Govern Resilience of Western North American Forests

et al. 2019

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“…Disturbances such as changes to grazing patterns or climate change interrupt the convergence to a steady state on a frequent basis, and thus keep systems in perpetual transients [77,78]. The occurrence of such disequilibrium states is not specific to savanna and dryland biomes but also occurs in ecosystems of other climate zones [63]. While we have not investigated the system's response to changes in environmental conditions, such as variability in precipitation or a changes in water evaporation due to temperature fluctuations, the analysis presented in this paper can provide an insight into the dynamics of such transient states by investigating their origin, fate and some of their properties.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Metastability as a Coexistence Mechanism in a Model for Dryland Vegetation Patterns

Eigentler

Sherratt

2019

Bull Math Biol

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Vegetation patterns are a ubiquitous feature of water-deprived ecosystems. Despite the competition for the same limiting resource, coexistence of several plant species is commonly observed. We propose a two-species reaction-diffusion model based on the single-species Klausmeier model, to analytically investigate the existence of states in which both species coexist. Ecologically, the study finds that coexistence is supported if there is a small difference in the plant species' average fitness, measured by the ratio of a species' capabilities to convert water into new biomass to its mortality rate. Mathematically, coexistence is not a stable solution of the system, but both spatially uniform and patterned coexistence states occur as metastable states. In this context, a metastable solution in which both species coexist corresponds to a long transient (exceeding 10 3 years in dimensional parameters) to a stable one-species state. This behaviour is characterised by the small size of a positive eigenvalue which has the same order of magnitude as the average fitness difference between the two species. Two mechanisms causing the occurrence of metastable solutions are established: a spatially uniform unstable equilibrium and a stable one-species pattern which is unstable to the introduction of a competitor. We further discuss effects of asymmetric interspecific competition (e.g. shading) on the metastability property.

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“…Clearly, climate variability matters when considering damage from climate change. Shifts in disturbance regimes are expected due to changes in the prevalence and distribution of fires, floods, hurricanes, and insect outbreaks, thus forcing communities into altered states [81,82]. These transitions can occur rapidly when severe disturbances are combined with increasing stress and they can lead to permanent vegetation community changes [83,84].…”

Section: Ecological Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Flora Altered vegetation composition, productivity, and distribution due to climate-induced stress and disturbance [74,75] Limited plant growth due to changes in temperature, precipitation, or the incidence of climatic extremes [76,77] Texas: reduced plant productivity due to increasing evapotranspiration [78,79] Altered prevalence and distribution of fires, floods, hurricanes, and insect outbreaks forces communities into a stressed state which can lead to permanent changes to vegetation [81][82][83][84] Aquatic and Riparian…”

Section: Climate Impacts On Agriculture Citationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating Agriculture and Ecosystems to Find Suitable Adaptations to Climate Change

Thayer

Vargas

Castellanos

et al. 2020

Climate

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Climate change is altering agricultural production and ecosystems around the world. Future projections indicate that additional change is expected in the coming decades, forcing individuals and communities to respond and adapt. Current research efforts typically examine climate change effects and possible adaptations but fail to integrate agriculture and ecosystems. This failure to jointly consider these systems and associated externalities may underestimate climate change impacts or cause adaptation implementation surprises, such as causing adaptation status of some groups or ecosystems to be worsened. This work describes and motivates reasons why ecosystems and agriculture adaptation require an integrated analytical approach. Synthesis of current literature and examples from Texas are used to explain concepts and current challenges. Texas is chosen because of its high agricultural output that is produced in close interrelationship with the surrounding semi-arid ecosystem. We conclude that future effect and adaptation analyses would be wise to jointly consider ecosystems and agriculture. Existing paradigms and useful methodology can be transplanted from the sustainable agriculture and ecosystem service literature to explore alternatives for climate adaptation and incentivization of private agriculturalists and consumers. Researchers are encouraged to adopt integrated modeling as a means to avoid implementation challenges and surprises when formulating and implementing adaptation.

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Disequilibrium of fire-prone forests sets the stage for a rapid decline in conifer dominance during the 21st century

Cited by 85 publications

References 76 publications

Climate, Environment, and Disturbance History Govern Resilience of Western North American Forests

Climate, Environment, and Disturbance History Govern Resilience of Western North American Forests

Metastability as a Coexistence Mechanism in a Model for Dryland Vegetation Patterns

Integrating Agriculture and Ecosystems to Find Suitable Adaptations to Climate Change

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