Effects of fuel treatments on California mixed-conifer forests

Winford, Eric M.; Stevens, Jens T.; Safford, Hugh D.

doi:10.3733/ca.v069n03p150

Cited by 8 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 61 publications

(94 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…, Winford et al. ). However, the spatial footprint of active management will continue to be limited by economic, ecological, social, and political factors.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Long-term fire suppression in these fire-dependent ecosystems has greatly reduced fire occurrence but ironically increased the probability that the outcomes of fire will be ecologically negative when they occur (Steel et al 2015). Restoration of low tree densities and low fuel loadings in FRG I forests by managers can greatly increase forest resilience to fire and drought and benefit a suite of forest conditions, ecological processes, and biota (Schwilk et al 2009, Stevens et al 2014, Hanberry et al 2015, Winford et al 2015. However, the spatial footprint of active management will continue to be limited by economic, ecological, social, and political factors.…”

Section: Management Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The species diversity × fire severity relationship is hump‐shaped in semiarid yellow pine and mixed conifer forests

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The combination of direct human influences and the effects of climate change are resulting in altered ecological disturbance regimes, and this is especially the case for wildfires. Many regions that historically experienced low–moderate severity fire regimes are seeing increased area burned at high severity as a result of interactions between high fuel loads and climate warming with a number of negative ecological effects. While ecosystem impacts of altered fire regimes have been examined in the literature, little is known of the effects of changing fire regimes on forest understory plant diversity even though understory taxa comprise the vast majority of forest plant species and play vital roles in overall ecosystem function. We examined understory plant diversity across gradients of wildfire severity in eight large wildfires in yellow pine and mixed conifer temperate forests of the Sierra Nevada, California, USA. We found a generally unimodal hump‐shaped relationship between local (alpha) plant diversity and fire severity. High‐severity burning resulted in lower local diversity as well as some homogenization of the flora at the regional scale. Fire severity class, post‐fire litter cover, and annual precipitation were the best predictors of understory species diversity. Our research suggests that increases in fire severity in systems historically characterized by low and moderate severity fire may lead to plant diversity losses. These findings indicate that global patterns of increasing fire size and severity may have important implications for biodiversity.

show abstract

“…, Winford et al. ). However, the spatial footprint of active management will continue to be limited by economic, ecological, social, and political factors.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Management Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The species diversity × fire severity relationship is hump‐shaped in semiarid yellow pine and mixed conifer forests

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…By reducing surface litter and overstory shading and by moderately disturbing the soil, these treatments played a similar role as low‐ to moderate‐severity fire by increasing habitat for understory species. Previous work has suggested that fuel reduction treatments in YPMC forests rarely have negative impacts on plant diversity, and that positive impacts are more likely where fire is included in the treatment (Barefoot et al, 2019; Collins et al, 2007; Matzka & Kellogg, 1999; McIver et al, 2012; Winford et al, 2015). Our results support this generalization, as in our study plant diversity was higher in areas burned at low‐moderate severity (i.e., locations that were both thinned and burned) than in areas thinned but not burned (managed portion of the unburned class).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High‐severity fire drives persistent floristic homogenization in human‐altered forests

et al. 2023

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Ecological disturbance regimes across the globe are being altered via direct and indirect human influences. Biodiversity loss at multiple scales can be a direct outcome of these shifts. Fire, especially in dry forests, is an ecological disturbance that is experiencing dramatic changes due to climate change, fire suppression, increased human population in fire-prone areas, and alterations to vegetation composition and structure. Dry western conifer forests that historically experienced frequent, low-severity fires are now increasingly burning at high severity. Relatively little work has been done looking at the effects of this novel disturbance type on affected plant communities, and little is known about how these impacts change over time. To fill in these knowledge gaps, we examined a fire that burned in a yellow pine and mixed conifer forest in the central Sierra Nevada in California, USA. We sampled at five time steps across the nine years following the fire (1, 3, 5, 8, and 9 years postfire). We found a generally unimodal relationship between fire severity and plant alpha and gamma diversity, but found that areas that burned at high severity supported progressively lower plant diversity as time since fire increased. Similarly, beta diversity decreased drastically through time for the high-severity areas, while remaining more static in the other severity classes. The combination of these findings indicates that significant floristic homogenization can result from high-severity fire in this ecosystem type. We also saw consistently lower diversity in unburned areas in comparison to area burned at low and moderate severity, underlining that both lack of fire and high-severity fire can have negative impacts on postfire plant diversity. Unburned areas that experienced forest thinning after the first sample year saw an increase in plant diversity over time, suggesting that some-but not all-of the effects of fire on plant diversity can be approximated through forest management.

show abstract

“…Field studies within the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range broadly, and in the Lake Tahoe Basin specifically, have demonstrated the effectiveness of thinning and burning treatments in moderating impacts of wildfires through reductions in surface fuels, ladder fuels, and canopy contiguity (Safford et al 2009, Winford et al 2015. LANDIS-II modeling indicated that mechanical thinning would moderate fire behavior more effectively than hand thinning, which is limited to smaller trees; this finding was Represents fine sediment and nutrient loading to streams and lakes compared to baseline conditions.…”

Section: Complementary Work That Informed Assumptions In the Analysis...mentioning

confidence: 96%

Evaluating pathways to social and ecological landscape resilience

Abelson¹,

Reynolds²,

White³

et al. 2022

E&S

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Rapid environmental changes challenge the resilience of wildlands. The western portion of the Lake Tahoe Basin in California is an important ecological and cultural hotspot that is at risk of degradation from current and future environmental pressures. Historical uses, fire suppression, and a changing climate have created forest landscape conditions at risk of drought stress, destructive fire, and loss of habitat diversity. We prospectively modeled forest landscape conditions for a period of 100 years to evaluate the efficacy of 5 unique management scenarios in achieving desired landscape conditions. Management scenarios ranged from no management other than fire suppression to applying treatments consistent with historical fire frequencies and extent (i.e., regular and broadscale biomass reduction). We developed a decision support tool to evaluate environmental and social outcomes within a single framework to provide a transparent set of costs and benefits. Results illuminated underlying mechanisms of forest resilience and provided actionable guidance to decision makers. Sixteen attributes were assessed in the model after assigning weights to each. We found that removing forest biomass across the landscape, particularly when accomplished using extensive fire-based removal techniques, led to highly favorable conditions for environmental quality and promoted overall landscape resilience. Environmental conditions resulting from extensive fire-based biomass removal also had nominal variation over time, in contrast with strategies that had less extensive and/or used physical removal techniques (e.g., mechanical thinning). Our analysis provides a transparent approach to assess large datasets with complex and interacting variables. Ultimately, we aim to provide insights into the complexities of maintaining optimal conditions and managing landscapes to promote ecosystem resilience in a changing world.

show abstract

Effects of fuel treatments on California mixed-conifer forests

Cited by 8 publications

References 61 publications

The species diversity × fire severity relationship is hump‐shaped in semiarid yellow pine and mixed conifer forests

The species diversity × fire severity relationship is hump‐shaped in semiarid yellow pine and mixed conifer forests

High‐severity fire drives persistent floristic homogenization in human‐altered forests

Evaluating pathways to social and ecological landscape resilience

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About