Impacts of Land Management on the Resilience of Mediterranean Dry Forests to Fire

Riva, Matteo Jucker; Liniger, Hanspeter; Valdecantos, Alejandro; Schwilch, Gudrun

doi:10.3390/su8100981

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…Fire is a frequent and historical longterm endemic disturbance in Mediterranean climates [57]. Large seed banks and the presence of savannoid woodlands are associated with the high resilience of some forest communities that conserve and retain nutrients and where soils quickly recover after a fire [194,195]. The changes in climate and soil in several Mediterranean areas have already increased the risk of fire in the Mediterranean Basin [41,196].…”

Section: Forest Wildfiresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Change and Forest Disturbances in the Mediterranean Basin: Breakthroughs, Knowledge Gaps, and Recommendations

Peñuelas

Sardans

2021

Forests

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Forest ecosystems in the Mediterranean Basin are mostly situated in the north of the Basin (mesic). In the most southern and dry areas, the forest can only exist where topography and/or altitude favor a sufficient availability of water to sustain forest biomass. We have conducted a thorough review of recent literature (2000–2021) that clearly indicates large direct and indirect impacts of increasing drought conditions on the forests of the Mediterranean Basin, their changes in surface and distribution areas, and the main impacts they have suffered. We have focused on the main trends that emerge from the current literature and have highlighted the main threatens and management solution for the maintenance of these forests. The results clearly indicate large direct and indirect impacts of increasing drought conditions on the forests of the Mediterranean Basin. These increasing drought conditions together with over-exploitation, pest expansion, fire and soil degradation, are synergistically driving to forest regression and dieback in several areas of this Mediterranean Basin. These environmental changes have triggered responses in tree morphology, physiology, growth, reproduction, and mortality. We identified at least seven causes of the changes in the last three decades that have led to the current situation and that can provide clues for projecting the future of these forests: (i) The direct effect of increased aridity due to more frequent and prolonged droughts, which has driven Mediterranean forest communities to the limit of their capacity to respond to drought and escape to wetter sites, (ii) the indirect effects of drought, mainly by the spread of pests and fires, (iii) the direct and indirect effects of anthropogenic activity associated with general environmental degradation, including soil degradation and the impacts of fire, species invasion and pollution, (iv) human pressure and intense management of water resources, (v) agricultural land abandonment in the northern Mediterranean Basin without adequate management of new forests, (vi) very high pressure on forested areas of northern Africa coupled with the demographic enhancement, the expansion of crops and higher livestock pressure, and the more intense and overexploitation of water resources uses on the remaining forested areas, and (vii) scarcity and inequality of human management and policies, depending on the national and/or regional governments and agencies, being unable to counteract the previous changes. We identified appropriate measures of management intervention, using the most adequate techniques and processes to counteract these impacts and thus to conserve the health, service capacity, and biodiversity of Mediterranean forests. Future policies should, moreover, promote research to improve our knowledge of the mechanisms of, and the effects on, nutrient and carbon plant-soil status concurrent with the impacts of aridity and leaching due to the effects of current changes. Finally, we acknowledge the difficulty to obtain an accurate quantification of the impacts of increasing aridity rise that warrants an urgent investment in more focused research to further develop future tools in order to counteract the negative effects of climate change on Mediterranean forests.

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Section: Forest Wildfiresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Change and Forest Disturbances in the Mediterranean Basin: Breakthroughs, Knowledge Gaps, and Recommendations

Peñuelas

Sardans

2021

Forests

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“…Our results provide empirical evidence that plantations are the least beneficial treatment for resilience in Mediterranean pine forests (Maestre & Cortina 2004, Jucker Riva et al 2016. We therefore recommend that seeding and natural regeneration techniques should be preferred in salvage-logged Pinus brutia forests after fire.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 62%

Post-fire recovery of the plant community in Pinus brutia forests: active vs. indirect restoration techniques after salvage logging

Ürker¹,

Tavşanoğlu²,

Gürkan³

2018

iForest

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Biogeosciences and Forestry Biogeosciences and Forestry Post-fire recovery of the plant community in Pinus brutia forests: active vs. indirect restoration techniques after salvage logging Okan Ürker (1) , Çağatay Tavşanoğlu (1) , Behzat Gürkan (2) Although reforestation is frequently utilized in many Mediterranean Basin countries to restore burned Mediterranean pine woodlands, post-fire recovery of the plant community is often neglected. To compare the post-fire recovery of the plant community following active and indirect post-fire restoration techniques, we studied three post-fire regeneration treatments in a salvagelogged Pinus brutia forest, including two active (plantation and seeding) restoration techniques and one indirect (natural regeneration). An unburned pine stand was also included in the study. We applied the point-intercept method to obtain data on the presence and cover of individual species and functional groups in six replicate one-hectare plots for each treatment. We found no significant differences in plant species richness among post-fire treatments; however, plant community composition and vegetation structure were significantly different between treatments. There was a shift in plant community structure when active restoration techniques were applied, from the woody-and resprouter-dominated plant community of the unburned site to an annual herbaceous-and non-resprouter-dominated one. Our results suggest that active restoration by planting tree saplings in Mediterranean pine forests after a fire may decrease the plant community's resilience and provide empirical evidence that pine plantation treatments change the plant species composition of these forests. These results have important implications for post-fire management of Mediterranean Basin pine forests.

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“…It is also important to use FR, the best measure of rates of fires [15], since FR measures the highly variable areas of fires and avoids earlier measures of rates of fire (e.g., mean fire-return intervals, composite fire intervals) that simply counted fires in small plots without measuring fire areas [15]. There is also considerable global concern about managing natural disturbances, particularly wildfires, in primary and native dry forests [32][33][34][35]. Disturbances are recognized as essential natural processes in forests.…”

Section: Management Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contemporary Wildfires Not More Severe Than Historically: More Fire of All Severities Needed to Sustain and Adapt Western US Dry Forests as Climate Changes

Baker

2024

Sustainability

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Fire-adapted dry forests and nearby communities both need to be sustained as climate changes. Wildfires have increased in the ~25.5 million ha of dry forests in the western US, but are wildfires already more severe than historical (preindustrial) wildfires, warranting suppression, or is more fire needed? Recent research suggests that a higher percentage are more severe, but is this from more high-severity fire (≥70% mortality) or simply less lower-severity fire? To resolve this question, I compared government fire-severity data from 2000–2020 with corresponding government Landfire historical data, representing the last few centuries. The fire rotation (expected time to burn across an area of interest) for high-severity fire was 477 years recently versus 255 years historically, a deficit, not a surplus. High-severity fire would need to increase 1.9 times to equal historical rates. Thus, reducing high-severity fire through fuel reductions is fire suppression, which has significant well-known adverse ecological impacts. These include reductions in (1) natural burn patches, snags, and non-forest openings, that favor diverse fire-adapted species, and (2) landscape heterogeneity that can limit future disturbances and enhance landscape ecological processes. Even larger deficits were in moderate (4.4 times) and low (5.8 times) fire severities. However, if only these lower severities were restored, the high-severity percentage would correspondingly be reduced to low levels. All fire severities are needed to provide a variety of post-fire settings that favor a broad suite of selection pressures and adaptations to emerging climate. This paper shows that to sustain and adapt dry forests and nearby communities to fire and climate change, the billions spent on fuel reductions to reduce high-severity fire can be redirected to protecting the built environment, fostering both safe and sustainable dry forests and human communities.

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Impacts of Land Management on the Resilience of Mediterranean Dry Forests to Fire

Cited by 8 publications

References 52 publications

Global Change and Forest Disturbances in the Mediterranean Basin: Breakthroughs, Knowledge Gaps, and Recommendations

Global Change and Forest Disturbances in the Mediterranean Basin: Breakthroughs, Knowledge Gaps, and Recommendations

Post-fire recovery of the plant community in Pinus brutia forests: active vs. indirect restoration techniques after salvage logging

Contemporary Wildfires Not More Severe Than Historically: More Fire of All Severities Needed to Sustain and Adapt Western US Dry Forests as Climate Changes

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