Quantifying pyrodiversity and its drivers

Steel, Zachary L.; Collins, Brandon M.; Sapsis, David B.; Stephens, Scott L.

doi:10.1098/rspb.2020.3202

Cited by 19 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…The hump‐shaped relationship can be explained by potentially higher structural complexity in moderately disturbed stands contributing to higher diversity of microhabitat conditions and resources compared to more homogeneously disturbed or nearly undisturbed stands (Stein, Gerstner & Kreft, 2014; Senf et al ., 2020). That is, disturbances with intermediate severity may be associated with higher ‘disturbance diversity’ that can be related to higher biodiversity as proposed by the pyrodiversity–biodiversity hypothesis (Martin & Sapsis, 1992; Jones & Tingley, 2021; Steel et al ., 2021). Some case studies showing that intermediate fire severity can lead to higher pyrodiversity and consequently enhance biodiversity provide support for that explanation (Ponisio et al ., 2016; Lazarina et al ., 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of natural disturbances on forest biodiversity: an ecological synthesis

et al. 2022

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Disturbances alter biodiversity via their specific characteristics, including severity and extent in the landscape, which act at different temporal and spatial scales. Biodiversity response to disturbance also depends on the community characteristics and habitat requirements of species. Untangling the mechanistic interplay of these factors has guided disturbance ecology for decades, generating mixed scientific evidence of biodiversity responses to disturbance. Understanding the impact of natural disturbances on biodiversity is increasingly important due to human-induced changes in natural disturbance regimes. In many areas, major natural forest disturbances, such as wildfires, windstorms, and insect outbreaks, are becoming more frequent, intense, severe, and widespread due to climate change and land-use change. Conversely, the suppression of natural disturbances threatens disturbance-dependent biota. Using a meta-analytic approach, we analysed a global data set (with most sampling concentrated in temperate and boreal secondary forests) of species assemblages of 26 taxonomic groups, including plants, animals, and fungi collected from forests affected by wildfires, windstorms, and insect outbreaks. The overall effect of natural disturbances on α-diversity did not differ significantly from zero, but some taxonomic groups responded positively to disturbance, while others tended to respond negatively.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of natural disturbances on forest biodiversity: an ecological synthesis

et al. 2022

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“…The spotted owl is tolerant of, or even selects for, small high severity burned patches if mature stands survive in the nearby matrix, but they are intolerant of increasingly large high severity patches created by fires such as the 2013 Rim, 2020 Creek, and 2020 Castle fires in the southern Sierra Nevada (Jones et al, 2020; Kramer et al, 2021). A mosaic of burn severities consisting of predominantly low‐to‐moderate severity fire with small patches of high severity can create “pyrodiverse” landscapes that contain early seral habitat including shrublands and recently killed “snag forests” required by some species, while also promoting the persistence of key habitat structures for late seral‐dependent species (Jones, Kramer, et al, 2021; Steel, Collins, et al, 2021). These disturbances also leave a network of residual habitat patches (i.e., fire refugia) that are critical to fisher re‐colonization (Blomdahl, 2018; Thompson et al, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mega‐disturbances cause rapid decline of mature conifer forest habitat in California

Steel

Jones

Collins

et al. 2022

Ecological Applications

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Mature forests provide important wildlife habitat and support critical ecosystem functions globally. Within the dry conifer forests of the western United States, past management and fire exclusion have contributed to forest conditions that are susceptible to increasingly severe wildfire and drought. We evaluated declines in conifer forest cover in the southern Sierra Nevada of California during a decade of record disturbance by using spatially comprehensive forest structure estimates, wildfire perimeter data, and the eDaRT forest disturbance tracking algorithm. Primarily due to the combination of wildfires, drought, and drought‐associated beetle epidemics, 30% of the region's conifer forest extent transitioned to nonforest vegetation during 2011–2020. In total, 50% of mature forest habitat and 85% of high density mature forests either transitioned to lower density forest or nonforest vegetation types. California spotted owl protected activity centers (PAC) experienced greater canopy cover decline (49% of 2011 cover) than non‐PAC areas (42% decline). Areas with high initial canopy cover and without tall trees were most vulnerable to canopy cover declines, likely explaining the disproportionate declines of mature forest habitat and within PACs. Drought and beetle attack caused greater cumulative declines than areas where drought and wildfire mortality overlapped, and both types of natural disturbance far outpaced declines attributable to mechanical activities. Drought mortality that disproportionately affects large conifers is particularly problematic to mature forest specialist species reliant on large trees. However, patches of degraded forests within wildfire perimeters were larger with greater core area than those outside burned areas, and remnant forest habitats were more fragmented within burned perimeters than those affected by drought and beetle mortality alone. The percentage of mature forest that survived and potentially benefited from lower severity wildfire increased over time as the total extent of mature forest declined. These areas provide some opportunity for improved resilience to future disturbances, but strategic management interventions are likely also necessary to mitigate worsening mega‐disturbances. Remaining dry mature forest habitat in California may be susceptible to complete loss in the coming decades without a rapid transition from a conservation paradigm that attempts to maintain static conditions to one that manages for sustainable disturbance dynamics.

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“…The attributes relate only to native vegetation, that is all other cell types are masked out of the analysis, except for season midpoint which incorporates all cells. These represent key components of the fire regime—namely, fire frequency, intensity, seasonality, and extent (Gill, 1975; Gill & Allan, 2008; Pausas & Keeley, 2009)—and are important determinants of ecosystem processes in fire‐adapted systems (Steel et al, 2021). Annual area burnt per scenario was calculated as the area burnt per year (each an average of 50 replicates) averaged over the 100‐year simulation analysis period.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The fuel–climate–fire conundrum: How will fire regimes change in temperate eucalypt forests under climate change?

McColl‐Gausden

Bennett

Clarke

et al. 2022

Global Change Biology

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Fire regimes are changing across the globe in response to complex interactions between climate, fuel, and fire across space and time. Despite these complex interactions, research into predicting fire regime change is often unidimensional, typically focusing on direct relationships between fire activity and climate, increasing the chances of erroneous fire predictions that have ignored feedbacks with, for example, fuel loads and availability. Here, we quantify the direct and indirect role of climate on fire regime change in eucalypt dominated landscapes using a novel simulation approach that uses a landscape fire modelling framework to simulate fire regimes over decades to centuries. We estimated the relative roles of climate‐mediated changes as both direct effects on fire weather and indirect effects on fuel load and structure in a full factorial simulation experiment (present and future weather, present and future fuel) that included six climate ensemble members. We applied this simulation framework to predict changes in fire regimes across six temperate forested landscapes in south‐eastern Australia that encompass a broad continuum from climate‐limited to fuel‐limited. Climate‐mediated change in weather and fuel was predicted to intensify fire regimes in all six landscapes by increasing wildfire extent and intensity and decreasing fire interval, potentially led by an earlier start to the fire season. Future weather was the dominant factor influencing changes in all the tested fire regime attributes: area burnt, area burnt at high intensity, fire interval, high‐intensity fire interval, and season midpoint. However, effects of future fuel acted synergistically or antagonistically with future weather depending on the landscape and the fire regime attribute. Our results suggest that fire regimes are likely to shift across temperate ecosystems in south‐eastern Australia in coming decades, particularly in climate‐limited systems where there is the potential for a greater availability of fuels to burn through increased aridity.

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Quantifying pyrodiversity and its drivers

Cited by 19 publications

References 54 publications

The effect of natural disturbances on forest biodiversity: an ecological synthesis

The effect of natural disturbances on forest biodiversity: an ecological synthesis

Mega‐disturbances cause rapid decline of mature conifer forest habitat in California

The fuel–climate–fire conundrum: How will fire regimes change in temperate eucalypt forests under climate change?

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