The Importance of Fire as a Natural Ecological Factor in Itasca State Park, Minnesota

Frissell, Sidney S.

doi:10.1016/0033-5894(73)90005-7

Cited by 91 publications

(76 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…This burning pattern for white and red pine stands led to a negative exponential age-class distribution with approximately 55 percent of forest stands older than 125 years, and the pattern applies to landscapes at least 960,000 acres (400,000 ha) (Baker 1989), suggesting a large proportion of so-called old growth forests. On dry sites, fire frequency varied from 20 to 300 years with an average return interval of approximately 100 years for the entire Great Lakes and St. Lawrence forest region (Bergeron and Brisson 1990;Burgess and Methven 1977;Cwynar 1977Cwynar , 1978Duchesne and Gauthier;Frissell 1973;Heinselman 1981;Maissurow 1935Maissurow , 1941Methven and Murray 1974;Rowe 1972;Van Wagner 1970) and from 15 to 30 years in Newfoundland (Roberts and Mallik 1994). Mesic sites colonized mainly by white pine were characterized by longer fire intervals, probably 200 to 300 years or more (Heinselman 1983).…”

Section: Duchesnementioning

confidence: 99%

Wildland fire in ecosystems: effects of fire on flora

Brown¹,

Smith²

2000

300

156

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_____________________________________This state-of-knowledge review about the effects of fire on flora and fuels can assist land managers with ecosystem and fire management planning and in their efforts to inform others about the ecological role of fire. Chapter topics include fire regime classification, autecological effects of fire, fire regime characteristics and postfire plant community developments in ecosystems throughout the United States and Canada, global climate change, ecological principles of fire regimes, and practical considerations for managing fire in an ecosytem context.

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Section: Duchesnementioning

confidence: 99%

Wildland fire in ecosystems: effects of fire on flora

Brown¹,

Smith²

2000

300

156

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“…The endpoints of the disturbance-severity gradient are the same as in Figure 5 (that is, dominance by aspen-paper birch after severe disturbance, and dominance by hardwood-hemlock after an extended period with only low-severity disturbance), but we expect that forest response to moderateseverity disturbance will result in a cluster of points in the middle of the range of dominance by shadetolerant species, rather than the two alternate states shown in Figure 5. Several such case studies are documented in the literature, in forests with various mixtures of white pine, aspen, paper birch, and hardwoods, that fall in the middle of the low-high gradient of dominance by late-successional species, after a variety of moderate-severity disturbances (Frissell 1973;Heinselman 1973Heinselman , 1981Frelich and Lorimer 1991;Frelich and Reich 1995a). Research in progress will measure disturbance severity more precisely.…”

Section: Can the Cusp-catastrophe Model Be Applied Quantitatively?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Minireviews: Neighborhood Effects, Disturbance Severity, and Community Stability in Forests

1999

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A theoretical framework and conceptual model for temporal stability of forest tree-species composition was developed based on a synthesis of existing studies. The model pertains primarily to time periods of several tree lifetimes (several hundred to a few thousand years) at the neighborhood and stand spatial scales (0.01-10 ha), although a few extensions to the landscape scale are also made. The cusp catastrophe was chosen to illustrate compositional dynamics at the stand level for jack pine, northern hardwood, and white pine forests in the Great Lakes Region of the United States and for tropical rainforests in the northern Amazon basin. The models feature a response surface (degree of dominance by late-successional species) that depends on two variables: type of neighborhood effects of the dominant tree species and severity of disturbances. Neighborhood effects are processes that affect the chance of a species replacing itself at the time of disturbance (they can be positive, neutral, or negative) and are of two types: overstory-undestory effects, such as the presence of advanced reproduction; and disturbance-activated effects, such as serotinous seed rain. Disturbance severity is the proportion of trees killed during a disturbance. Interactions between neighborhood effects and disturbance severity can lead to either punctuated stability (dramatic but infrequent change in composition, in those forests dominated by species with positive neighborhood effects) or succession (continuous change, in those forests dominated by species with neutral-negative neighborhood effects). We propose that neighborhood effects are a major organizing factor in forest dynamics that provide a link across spatial scales between individual trees and disturbance/patch dynamics at the stand and landscape scales.

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“…In many regions catastrophic blowdown is often accompanied by fire (Cline & Spurr 1942;Steams 1949;Frissell 1973;Lorimer 1977;Whitney 1986) or mass movements (Veblen & Ashton 1978), resulting in further disturbance. Broad, even-aged stands of Pinus strobus in the northeastern United States are thought to have been the result of catastrophic blowdown that, in most instances, was followed by fire (Goodlett 1954;Bormann & Likens 1979a).…”

Section: Uprooting As a Type Of Disturbancementioning

confidence: 99%

Tree uprooting: review of impacts on forest ecology

et al. 1988

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This paper reviews the ecological effects of tree uprooting. In many forests, disturbance by uprooting is the primary means of maintaining species richness and diversity. Treefall may be due to exogenous factors or it may be endogenously created, although the former predominate. The canopy gap formed by downed trees is often vital to community vegetation dynamics and successional pathways, by providing high light niches (gaps) for pioneer species, by encouraging release of suppressed, shade-tolerant saplings, and through recruitment of new individuals. Nutrient cycling may be affected by uprooting as subsoil materials are brought to the surface, via additions of woody debris to the forest floor, through exposure of bare mineral soil, and by changes in throughfall chemistry. The influence of the resultant pit/mound microtopography on understorey herb distribution is largely due to microclimatic and microtopographic variation. Tree seedling distribution, however, is related to microtopography primarily through differences in soil morphology, nutrition, and moisture content of mound and pit sites.

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The Importance of Fire as a Natural Ecological Factor in Itasca State Park, Minnesota

Cited by 91 publications

References 7 publications

Wildland fire in ecosystems: effects of fire on flora

Wildland fire in ecosystems: effects of fire on flora

Minireviews: Neighborhood Effects, Disturbance Severity, and Community Stability in Forests

Tree uprooting: review of impacts on forest ecology

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