scholarly journals Limits to Ponderosa Pine Regeneration following Large High-Severity Forest Fires in the United States Southwest

Fire Ecology ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Collin Haffey ◽  
Thomas D. Sisk ◽  
Craig D. Allen ◽  
Andrea E. Thode ◽  
Ellis Q. Margolis
2019 ◽  
Vol 454 ◽  
pp. 117663 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie E. Korb ◽  
Paula J. Fornwalt ◽  
Camille S. Stevens-Rumann

Author(s):  
Indra Agus Riyanto ◽  
Ahmad Cahyadi ◽  
Faricha Kurniadhini ◽  
Hafidz Bachtiar ◽  
Dwiki Apriyana ◽  
...  

Forest fires are one of the global issues that attract worldwide attention. Russia, Brazil, Canada, the United States, and Indonesia are among the countries with the largest forest cover and long records of massive forest fires. Forest fire management is, therefore, critical to decreasing the severity level of these fires. Current conditions indicate that, compared with the four other countries, Indonesia has significantly reduced forest fires within the past five years. Consequently, adopting a global perspective to study the characteristics of forest fire disaster management has become necessary. For each management parameter, this research employed a literature review and descriptive analysis. The results showed that Indonesia had an advantage in the field of legal regulation. Indonesia tends to change its regulations within a short span of time, resulting in the number of forest fire incidents decreasing significantly compared with Russia, Brazil, Canada, and the United States. However, the country still has several weaknesses, namely in emergency responses, forest fire monitoring technology, and inter-institutional integration in forest fire disaster management.


2013 ◽  
Vol 43 (6) ◽  
pp. 570-583 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Savage ◽  
Joy Nystrom Mast ◽  
Johannes J. Feddema

We examine regeneration dynamics across landscapes under extreme climate conditions and a human-altered fire regime in ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Douglas ex Lawson & C. Lawson) forests of the American Southwest. Our research asks how well these forests recover when unprecedented conditions of a high-severity fire regime combine with historical drought conditions. Tree recruitment is documented at five sites in New Mexico after high-severity fires that burned forests in the drought that prevailed from ∼1945 to 1958. We develop a water-balance type model to evaluate how altered microclimate conditions in the years after a fire and during a drought may inhibit ponderosa pine regeneration in comparison with drought conditions alone. We empirically identify two pathways of forest recovery following high-severity fires during drought: recovery to nonforest types, either dense shrubfields or shrubs in grasslands (four sites) or recovery to hyperdense forest (one site). Model simulations predict fewer favorable opportunities for germination, fewer periods favorable for seedling establishment, shortening of favorable establishment periods, and more adverse conditions because of later spring and earlier fall hard freezes. Our research suggests that a specific climate window critical to the capacity of southwestern ponderosa pine trees to regenerate is narrowed by a synchronous occurrence of high-severity fire and drought.


2013 ◽  
Vol 03 (03) ◽  
pp. 75-78
Author(s):  
Wayne A. Geyer ◽  
Keith D. Lynch ◽  
Peter Schaefer ◽  
William R. Lovette

Fire Ecology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan P. Singleton ◽  
Andrea E. Thode ◽  
Andrew J. Sánchez Meador ◽  
Jose M. Iniguez

Abstract Background Fire regimes are shifting in ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Lawson & C. Lawson)-dominated forests, raising concern regarding future vegetation patterns and forest resilience, particularly within high-severity burn patches. The southwestern US has recently experienced a marked increase in large fires that produce large, high-severity patch interiors, with few surviving trees. These areas could be more susceptible for forest loss and conversions to alternative vegetation types than areas closer to the forest edge with more available seed sources. To better understand forest recovery, we surveyed ponderosa pine regeneration within edge and core areas (>200 m from edge) of high-severity patches in ten fires that burned between 1996 to 2008 across Arizona and New Mexico, USA. Specifically, we compared regeneration density, height, and canopy cover in patch edge and core areas and used generalized linear models to investigate the abiotic and biotic factors that contribute to ponderosa pine seedling establishment and density. Results High-severity burn-patch edge and core plots were not significantly different in seedling density, height, or canopy cover across fires. Seedling establishment was more likely at higher-elevation mesic sites and less likely when Gambel oak (Quercus gambelii Nutt.) was more abundant. Seedling density was negatively impacted by shrub, grass, and Gambel oak cover. Conclusions Regeneration density varied among fires but analysis of regeneration in aggregated edge and core plots showed that abundance of seed availability was not the sole factor that limited ponderosa pine regeneration, probably because of surviving tree refugia within high-severity burn patches. Furthermore, our findings emphasize that ponderosa pine regeneration in our study area was significantly impacted by xeric topographic environments and vegetation competition. Continued warm and dry conditions and increased wildfire activity may delay the natural recovery of ponderosa pine forests, underscoring the importance of restoration efforts in large, high-severity burn patches.


2017 ◽  
Vol 405 ◽  
pp. 134-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne M. Owen ◽  
Carolyn H. Sieg ◽  
Andrew J. Sánchez Meador ◽  
Peter Z. Fulé ◽  
José M. Iniguez ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Karen A. McKinnon ◽  
Andrew Poppick ◽  
Isla R. Simpson

Forests ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 1094 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan E. Montpellier ◽  
Peter T. Soulé ◽  
Paul A. Knapp ◽  
Justin T. Maxwell

Ponderosa pine (PP) is the most common and widely distributed pine species in the western United States, spanning from southern Canada to the United States–Mexico border. PP can be found growing between sea level and 3000 meters elevation making them an ideal species to assess the effects of changing climatic conditions at a variety of elevations. Here we compare PP standardized and raw growth responses to climate conditions along an elevational transect spanning 1000 meters in western Montana, U.S.A., a region that experienced a 20th century warming trend and is expected to incur much warmer (3.1–4.5 °C) and slightly drier summers (~0.3 cm decrease per month) by the end on the 21st century. Specifically, we assess if there are climate/growth differences based on relative (i.e., site-specific) and absolute (i.e., combined sites) elevation between groups of trees growing in different elevational classes. We find that values of the Palmer drought severity index (PDSI) in July are most strongly related to radial growth and that within-site elevation differences are a poor predictor of the response of PP to either wet or dry climatic conditions (i.e., years with above or below average July PDSI values). These results suggest that any generalization that stands of PP occurring at their elevational margins are most vulnerable to changing climatic may not be operative at these sites in western Montana. Our results show that when using standardized ring widths, PP growing at the lowest and highest elevations within western Montana exhibit differential growth during extreme climatological conditions with lower-elevation trees outperforming higher-elevation trees during dry years and vice versa during wet years.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document