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Climate change is increasing fire activity in the western United States, which has the potential to accelerate climate-induced shifts in vegetation communities. Wildfire can catalyze vegetation change by killing adult trees that could otherwise…
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The extent of young postfire conifer forests is growing throughout western North America as the frequency and size of high‐severity fires increase, making it important to understand ecosystem structure and function in early seral forests.…
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The 55 JFSP plots were established to capture forest types, fire histories, and severity levels beyond those found within the YFPD. The plots were square 50 m × 50 m plots established in Pinus ponderosa, Pinus jeffreyi, and Abies concolor – Pinus…
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We studied the impacts of climate variability on low‐elevation forests in the U.S. northern Rocky Mountains by quantifying how post‐fire tree regeneration and radial growth varied with growing‐season climate. We reconstructed post‐fire regeneration…
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Fires have significant impacts on soil erosion and water supply that may be exacerbated by future climate. The aims of this study were: To simulate the effects of a large fire event in the SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) hydrological model…
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Subalpine forests in the northern Rocky Mountains have been resilient to stand-replacing fires that historically burned at 100- to 300-year intervals. Fire intervals are projected to decline drastically as climate warms, and forests that reburn…
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Natural resource managers sow grass, forb, and shrub seeds across millions of hectares of public lands in the western United States to restore sagebrush‐steppe ecosystems burned by wildfire. The effects of post‐fire vegetation treatments on insect…
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We mapped yearly (2000–2016) estimates of annual grass percent cover for much of the sagebrush ecosystem of the western United States using remotely sensed, climate, and geophysical data in regression-tree models. Annual grasses senesce and cure by…
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Wildfire has been a constant presence on the Earth since at least the Silurian period, and is a landscape-scale catalyst that results in a step-change perturbation for hydrologic systems, which ripples across burned terrain, shaping the geomorphic…
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Invasion of exotic annual grasses (EAG) and increased wildfire have led to an emphasis on managing rangeland plant communities for resistance to invasion and resilience to disturbances. In sagebrush steppe and similar rangelands, perennial…
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Reestablishing shrub canopy cover after disturbance in semi‐arid ecosystems, such as sagebrush steppe, is essential to provide wildlife habitat and restore ecosystem functioning. While several studies have explored the effects of landscape and…
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Species that are primarily seral may form stable (self‐sustaining) communities under certain disturbance regimes or environmental conditions, yet such populations may also be particularly vulnerable to ecological change. Aspen (Populus spp.) are…
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The extreme heat from wildfire alters soil properties and incinerates vegetation, leading to changes in infiltration capacity, ground cover, soil erodibility, and rainfall interception. These changes promote increases in runoff and sediment…
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Wildfires raise risks of floods, debris flows, major geomorphologic and sedimentologic change, and water quality and quantity shifts. A principal control on the magnitude of these changes is field‐saturated hydraulic conductivity (Kfs), which…
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This synthesis reviews current knowledge of pinyon and juniper ecosystems, in both persistent and newly expanded woodlands, for managers, researchers, and the interested public. We draw from a large volume of research papers to centralize…
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Wildfire is a cause of disturbance on public lands, and post-fire treatments often include broadcast seeding of native and non-native seeds. We collected vegetation data from an area burned by a wildfire in western Colorado in 2012 and, where…
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Climate change is projected to dramatically increase boreal wildfire activity, with broad ecological and socioeconomic consequences. As global temperatures rise, periods with elevated fire weather are expected to increase in frequency and duration,…
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After wildfire, hillslope and channel erosion produce large amounts of sediment and can contribute significantly to long‐term erosion rates. However, pre‐erosion high‐resolution topographic data (e.g. lidar) is often not available and determining…
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Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Lawson & C. Lawson) is a prominent tree species in forests of the western United States. Wildfire activity in ponderosa pine dominated or co-dominated forests has increased dramatically in recent decades, with…
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Predicting the timing of overland flow in burned watersheds can help to estimate debris‐flow timing and the location of debris‐flow initiation. Numerical models can produce flow predictions, but they are limited by our knowledge of appropriate model…
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