Skip to main content

Search by keywords, then use filters to narrow down results by type, year, topic, or ecosystem.

Displaying 81 - 100 of 1249

In fire-prone forests, postfire tree recovery may be limited by climate conditions and fire activity that exceed the range of conditions under which these forests evolved, leading to major shifts in forest structure and composition. Transformations…
Author(s): Tyler J. Hoecker, Monica G. Turner
Year Published:

In ecosystems where trees and grasses coexist, some grass species are found only in open habitats and others persist under trees. The persistence of shade intolerant grasses in ecosystems such as open woodlands and savannas depends on recurrent…
Author(s): Xiulin Gao, Dylan W. Schwilk
Year Published:

Of all terrestrial biomes, grasslands are losing the most biodiversity the most rapidly, so there is a critical need to document and learn from large-scale restoration successes. In the Loess Canyons ecoregion of the Great Plains, USA, an…
Author(s): Caleb P. Roberts, Rheinhardt Scholtz, Dillon T. Fogarty, Dirac Twidwell, Thomas L. Jr. Walker
Year Published:

As temperatures continue rising, the direction, magnitude, and tempo of change in disturbance-prone forests remain unresolved. Even forests long resilient to stand-replacing fire face uncertain futures, and efforts to project changes in forest…
Author(s): Monica G. Turner, Kristin H. Braziunas, Winslow D. Hansen, Tyler J. Hoecker, Werner Rammer, Zakary Ratajczak, Anthony L. Westerling, Rupert Seidl
Year Published:

Background: Fire is a multifaceted force. Fire activity and risk of fire incidence across US forested ecosystems have accelerated over the last two decades. At the same time, human land-use choices and climate change interacted with fire, in an era…
Year Published:

Fire is one of Earth's most potent agents of ecological change. This Special Issue comes in the wake of a series of extreme wildfires across the world, from the Amazon, to Siberia, California, Portugal, South Africa and eastern Australia (Duane et…
Author(s): Dale G. Nimmo, Alan N. Andersen, Sally Archibald, Matthias M. Boer, Lluis Brotons, Catherine L. Parr, Morgan W. Tingley
Year Published:

Fire refugia and patchiness are important to the persistence of fire-sensitive species and may facilitate biodiversity conservation in fire-dependent landscapes. Playing the role of ecosystem engineers, large herbivores alter vegetation structure…
Author(s): Megan J. Dornbusch, Ryan Limb, Ilana V. Bloom-Cornelius, R. Dwayne Elmore, John R. Weir, Samuel D. Fuhlendorf
Year Published:

Building fire-adaptive communities and fostering fire-resilient landscapes have become two of the main research strands of wildfire science that go beyond strictly biophysical viewpoints and call for the integration of complementary visions of…
Author(s): Carmen Vazquez-Varela, José M. Martínez-Navarro, Luisa Abad-González
Year Published:

Aim: Climate warming is expected to drive upward and poleward shifts at the leading edge of tree species ranges. Disturbance has the potential to accelerate these shifts by altering biotic and abiotic conditions, though this potential is likely to…
Author(s): Katherine Nigro, Monique E. Rocca, Michael A. Battaglia, Jonathan D. Coop, Miranda Redmond
Year Published:

Burn severity in forests is commonly assessed in the field with visual ordinal estimates such as the Composite Burn Index (CBI). However, how CBI (a composite of several individual field measures) relates to independent quantitative measures of burn…
Author(s): Saba Saberi, Michelle Agne, Brian J. Harvey
Year Published:

Under the influence of climate change, wildfire regimes are expected to intensify and expand to new areas, increasing threats to natural and socioeconomic assets. We explore the environmental and economic implications for the forest sector of…
Author(s): Miguel Rivière, F. Pimont, Philippe Delacote, Julien Ruffault, Antonello Lobianco, Thomas Opitz, Jean-Luc Dupuy
Year Published:

Restoration goals in fire-prone conifer forests include mitigating fire hazard while restoring forest structural components linked to disturbance resilience and ecological function. Restoration of overstory spatial pattern in forests often falls…
Author(s): Jeffery B. Cannon, Katarina J. Warnick, Spencer Elliott, Jennifer S. Briggs
Year Published:

Fire is a primary disturbance in the world’s forested ecosystems and its impacts are projected to increase in many regions due to global climate change. Fire impacts have been studied for decades, but integrative assessments of its effects on…
Author(s): Jose V. Roces-Díaz, Cristina Santin, Jordi Martinez-Vilalta, Stefan H. Doerr
Year Published:

Motivation: Rapid climate change is altering plant communities around the globe fundamentally. Despite progress in understanding how plants respond to these climate shifts, accumulating evidence suggests that disturbance could not only modify…
Author(s): Joseph D. Napier, Melissa L. Chipman
Year Published:

Although bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus) and tailed frogs (Ascaphus montanus) have co-existed in forested Pacific Northwest streams for millennia, these iconic cold-water specialists are experiencing rapid environmental change caused by a…
Author(s): David S. Pilliod, Robert S. Arkle, Russell F. Thurow, Daniel J. Isaak
Year Published:

The future of dry forests around the world is uncertain given predictions that rising temperatures and enhanced aridity will increase drought-induced tree mortality. Using forest management and ecological restoration to reduce density and…
Author(s): John Bradford, Robert K. Shriver, Marcos D. Robles, Lisa McCauley, Travis J. Woolley, Caitlin M. Andrews, Michael A. Crimmins, David M. Bell
Year Published:

Invasions of native plant communities by non-native species present major challenges for ecosystem management and conservation. Invasive annual grasses such as cheatgrass, medusahead, and ventenata are pervasive and continue to expand their…
Author(s): Bryan C. Tarbox, Nathan D. Van Schmidt, Jessica E. Shyvers, D. Joanne Saher, Julie A. Heinrichs, Cameron L. Aldridge
Year Published:

Surface fuel loads are a key driver of forest fires and the target of hazard reduction burns to reduce fire risk. However, the role of biota in decomposition, or feedbacks between fire and decomposer communities are rarely considered. We review the…
Author(s): Heloise Gibb, J. J. Grubb, O. Decker, Nick P. Murphy, A. E. Franks, J. L. Wood
Year Published:

Fire suppression and the loss of western white pine (WWP) have made northern Rocky Mountain moist mixed-conifer forests less disturbance resilient. Although managers are installing hundreds of plantations, most of these plantations have not…
Author(s): Theresa B. Jain, Andrew S. Nelson, Benjamin C. Bright, John C. Byrne, Andrew T. Hudak
Year Published:

Background: Wildfires are important global disturbances influencing ecosystem structure and composition. The moisture content of living and senescent plant components are key determinants of wildfire activity, yet our understanding of how seasonal…
Author(s): Tegan P. Brown, Zachary Hoylman, Elliot T. Conrad, Zachary A. Holden, Kelsey Jencso, William Matt Jolly
Year Published: