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Displaying 141 - 160 of 1086

Climate change has lengthened wildfire seasons and transformed fire regimes throughout the world. Thus, capturing fuel and fire dynamics is critical for projecting Earth system processes in warmer and drier future. Recent advances in fire regime…
Author(s): Erin J. Hanan, Maureen C. Kennedy, Jianning Ren, Morris C. Johnson, Alistair M. S. Smith
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
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There is mounting concern that global wildfire activity is shifting in frequency, intensity, and seasonality in response to climate change. Fuel moisture provides a powerful means of detecting changing fire potential. Here, we use global burned area…
Author(s): T. Michael Ellis, David M. J. S. Bowman, Piyush Jain, Michael D. Flannigan, Grant J. Williamson
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:

In fire-dependent forest landscapes, frequent low- to moderate-severity fire maintained vegetation patterns that limited the severity of droughts, wildfires, and insect and pathogen activity. More than a century of fire exclusion, in combination…
Author(s): R. Keala Hagmann, Paul F. Hessburg, R. Brion Salter, Andrew G. Merschel, Matthew J. Reilly
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Anticipating fire behavior as climate change and fire activity accelerate is an increasingly pressing management challenge in fire-prone landscapes. In subalpine forests adapted to infrequent, stand-replacing fire, self-limitation of burn severity…
Author(s): Kristin H. Braziunas, Diane Abendroth, Monica G. Turner
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
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Mechanical mastication is a fuel management strategy that modifies vegetation structure to reduce the impact of wildfire. Although past research has quantified immediate changes to fuel post-mastication, few studies consider longer-term fuel…
Author(s): Bianca J. Pickering, Jamie Burton, Trent D. Penman, Madeleine A. Grant, Jane G. Cawson
Year Published:

We evaluated the effects of postfire management on forest structure in mixed-conifer forests of northeastern Washington, USA. Postfire treatments were harvest-only, harvest combined with planting, planting-only, and postfire prescribed fire. We used…
Author(s): C. Alina Cansler, Van R. Kane, Bryce N. Bartl-Geller, Derek J. Churchill, Paul F. Hessburg, Nicholas A. Povak, James A. Lutz, Jonathan T. Kane, Andrew J. Larson
Year Published:

The increasing incidence of wildfires across the southwestern United States (US) is altering the contemporary forest management template within historically frequent-fire conifer forests. An increasing fraction of southwestern conifer forests have…
Author(s): Jens T. Stevens, Collin M. Haffey, Jonathan D. Coop, Paula J. Fornwalt, Larissa L. Yocom, Craig D. Allen, Anne F. Bradley, Owen T. Burney, Dennis Carril, Marin Chambers, Teresa B. Chapman, Sandra L. Haire, Matthew D. Hurteau, Jose M. Iniguez, Ellis Q. Margolis, Christopher Marks, Laura A. Marshall, Kyle Rodman, Camille Stevens-Rumann, Andrea E. Thode, Jessica J. Walker
Year Published:

Fire ecology has a long history of empirical investigation in rangelands. However, the science is inconclusive and incomplete, sparking increasing interest on how to advance the discipline. Here, we introduce a new framework for qualitatively and…
Author(s): Dirac Twidwell, Christine H. Bielski, Rheinhardt Scholtz, Samuel D. Fuhlendorf
Year Published:

Due to the shifting global climate, the frequency and severity of disturbances are increasing, inevitably causing an increase in disturbances overlapping in time and space. Bark beetle epidemics and wildfires have historically shaped the disturbance…
Author(s): Zoe Schapira, Camille Stevens-Rumann, Donna Shorrock, Chad M. Hoffman, Amy Chambers
Year Published:

Recent increases in destructive wildfires are driving a need for empirical research documenting factors that contribute to structure loss. Existing studies show that fire risk is complex and varies geographically, and the role of vegetation has been…
Author(s): Alexandra D. Syphard, Heather Rustigian-Romsos, Jon E. Keeley
Year Published:

Fuel reduction projects are designed to reduce wildfire hazard, but goals can also include ecological restoration, wildlife habitat enhancement, and forest health improvement. In the U.S. northern Rocky Mountains, ponderosa pine/Douglas-fir forests…
Author(s): Sharon M. Hood, Duncan C. Lutes, Christopher R. Keyes, Anna Sala
Year Published:

Forest landscapes across western North America (wNA) have experienced extensive changes over the last two centuries, while climatic warming has become a global reality over the last 4 decades. Resulting interactions between historical increases in…
Author(s): Paul F. Hessburg, Susan J. Prichard, R. Keala Hagmann, Nicholas A. Povak, Frank K. Lake
Year Published:

Prescribed fire is an essential management tool for restoring and maintaining the resilience of fire-dependent ecosystems. Past studies indicated that the current policy environment significantly constrained decision-making around prescribed fire (…
Author(s): Courtney Schultz, Cassandra Moseley, Adell L. Amos, Christopher Bone, Sarah M. McCaffrey
Year Published:

Expert opinion can be a valuable tool for informed decision making. Concerning wildfire susceptibility reduction at the landscape scale, forest ecosystem experts play a key role in offering advice about appropriate fuel management practices to be…
Author(s): Ana Martins, Ana Novais, José L. Santos, Maria João Canadas
Year Published:

Extreme wildfires are increasing in frequency globally, prompting new efforts to mitigate risk. The ecological appropriateness of risk mitigation strategies, however, depends on what factors are driving these increases. While regional syntheses…
Author(s): Erin J. Hanan, Jianning Ren, Christina Tague, Crystal A. Kolden, John T. Abatzoglou, Ryan R. Bart, Maureen C. Kennedy, Mingliang Liu, Jennifer C. Adam
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With the increasing frequency and severity of fire, there is an increasing desire to better manage fuels and minimize, as much as possible, the impacts of fire on soils and other natural resources. Piling and/or burning slash is one method of…
Author(s): William J. Massman
Year Published: