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Large wildfires (>50,000 ha) are becoming increasingly common in semi‐arid landscapes of the western United States. Although fuel reduction treatments are used to mitigate potential wildfire effects, they can be overwhelmed in wind‐driven…
Author(s): Susan J. Prichard, Nicholas A. Povak, Maureen C. Kennedy, David W. Peterson
Year Published:

In frequent‐fire forests, wildland fire acts as a self‐ regulating process creating forest structures that consist of a fine‐grained mosaic of isolated trees, tree groups of various sizes, and non‐treed openings. Though the self‐regulation of forest…
Author(s): Scott M. Ritter, Chad M. Hoffman, Michael A. Battaglia, Camille Stevens-Rumann, William E. Mell
Year Published:

Research Highlights: This experiment compares a range of combinations of harvest, prescribed fire, and wildfire. Leveraging a 30-year-old forest management-driven experiment, we explored the recovery of woody species composition, regeneration of the…
Author(s): R. Kasten Dumroese, Martin F. Jurgensen, Deborah S. Page-Dumroese
Year Published:

Several recent studies have documented how fire severity affects the density and spatial patterns of tree regeneration in western North American ponderosa pine forests. However, less is known about the effects of fire severity on fine-scale tree…
Author(s): Suzanne M. Owen, Carolyn Hull Sieg, Peter Z. Fule, Catherine A. Gehring, L. Scott Baggett, Jose M. Iniguez, Paula J. Fornwalt, Michael A. Battaglia
Year Published:

Background: Wildfires in the Pacific Northwest (Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and western Montana, USA) have been immense in recent years, capturing the attention of resource managers, fire scientists, and the general public. This paper synthesizes…
Author(s): Jessica E. Halofsky, David L. Peterson, Brian J. Harvey
Year Published:

Ecological droughts are deficits in soil–water availability that induce threshold-like ecosystem responses, such as causing altered or degraded plant-community conditions, which can be exceedingly difficult to reverse. However, 'ecological drought'…
Author(s): Rory O'Connor, Matthew J. Germino, David M Barnard, Caitlin M. Andrews, John Bradford, David S. Pilliod, Robert S. Arkle, Robert K. Shriver
Year Published:

The destructive wildfires that occurred recently in the western US starkly foreshadow the possible future of forest ecosystems and human communities in the region. With increases in the area burned by severe wildfire in seasonally dry forests…
Author(s): Scott L. Stephens, Anthony L. Westerling, Matthew D. Hurteau, M. Zachariah Peery, Courtney Schultz, Sally Thompson
Year Published:

In the face of changing climatic regimes and increases in extreme fire events, many western forests are poised to burn, not only once but multiple times, sometimes in short succession. As such, land managers have limited opportunities to effectively…
Author(s): Michelle Coppoletta, Brandon M. Collins, Scott H. Markwith, Kyle E. Merriam
Year Published:

Wildfires are modifying the structure and composition of forests at rates that far exceed mechanical thinning and prescribed fire treatments. We responded to this by analyzing recent wildfires to understand drivers of fire-severity and post-fire…
Author(s): Andrew J. Larson, C. Alina Cansler, Van R. Kane, Derek J. Churchill, Paul F. Hessburg, James A. Lutz, Nicholas A. Povak
Year Published:

ePDFPDF PDF Tools Share Abstract Every year, the four federal agencies that manage designated wilderness in the United States receive proposals to implement small‐ and large‐scale ecological restorations within the National Wilderness Preservation…
Author(s): Peter Landres, Beth Hahn, Eric Biber, Daniel T. Spencer
Year Published:

As the climate warms, drought will increasingly occur under elevated temperatures, placing forest ecosystems at growing risk of extensive dieback and mortality. In some cases, increases in tree density following early 20th-century fire suppression…
Author(s): Alan J. Tepley, Sharon M. Hood, Christopher R. Keyes, Anna Sala
Year Published:

Legacy effects from one disturbance may influence successional pathways by amplifying or buffering forest regeneration after the next disturbance. We assessed vegetation and tree regeneration in non-serotinous Sierra lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta…
Author(s): Lucas B. Harris, Stacy Drury, Alan H. Taylor
Year Published:

Researchers are increasingly examining patterns and drivers of postfire forest recovery amid growing concern that climate change and intensifying fires will trigger ecosystem transformations. Diminished seed availability and postfire drought have…
Author(s): Caitlin E. Littlefield, Solomon Z. Dobrowski, John T. Abatzoglou, Sean A. Parks, Kimberley T. Davis
Year Published:

Prescribed burning is an effective method to reduce hazardous fuels and restore ecological conditions across a variety of ecosystems. Twenty-one states have laws or policies that direct state agencies to oversee formal training programs to certify…
Author(s): Megan Matonis
Year Published:

Many large fires have burned in recent decades across western North America, and this trend is projected to continue as conditions become warmer and drier. Recovery processes have been studied more thoroughly 1-2 years post fire than in the longer…
Author(s): Andrew T. Hudak, Leda N. Kobziar, Karen L. Riley
Year Published:

Boreal peatlands represent a significant global store of soil carbon, which are subject to increasing natural and anthropogenic disturbance. Wildfire is the single largest disturbance to boreal forest and wetlands annually. Critical to the long‐term…
Author(s): Matthew Q. Morison, Richard M. Petrone, Sophie L. Wilkinson, A. Green, James M. Waddington
Year Published:

Large wildfires (>50,000 ha) are becoming increasingly common in semi‐arid landscapes of the western United States. Although fuel reduction treatments are used to mitigate potential wildfire effects, they can be overwhelmed in wind‐driven…
Author(s): Susan J. Prichard, Nicholas A. Povak, Maureen C. Kennedy, David W. Peterson
Year Published:

Climate change is causing increased wildfire activity across the western US and creating post-fire conditions that are warmer and drier than they were in the past. Scientists and managers are concerned with the potential for post-fire tree…
Author(s): Kimberley T. Davis, Lacey Hankin
Year Published:

Background: Prairie-forest ecotones are ecologically important for biodiversity and ecological processes. While these ecotones cover small areas, their sharp gradients in land cover promote rich ecological interaction and high conservation value.…
Author(s): Penelope Morgan, Emily K. Heyerdahl, Eva K. Strand, Stephen C. Bunting, James P. Riser, John T. Abatzoglou, Max W. Nielsen-Pincus, Mara Johnson
Year Published:

This review is focused on tree seedling regeneration for several reasons. First, a high mortality event, like a high- severity wildfire, kills the mature trees needed to maintain forest cover. When fire-caused mortality is minimal, we are less…
Author(s): Camille Stevens-Rumann, Penelope Morgan, Kimberley T. Davis, Kerry Kemp, Jarod Blades
Year Published: