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Forests are an incredibly important resource across the globe, yet they are threatened by climate change through stressors such as drought, insect outbreaks, and wildfire. Trailing edge forests-those areas expected to experience range contractions…
Author(s): Sean A. Parks, Solomon Z. Dobrowski, John D. Shaw, Carol Miller
Year Published:

For this study, we characterized the dependence of fire counts (FCs) on soil moisture (SM) at global and sub-global scales using 15 years of remote sensing data. We argue that this mathematical relationship serves as an effective way to predict fire…
Author(s): Alexander J. Schaefer, Brian I. Magi
Year Published:

Climate change poses a serious threat to biodiversity and unprecedented challenges to the preservation and protection of natural landscapes. We evaluated how climate change might affect vegetation in 22 of the largest and most iconic protected area…
Author(s): Lisa M. Holsinger, Sean A. Parks, Marc-Andre Parisien, Carol Miller, Enric Batllori, Max A. Moritz
Year Published:

Before the advent of intensive forest management and fire suppression, western North American forests exhibited a naturally occurring resistance and resilience to wildfires and other disturbances. Resilience, which encompasses resistance, reflects…
Author(s): Paul F. Hessburg, Carol Miller, Sean A. Parks, Nicholas A. Povak, Alan H. Taylor, Philip E. Higuera, Susan J. Prichard, Malcolm P. North, Brandon M. Collins, Matthew D. Hurteau, Andrew J. Larson, Craig D. Allen, Scott L. Stephens, Hiram Rivera-Huerta, Camille Stevens-Rumann, Lori D. Daniels, Ze'ev Gedalof, Robert W. Gray, Van R. Kane, Derek J. Churchill, R. Keala Hagmann, Thomas A. Spies, C. Alina Cansler, R. Travis Belote, Thomas T. Veblen, Michael A. Battaglia, Chad M. Hoffman, Carl N. Skinner, Hugh Safford, R. Brion Salter
Year Published:

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…
Author(s): Kimberley T. Davis, Solomon Z. Dobrowski, Philip E. Higuera, Zachary A. Holden, Thomas T. Veblen, Monica T. Rother, Sean A. Parks, Anna Sala, Marco Maneta
Year Published:

Background: Concern is mounting that larger, stand-replacing forest fires may accelerate compositional shifts or conversions to non-forested states under a warming climate. Post-fire climatic conditions influence system trajectories by facilitating…
Author(s): Caitlin E. Littlefield
Year Published:

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…
Author(s): Kimberly T. Davis, Solomon Z. Dobrowski, Philip E. Higuera, Zachary A. Holden, Thomas T. Veblen, Monica T. Rother, Sean A. Parks, Anna Sala, Marco Maneta
Year Published:

The biophysical feedbacks of forest fire on Earth’s surface radiative budget remain uncertain at the global scale. Using satellite observations, we show that fire-induced forest loss accounts for about 15% of global forest loss, mostly in northern…
Author(s): Zhihua Liu, Ashley Ballantyne, L. Annie Cooper
Year Published:

Climate warming in the western United States is causing changes to the wildfire regime in mixed‐conifer forests. Rising temperatures, longer fire seasons, increased drought, as well as fire suppression and changes in land use, have led to greater…
Author(s): Brooke A. Cassell, Robert M. Scheller, Melissa S. Lucash, Matthew D. Hurteau, E. Louise Loudermilk
Year Published:

Forest canopies buffer climate extremes and promote microclimates that may function as refugia for understory species under changing climate. However, the biophysical conditions that promote and maintain microclimatic buffering and its stability…
Author(s): Kimberley T. Davis, Solomon Z. Dobrowski, Zachary A. Holden, Philip E. Higuera, John T. Abatzoglou
Year Published:

In subalpine forests of the western United States that historically experienced infrequent, high‐severity fire, whether fire management can shape 21st‐century fire regimes and forest dynamics to meet natural resource objectives is not known. Managed…
Author(s): Winslow D. Hansen, Diane Abendroth, Werner Rammer, Rupert Seidl, Monica G. Turner
Year Published:

Climate change is expected to cause widespread shifts in the distribution and abundance of plant species through direct impacts on mortality, regeneration, and survival. At landscape scales, climate impacts will be strongly mediated by disturbances…
Author(s): Kerry Kemp, Philip E. Higuera, Penelope Morgan, John T. Abatzoglou
Year Published:

The increasing frequency and severity of fire and drought events have negatively impacted the capacity and success of reforestation efforts in many dry, western U.S. forests. Challenges to reforestation include the cost and safety concerns of…
Author(s): Malcolm P. North, Jens T. Stevens, David F. Greene, Michelle Coppoletta, Eric E. Knapp, Andrew Latimer, Christina M. Restaino, Ryan Tompkins, Kevin R. Welch, Robert A. York, Derek J. N. Young, Jodi Axelson, Thomas N. Buckley, Becky L. Estes, Rachel N. Hager, Jonathan Long, Marc D. Meyer, Steven M. Ostoja, Hugh Safford, Kristen L. Shive, Carmen L. Tubbesing, Heather Vice, Dana Walsh, Chhaya M. Werner, Peter Wyrsch
Year Published:

Aim: Ecological properties governed by threshold relationships can exhibit heightened sensitivity to climate, creating an inherent source of uncertainty when anticipating future change. We investigated the impact of threshold relationships on our…
Author(s): Adam M. Young, Philip E. Higuera, John T. Abatzoglou, Paul A. Duffy, Feng Sheng Hu
Year Published:

The extent of the Earth’s surface burned annually by fires is affected by a number of drivers, including but not limited to climate. Other important drivers include the amount and type of vegetation (fuel) available and human impacts, including fire…
Author(s): Karen L. Riley, A. Park Williams, Shawn P. Urbanski, David E. Calkin, Karen C. Short, Christopher D. O'Connor
Year Published:

The principal motivation for this study is that sagebrush-steppe ecosystems are undergoing significant state changes, and land managers are challenged with optimizing their resources for both short- and long-term use. Yet, limited knowledge is…
Author(s): Nancy F. Glenn, Alejandro N. Flores, Douglas J. Shinneman, David S. Pilliod
Year Published:

Background: Few studies have examined post-fire vegetation recovery in temperate forest ecosystems with Landsat time series analysis. We analyzed time series of Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR) derived from LandTrendr spectral-temporal segmentation…
Author(s): Benjamin C. Bright, Andrew T. Hudak, Robert E. Kennedy, Justin D. Braaten, Azad Henareh Khalyani
Year Published:

In the Intermountain region of the Western United States, most forested landscapes are fire prone and adapted to a semiarid climate. With the severity of wildfires increasing as a result of excessive fuels, land managers are concerned about forest…
Author(s): Rocky Mountain Research Station
Year Published:

Sequestration of carbon in forest ecosystems has been identified as an effective strategy to help mitigate the effects of global climate change. Prescribed burning and timber harvesting are two common, co‐occurring, forest management practices that…
Author(s): Luke Collins, Ross A. Bradstock, Fabiano de Aquino Ximenes, Bronwyn Horsey, Robert Sawyer, Trent D. Penman
Year Published:

Climate change is expected to cause widespread shifts in the distribution and abundance of plant species through direct impacts on mortality, regeneration, and survival. At landscape scales, climate impacts will be strongly mediated by disturbances…
Author(s): Kerry Kemp, Philip E. Higuera, Penelope Morgan, John T. Abatzoglou
Year Published: