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Balch JK, Mahood AL. Drought-fuelled overnight burning propels large fires in North America. Nature 2024; 627:273-274. [PMID: 38480962 DOI: 10.1038/d41586-024-00536-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/18/2024]
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2
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Higuera PE, Cook MC, Balch JK, Stavros EN, Mahood AL, St. Denis LA. Shifting social-ecological fire regimes explain increasing structure loss from Western wildfires. PNAS Nexus 2023; 2:pgad005. [PMID: 36938500 PMCID: PMC10019760 DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/18/2022] [Revised: 12/19/2022] [Accepted: 01/03/2023] [Indexed: 06/18/2023]
Abstract
Structure loss is an acute, costly impact of the wildfire crisis in the western conterminous United States ("West"), motivating the need to understand recent trends and causes. We document a 246% rise in West-wide structure loss from wildfires between 1999-2009 and 2010-2020, driven strongly by events in 2017, 2018, and 2020. Increased structure loss was not due to increased area burned alone. Wildfires became significantly more destructive, with a 160% higher structure-loss rate (loss/kha burned) over the past decade. Structure loss was driven primarily by wildfires from unplanned human-related ignitions (e.g. backyard burning, power lines, etc.), which accounted for 76% of all structure loss and resulted in 10 times more structures destroyed per unit area burned compared with lightning-ignited fires. Annual structure loss was well explained by area burned from human-related ignitions, while decadal structure loss was explained by state-level structure abundance in flammable vegetation. Both predictors increased over recent decades and likely interacted with increased fuel aridity to drive structure-loss trends. While states are diverse in patterns and trends, nearly all experienced more burning from human-related ignitions and/or higher structure-loss rates, particularly California, Washington, and Oregon. Our findings highlight how fire regimes-characteristics of fire over space and time-are fundamentally social-ecological phenomena. By resolving the diversity of Western fire regimes, our work informs regionally appropriate mitigation and adaptation strategies. With millions of structures with high fire risk, reducing human-related ignitions and rethinking how we build are critical for preventing future wildfire disasters.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Maxwell C Cook
- Earth Lab, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, 4001 Discovery Drive, Suite S348, 611 UCB, Boulder, CO 80303, USA
- Department of Geography, University of Colorado Boulder, Guggenheim 110, 260 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
| | - Jennifer K Balch
- Earth Lab, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, 4001 Discovery Drive, Suite S348, 611 UCB, Boulder, CO 80303, USA
- Department of Geography, University of Colorado Boulder, Guggenheim 110, 260 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
| | - E Natasha Stavros
- Earth Lab, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, 4001 Discovery Drive, Suite S348, 611 UCB, Boulder, CO 80303, USA
| | - Adam L Mahood
- Earth Lab, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, 4001 Discovery Drive, Suite S348, 611 UCB, Boulder, CO 80303, USA
- Water Resources, Agriculture Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture, 2150 Centre Avenue, Building D, Fort Collins, CO 80526, USA
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3
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Mahood AL, Koontz MJ, Balch JK. Fuel connectivity, burn severity, and seed bank survivorship drive ecosystem transformation in a semiarid shrubland. Ecology 2023; 104:e3968. [PMID: 36571436 DOI: 10.1002/ecy.3968] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/01/2022] [Revised: 10/27/2022] [Accepted: 11/28/2022] [Indexed: 12/27/2022]
Abstract
A key challenge in ecology is understanding how multiple drivers interact to precipitate persistent vegetation state changes. These state changes may be both precipitated and maintained by disturbances, but predicting whether the state change will be fleeting or persistent requires an understanding of the mechanisms by which disturbance affects the alternative communities. In the sagebrush shrublands of the western United States, widespread annual grass invasion has increased fuel connectivity, which increases the size and spatial contiguity of fires, leading to postfire monocultures of introduced annual grasses (IAG). The novel grassland state can be persistent and is more likely to promote large fires than the shrubland it replaced. But the mechanisms by which prefire invasion and fire occurrence are linked to higher postfire flammability are not fully understood. A natural experiment to explore these interactions presented itself when we arrived in northern Nevada immediately after a 50,000 ha wildfire was extinguished. We hypothesized that the novel grassland state is maintained via a reinforcing feedback where higher fuel connectivity increases burn severity, which subsequently increases postfire IAG dispersal, seed survivorship, and fuel connectivity. We used a Bayesian joint species distribution model and structural equation model framework to assess the strength of the support for each element in this feedback pathway. We found that prefire fuel connectivity increased burn severity and that higher burn severity had mostly positive effects on the occurrence of IAG and another nonnative species and mostly negative or neutral relationships with all other species. Finally, we found that the abundance of IAG seeds in the seed bank immediately after a fire had a positive effect on the fuel connectivity 3 years after the fire, completing a positive feedback promoting IAG. These results demonstrate that the strength of the positive feedback is controlled by measurable characteristics of ecosystem structure, composition, and disturbance. Further, each node in the loop is affected independently by multiple global change drivers. It is possible that these characteristics can be modeled to predict threshold behavior and inform management actions to mitigate or slow the establishment of the grass-fire cycle, perhaps via targeted restoration applications or prefire fuel treatments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Adam L Mahood
- Department of Geography, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA.,Earth Lab, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA.,Water Resources, Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA
| | | | - Jennifer K Balch
- Department of Geography, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA.,Earth Lab, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA.,Environmental Data Science Innovation and Inclusion Lab, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, United States
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Abstract
Fire activity is changing across many areas of the globe. Understanding how social and ecological systems respond to fire is an important topic for the coming century. But many countries do not have accessible fire history data. There are several satellite-based products available as gridded data, but these can be difficult to access and use, and require significant computational resources and time to convert into a usable product for a specific area of interest. We developed an open source software package called Fire Event Delineation for python (FIREDpy) which automatically downloads and processes all of the source files for an area of interest from the MODIS burned area product, and runs a spatiotemporal flooding algorithm that converts those hundreds of grids into a single fire perimeter shapefile. Here we present a collection of fire event perimeter datasets for every country on the globe that we created using the FIREDpy software. We will continue to improve the efficiency and flexibility of the underlying algorithm, and intend to update these datasets annually. Measurement(s) | Fire event occurrence • growth rate • size | Technology Type(s) | Satellite fire detections | Sample Characteristic - Environment | fire | Sample Characteristic - Location | global |
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Affiliation(s)
- Adam L Mahood
- Earth Lab, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, USA. .,Water Resources, USDA-ARS, Fort Collins, CO, USA.
| | - Estelle J Lindrooth
- Earth Lab, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, USA.,Applied Math, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, USA
| | - Maxwell C Cook
- Earth Lab, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, USA.,Geography, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, USA
| | - Jennifer K Balch
- Earth Lab, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, USA.,Geography, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, USA
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5
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Shuman JK, Balch JK, Barnes RT, Higuera PE, Roos CI, Schwilk DW, Stavros EN, Banerjee T, Bela MM, Bendix J, Bertolino S, Bililign S, Bladon KD, Brando P, Breidenthal RE, Buma B, Calhoun D, Carvalho LMV, Cattau ME, Cawley KM, Chandra S, Chipman ML, Cobian-Iñiguez J, Conlisk E, Coop JD, Cullen A, Davis KT, Dayalu A, De Sales F, Dolman M, Ellsworth LM, Franklin S, Guiterman CH, Hamilton M, Hanan EJ, Hansen WD, Hantson S, Harvey BJ, Holz A, Huang T, Hurteau MD, Ilangakoon NT, Jennings M, Jones C, Klimaszewski-Patterson A, Kobziar LN, Kominoski J, Kosovic B, Krawchuk MA, Laris P, Leonard J, Loria-Salazar SM, Lucash M, Mahmoud H, Margolis E, Maxwell T, McCarty JL, McWethy DB, Meyer RS, Miesel JR, Moser WK, Nagy RC, Niyogi D, Palmer HM, Pellegrini A, Poulter B, Robertson K, Rocha AV, Sadegh M, Santos F, Scordo F, Sexton JO, Sharma AS, Smith AMS, Soja AJ, Still C, Swetnam T, Syphard AD, Tingley MW, Tohidi A, Trugman AT, Turetsky M, Varner JM, Wang Y, Whitman T, Yelenik S, Zhang X. Reimagine fire science for the anthropocene. PNAS Nexus 2022; 1:pgac115. [PMID: 36741468 PMCID: PMC9896919 DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac115] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/13/2021] [Accepted: 08/02/2022] [Indexed: 02/07/2023]
Abstract
Fire is an integral component of ecosystems globally and a tool that humans have harnessed for millennia. Altered fire regimes are a fundamental cause and consequence of global change, impacting people and the biophysical systems on which they depend. As part of the newly emerging Anthropocene, marked by human-caused climate change and radical changes to ecosystems, fire danger is increasing, and fires are having increasingly devastating impacts on human health, infrastructure, and ecosystem services. Increasing fire danger is a vexing problem that requires deep transdisciplinary, trans-sector, and inclusive partnerships to address. Here, we outline barriers and opportunities in the next generation of fire science and provide guidance for investment in future research. We synthesize insights needed to better address the long-standing challenges of innovation across disciplines to (i) promote coordinated research efforts; (ii) embrace different ways of knowing and knowledge generation; (iii) promote exploration of fundamental science; (iv) capitalize on the "firehose" of data for societal benefit; and (v) integrate human and natural systems into models across multiple scales. Fire science is thus at a critical transitional moment. We need to shift from observation and modeled representations of varying components of climate, people, vegetation, and fire to more integrative and predictive approaches that support pathways toward mitigating and adapting to our increasingly flammable world, including the utilization of fire for human safety and benefit. Only through overcoming institutional silos and accessing knowledge across diverse communities can we effectively undertake research that improves outcomes in our more fiery future.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jacquelyn K Shuman
- Terrestrial Sciences Section, Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, P.O. Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307-3000, USA
| | - Jennifer K Balch
- Earth Lab, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado Boulder,4001 Discovery Drive, Suite S348 611 UCB, Boulder, CO, 80303, USA
| | - Rebecca T Barnes
- Environmental Studies Program, Colorado College, 14 East Cache la Poudre, Colorado Springs, CO, 80903, USA
| | - Philip E Higuera
- Department of Ecosystem and Conservation Sciences, University of Montana, 32 Campus Dr., Missoula, MT, 59812, USA
| | - Christopher I Roos
- Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University, P.O. Box 750336, Dallas, TX, 75275-0336, USA
| | - Dylan W Schwilk
- Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University, 2901 Main St. Lubbock, TX, 79409-43131, USA
| | - E Natasha Stavros
- Earth Lab, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado Boulder,4001 Discovery Drive, Suite S348 611 UCB, Boulder, CO, 80303, USA
| | - Tirtha Banerjee
- Samueli School of Engineering, University of California, 3084 Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Building, UC Irvine, CA 92697, USA
| | - Megan M Bela
- Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado at Boulder, 216 UCB, Boulder CO, 80309, USA
- NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory, Boulder, CO, USA
| | - Jacob Bendix
- Department of Geography and the Environment, Syracuse University, 144 Eggers Hall, Syracuse NY 13244, USA
| | - Sandro Bertolino
- Department of Life Sciences and Systems Biology, University of Turin, Via Accademia Albertina 13, 10123 Torino, Italy
| | - Solomon Bililign
- Department of Physics, North Carolina A&T State University, 1601 E Market Street, Greensboro, NC 27411, USA
| | - Kevin D Bladon
- Department of Forest Engineering, Resources, and Management, Oregon State University, 244 Peavy Forest Science Center; Corvallis, OR, 97331, USA
| | - Paulo Brando
- Earth System Science, University of California Irvine, 3215 Croul Hall Irvine, CA 92697, USA
| | - Robert E Breidenthal
- Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, University of Washington, Box 352400, Seattle, WA 98195-2400, USA
| | - Brian Buma
- Integrative Biology, University of Colorado Denver, Campus Box 171, P.O. Box 173364, Denver, CO 80217-3364, USA
| | - Donna Calhoun
- Department of Mathematics, Boise State University, 1910 University Drive, Boise, ID 83725-1135, USA
| | - Leila M V Carvalho
- Department of Geography, University of California Santa Barbara, 1832 Ellison Hall, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA
| | - Megan E Cattau
- Human-Environment Systems, Boise State University, Boise State Environmental Research Building, 1295 W University Dr, Boise, ID 83706, USA
| | - Kaelin M Cawley
- National Ecological Observatory Network, Battelle, 1685 38th St., Suite 100, Boulder, CO 80301, USA
| | - Sudeep Chandra
- Global Water Center, University of Nevada, 1664 N. Virginia, Reno, NV, 89509, USA
| | - Melissa L Chipman
- Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Syracuse University, 317 Heroy Geology Building, 141 Crouse Dr, Syracuse, NY 13210, USA
| | - Jeanette Cobian-Iñiguez
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California Merced, Sustainability Research and Engineering, SRE 366, 5200 Lake Rd, Merced, CA 95343, USA
| | - Erin Conlisk
- Point Blue Conservation Science, 3820 Cypress Dr, Petaluma, CA 94954, USA
| | - Jonathan D Coop
- Clark School of Environment and Sustainability, Western Colorado University, 1 Western Way, Gunnison CO 81231, USA
| | - Alison Cullen
- Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, University of Washington, Parrington Hall, Mailbox 353055, Seattle, WA 98195-3055, USA
| | - Kimberley T Davis
- Department of Ecosystem and Conservation Sciences, University of Montana, 32 Campus Dr., Missoula, MT, 59812, USA
| | - Archana Dayalu
- Atmospheric and Environmental Research, 131 Hartwell Ave, Lexington MA 02421, USA
| | - Fernando De Sales
- Department of Geography, San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA 92182-4493, USA
| | - Megan Dolman
- Human-Environment Systems, Boise State University, Boise State Environmental Research Building, 1295 W University Dr, Boise, ID 83706, USA
| | - Lisa M Ellsworth
- Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences, Oregon State University, 104 Nash Hall, Corvallis, OR 97330, USA
| | - Scott Franklin
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Northern Colorado, 501 20th Street, Greeley, CO 80639, USA
| | - Christopher H Guiterman
- Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado at Boulder, 216 UCB, Boulder CO, 80309, USA
- NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), 325 Broadway, NOAA E/GC3, Boulder, Colorado 80305-3337, USA
| | - Matthew Hamilton
- School of Environment and Natural Resources, The Ohio State University, 2021 Coffey Road, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
| | - Erin J Hanan
- Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Science, University of Nevada, 1664 N. Virginia St. Mail Stop 0186. Reno, NV 89509, USA
| | - Winslow D Hansen
- Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, PO Box AB, Millbrook, NY 12545, USA
| | - Stijn Hantson
- Earth System Science Program, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Max Planck Tandem Group in Earth System Science, Universidad del Rosario, Carrera 26 # 63b-48, Bogota, DC 111221, Colombia
| | - Brian J Harvey
- School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, UW-SEFS, Box 352100, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
| | - Andrés Holz
- Department of Geography, Portland State University, 1721 SW Broadway, Portland, OR 97201, USA
| | - Tao Huang
- Human-Environment Systems, Boise State University, Boise State Environmental Research Building, 1295 W University Dr, Boise, ID 83706, USA
| | - Matthew D Hurteau
- Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, MSC03 2020, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA
| | - Nayani T Ilangakoon
- Earth Lab, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado Boulder,4001 Discovery Drive, Suite S348 611 UCB, Boulder, CO, 80303, USA
| | - Megan Jennings
- Institute for Ecological Monitoring and Management, San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA 92182-4614, USA
| | - Charles Jones
- Department of Geography, University of California Santa Barbara, 1832 Ellison Hall, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA
| | | | - Leda N Kobziar
- College of Natural Resources, University of Idaho, 1031 N. Academic Way Coeur d'Alene, ID 83844, USA
| | - John Kominoski
- Institute of Environment and Department of Biological Sciences, Florida International University, 11200 SW 8th Street, Miami, FL, 33199, USA
| | - Branko Kosovic
- Weather Systems and Assessment Program, National Center for Atmospheric Research, P.O. Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307-3000, USA
| | - Meg A Krawchuk
- Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society, Oregon State University, Richardson Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA
| | - Paul Laris
- Department of Geography, California State University Long Beach, Long Beach, 1250 Bellflower Blvd, Long Beach, CA 90840, USA
| | - Jackson Leonard
- Rocky Mountain Research Station, U.S.D.A. Forest Service, 2500 S. Pine Knoll Dr. Flagstaff, Arizona 86001, USA
| | | | - Melissa Lucash
- Department of Geography, University of Oregon, 1251 University of Oregon, Eugene OR 97403-1251, USA
| | - Hussam Mahmoud
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Colorado State University, 1372 Campus Delivery, Fort Collins, CO, 80523, USA
| | - Ellis Margolis
- U.S. Geological Survey, Fort Collins Science Center, New Mexico Landscapes Field Station, 15 Entrance Rd., Los Alamos, NM 87544, USA
| | - Toby Maxwell
- Department of Biological Sciences, Boise State University, 1910 University Dr. Boise ID 83725, USA
| | - Jessica L McCarty
- Department of Geography and Geospatial Analysis Center, Miami University, 217 Shideler Hall, Oxford, OH 45056, USA
| | - David B McWethy
- Department of Earth Sciences, Montana State University, 226 Traphagen Hall, Bozeman, MT 59717, USA
| | - Rachel S Meyer
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Santa Cruz, 130 McAllister Way, Santa Cruz, CA 95060, USA
| | - Jessica R Miesel
- Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences, Michigan State University, 1066 Bogue Street Rm A286, East Lansing, MI 48823, USA
| | - W Keith Moser
- Rocky Mountain Research Station, U.S.D.A. Forest Service, 2500 S. Pine Knoll Dr. Flagstaff, Arizona 86001, USA
| | - R Chelsea Nagy
- Earth Lab, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado Boulder,4001 Discovery Drive, Suite S348 611 UCB, Boulder, CO, 80303, USA
| | - Dev Niyogi
- Jackson School of Geosciences, and Cockrell School of Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, 2305 Speedway Stop C1160, Austin, TX 78712-1692, USA
| | - Hannah M Palmer
- Department of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of California Merced, Merced, 5200 Lake Rd, Merced, CA 95343, USA
| | - Adam Pellegrini
- Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, Downing St, Cambridge, CB2 3EA, UK
| | - Benjamin Poulter
- NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt Road, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
| | - Kevin Robertson
- Tall Timbers Research Station and Land Conservancy, 13093 Henry Beadel Drive, Tallahassee, FL 32312, USA
| | - Adrian V Rocha
- Department of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, 100 Campus Dr., Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA
| | - Mojtaba Sadegh
- Department of Civil Engineering, Boise State University, 1910 University Drive, Boise, ID, 83725, USA
| | - Fernanda Santos
- Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, One Bethel Valley Road, P.O. Box 2008, MS-6038, Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6038, USA
| | - Facundo Scordo
- Global Water Center and the Department of Biology, University of Nevada, 1664 N. Virginia, Reno, NV, 89509, USA
- Instituto Argentino de Oceanografía (IADO-CONICET-UNS), Florida 8000, Bahía Blanca, B8000BFW Buenos Aires, Argentina
| | - Joseph O Sexton
- terraPulse, Inc., 13201 Squires Ct., North Potomac, MD 20878, USA
| | - A Surjalal Sharma
- Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, 4296 Stadium Dr., Astronomy Dept Room 1113, College Park, MD 20742, USA
| | - Alistair M S Smith
- Department of Earth and Spatial Sciences, College of Science, University of Idaho, 875 Perimeter Drive MS 3021, Moscow ID, 83843-3021, USA
- Department of Forest, Rangeland, and Fire Science, College of Natural Resources, University of Idaho, 875 Perimeter Drive MS 1133, Moscow, ID 83844-1133, USA
| | - Amber J Soja
- NASA Langley Research Center, NASA, 2 Langley Blvd, Hampton, VA 23681, USA
- National Institute of Aerospace, NASA, 100 Exploration Way, Hampton, VA 23666, USA
| | - Christopher Still
- Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society, Oregon State University, Richardson Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA
| | - Tyson Swetnam
- Data Science Institute, University of Arizona, 1657 E Helen St, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
| | - Alexandra D Syphard
- Conservation Biology Institute, 10423 Sierra Vista Ave., La Mesa, CA, 91941, USA
| | - Morgan W Tingley
- Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Los Angeles, 621 Charles E Young Dr S #951606, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
| | - Ali Tohidi
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, San Jose State University, Room 310-K, ENG Building, 1 Washington Square, San Jose, CA 95112, USA
| | - Anna T Trugman
- Department of Geography, University of California Santa Barbara, 1832 Ellison Hall, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA
| | - Merritt Turetsky
- Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado Boulder, Campus Box 450, Boulder, CO 80309-0450, USA
| | - J Morgan Varner
- Tall Timbers Research Station and Land Conservancy, 13093 Henry Beadel Drive, Tallahassee, FL 32312, USA
| | - Yuhang Wang
- School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, 311 Ferst Drive, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
| | - Thea Whitman
- Department of Soil Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1525 Observatory Dr., Madison, WI 53711, USA
| | - Stephanie Yelenik
- Rocky Mountain Research Station, U.S.D.A. Forest Service, 920 Valley Road, Reno NV, 89512, USA
| | - Xuan Zhang
- Department of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of California Merced, Merced, 5200 Lake Rd, Merced, CA 95343, USA
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Abstract
Recent fires have fueled concerns that regional and global warming trends are leading to more extreme burning. We found compelling evidence that average fire events in regions of the United States are up to four times the size, triple the frequency, and more widespread in the 2000s than in the previous two decades. Moreover, the most extreme fires are also larger, more common, and more likely to co-occur with other extreme fires. This documented shift in burning patterns across most of the country aligns with the palpable change in fire dynamics noted by the media, public, and fire-fighting officials.
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Affiliation(s)
- Virginia Iglesias
- Earth Lab, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
- Corresponding author.
| | - Jennifer K. Balch
- Earth Lab, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
- Department of Geography, University of Colorado, Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
| | - William R. Travis
- Earth Lab, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
- Department of Geography, University of Colorado, Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
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7
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Mahood AL, Jones RO, Board DI, Balch JK, Chambers JC. Interannual climate variability mediates changes in carbon and nitrogen pools caused by annual grass invasion in a semiarid shrubland. Glob Chang Biol 2022; 28:267-284. [PMID: 34614268 PMCID: PMC9291498 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.15921] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/08/2021] [Accepted: 09/26/2021] [Indexed: 05/13/2023]
Abstract
Exotic plant invasions alter ecosystem properties and threaten ecosystem functions globally. Interannual climate variability (ICV) influences both plant community composition (PCC) and soil properties, and interactions between ICV and PCC may influence nitrogen (N) and carbon (C) pools. We asked how ICV and non-native annual grass invasion covary to influence soil and plant N and C in a semiarid shrubland undergoing widespread ecosystem transformation due to invasions and altered fire regimes. We sampled four progressive stages of annual grass invasion at 20 sites across a large (25,000 km2 ) landscape for plant community composition, plant tissue N and C, and soil total N and C in 2013 and 2016, which followed 2 years of dry and wet conditions, respectively. Multivariate analyses and ANOVAs showed that in invasion stages where native shrub and perennial grass and forb communities were replaced by annual grass-dominated communities, the ecosystem lost more soil N and C in wet years. Path analysis showed that high water availability led to higher herbaceous cover in all invasion stages. In stages with native shrubs and perennial grasses, higher perennial grass cover was associated with increased soil C and N, while in annual-dominated stages, higher annual grass cover was associated with losses of soil C and N. Also, soil total C and C:N ratios were more homogeneous in annual-dominated invasion stages as indicated by within-site standard deviations. Loss of native shrubs and perennial grasses and forbs coupled with annual grass invasion may lead to long-term declines in soil N and C and hamper restoration efforts. Restoration strategies that use innovative techniques and novel species to address increasing temperatures and ICV and emphasize maintaining plant community structure-shrubs, grasses, and forbs-will allow sagebrush ecosystems to maintain C sequestration, soil fertility, and soil heterogeneity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Adam L. Mahood
- Department of GeographyUniversity of Colorado BoulderBoulderColoradoUSA
- Earth LabUniversity of ColoradoBoulderColoradoUSA
| | - Rachel O. Jones
- Department of Biological & Ecological EngineeringOregon State UniversityCorvallisOregonUSA
| | - David I. Board
- US Forest ServiceRocky Mountain Research StationRenoNevadaUSA
| | - Jennifer K. Balch
- Department of GeographyUniversity of Colorado BoulderBoulderColoradoUSA
- Earth LabUniversity of ColoradoBoulderColoradoUSA
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8
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Nagy RC, Balch JK, Bissell EK, Cattau ME, Glenn NF, Halpern BS, Ilangakoon N, Johnson B, Joseph MB, Marconi S, O’Riordan C, Sanovia J, Swetnam TL, Travis WR, Wasser LA, Woolner E, Zarnetske P, Abdulrahim M, Adler J, Barnes G, Bartowitz KJ, Blake RE, Bombaci SP, Brun J, Buchanan JD, Chadwick KD, Chapman MS, Chong SS, Chung YA, Corman JR, Couret J, Crispo E, Doak TG, Donnelly A, Duffy KA, Dunning KH, Duran SM, Edmonds JW, Fairbanks DE, Felton AJ, Florian CR, Gann D, Gebhardt M, Gill NS, Gram WK, Guo JS, Harvey BJ, Hayes KR, Helmus MR, Hensley RT, Hondula KL, Huang T, Hundertmark WJ, Iglesias V, Jacinthe P, Jansen LS, Jarzyna MA, Johnson TM, Jones KD, Jones MA, Just MG, Kaddoura YO, Kagawa‐Vivani AK, Kaushik A, Keller AB, King KBS, Kitzes J, Koontz MJ, Kouba PV, Kwan W, LaMontagne JM, LaRue EA, Li D, Li B, Lin Y, Liptzin D, Long WA, Mahood AL, Malloy SS, Malone SL, McGlinchy JM, Meier CL, Melbourne BA, Mietkiewicz N, Morisette JT, Moustapha M, Muscarella C, Musinsky J, Muthukrishnan R, Naithani K, Neely M, Norman K, Parker SM, Perez Rocha M, Petri L, Ramey CA, Record S, Rossi MW, SanClements M, Scholl VM, Schweiger AK, Seyednasrollah B, Sihi D, Smith KR, Sokol ER, Spaulding SA, Spiers AI, St. Denis LA, Staccone AP, Stack Whitney K, Stanitski DM, Stricker E, Surasinghe TD, Thomsen SK, Vasek PM, Xiaolu L, Yang D, Yu R, Yule KM, Zhu K. Harnessing the NEON data revolution to advance open environmental science with a diverse and data‐capable community. Ecosphere 2021. [DOI: 10.1002/ecs2.3833] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- R. Chelsea Nagy
- Earth Lab, CIRES University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Colorado USA
| | - Jennifer K. Balch
- Earth Lab, CIRES University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Colorado USA
- Department of Geography University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Colorado USA
| | - Erin K. Bissell
- Biology Department Metropolitan State University of Denver Denver Colorado USA
| | - Megan E. Cattau
- Human‐Environment Systems Boise State University Boise Idaho USA
| | - Nancy F. Glenn
- Human‐Environment Systems Boise State University Boise Idaho USA
- University of New South Wales Sydney Sydney New South Wales Australia
| | - Benjamin S. Halpern
- National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) Santa Barbara California USA
- University of California Santa Barbara Santa Barbara California USA
| | - Nayani Ilangakoon
- Earth Lab, CIRES University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Colorado USA
| | - Brian Johnson
- Earth Lab, CIRES University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Colorado USA
| | - Maxwell B. Joseph
- Earth Lab, CIRES University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Colorado USA
| | - Sergio Marconi
- School of Natural Resources & Environment University of Florida Gainesville Florida USA
| | | | - James Sanovia
- Department of Math, Science, and Technology Oglala Lakota College Kyle South Dakota USA
| | | | - William R. Travis
- Earth Lab, CIRES University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Colorado USA
- Department of Geography University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Colorado USA
| | - Leah A. Wasser
- Earth Lab, CIRES University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Colorado USA
- Department of Geography University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Colorado USA
| | - Elizabeth Woolner
- Earth Lab, CIRES University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Colorado USA
| | - Phoebe Zarnetske
- Department of Integrative Biology Michigan State University East Lansing Michigan USA
| | - Mujahid Abdulrahim
- Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering University of Missouri Kansas City Kansas City Missouri USA
| | - John Adler
- Department of Geography University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Colorado USA
- CIRES University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Colorado USA
| | - Grenville Barnes
- Department of Forest, Fisheries and Geomatics Sciences University of Florida Gainesville Florida USA
| | - Kristina J. Bartowitz
- Department of Forest, Rangeland, and Fire Sciences University of Idaho Moscow Idaho USA
| | - Rachael E. Blake
- National Socio‐Environmental Synthesis Center University of Maryland Annapolis Maryland USA
| | - Sara P. Bombaci
- Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology Colorado State University Fort Collins Colorado USA
| | - Julien Brun
- National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) Santa Barbara California USA
- University of California Santa Barbara Santa Barbara California USA
| | - Jacob D. Buchanan
- Department of Biological Sciences Bowling Green State University Bowling Green Ohio USA
| | - K. Dana Chadwick
- Department of Geological Sciences University of Texas Austin Austin Texas USA
- Department of Integrative Biology University of Texas Austin Austin Texas USA
| | - Melissa S. Chapman
- Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management University of California Berkeley Berkeley California USA
| | - Steven S. Chong
- National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) Santa Barbara California USA
- University of California Santa Barbara Santa Barbara California USA
- University of California Berkeley Library University of California Berkeley Berkeley California USA
| | - Y. Anny Chung
- Departments of Plant Biology and Plant Pathology University of Georgia Athens Georgia USA
| | - Jessica R. Corman
- School of Natural Resources University of Nebraska Lincoln Lincoln Nebraska USA
| | - Jannelle Couret
- Department of Biological Sciences University of Rhode Island Kingston Rhode Island USA
| | - Erika Crispo
- Department of Biology Pace University New York City New York USA
| | - Thomas G. Doak
- Department of Biology Indiana University Bloomington Indiana USA
| | - Alison Donnelly
- Department of Geography University of Wisconsin‐Milwaukee Milwaukee Wisconsin USA
| | - Katharyn A. Duffy
- School of Informatics, Computing & Cyber Systems Northern Arizona University Flagstaff Arizona USA
| | - Kelly H. Dunning
- School of Forestry and Wildlife Auburn University Auburn Alabama USA
| | - Sandra M. Duran
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology University of Arizona Tucson Arizona USA
| | - Jennifer W. Edmonds
- Department of Physical and Life Sciences Nevada State College Henderson Nevada USA
| | - Dawson E. Fairbanks
- Department of Environmental Science University of Arizona Tucson Arizona USA
| | - Andrew J. Felton
- Department of Wildland Resources Utah State University Logan Utah USA
| | | | - Daniel Gann
- Department of Biological Sciences Florida International University Miami Florida USA
| | - Martha Gebhardt
- School of Natural Resources and the Environment University of Arizona Tucson Arizona USA
| | - Nathan S. Gill
- Department of Natural Resources Management Texas Tech University Lubbock Texas USA
| | - Wendy K. Gram
- University Corporation for Atmospheric Research Boulder Colorado USA
| | - Jessica S. Guo
- College of Agriculture and Life Sciences University of Arizona Tucson Arizona USA
| | - Brian J. Harvey
- School of Environmental and Forest Sciences University of Washington Seattle Washington USA
| | - Katherine R. Hayes
- Department of Integrative and Systems Biology University of Colorado Denver Denver Colorado USA
| | - Matthew R. Helmus
- Department of Biology Temple University Philadelphia Pennsylvania USA
| | - Robert T. Hensley
- Battelle National Ecological Observatory Network Boulder Colorado USA
| | - Kelly L. Hondula
- National Socio‐Environmental Synthesis Center University of Maryland Annapolis Maryland USA
| | - Tao Huang
- Human‐Environment Systems Boise State University Boise Idaho USA
- Cary Institute of Ecosystem Services Millbrook New York USA
| | | | - Virginia Iglesias
- Earth Lab, CIRES University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Colorado USA
| | - Pierre‐Andre Jacinthe
- Department of Earth Sciences Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis Indiana USA
| | - Lara S. Jansen
- Department of Environmental Science & Management Portland State University Portland Oregon USA
| | - Marta A. Jarzyna
- Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology The Ohio State University Columbus Ohio USA
- Translational Data Analytics Institute The Ohio State University Columbus Ohio USA
| | | | | | | | | | - Youssef O. Kaddoura
- Department of Forest, Fisheries and Geomatics Sciences University of Florida Gainesville Florida USA
| | | | - Aleya Kaushik
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Boulder Colorado USA
| | - Adrienne B. Keller
- Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior University of Minnesota Twin Cities St. Paul Minnesota USA
| | - Katelyn B. S. King
- Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Michigan State University East Lansing Michigan USA
| | - Justin Kitzes
- Department of Biological Sciences University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh Pennsylvania USA
| | - Michael J. Koontz
- Earth Lab, CIRES University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Colorado USA
| | - Paige V. Kouba
- Department of Plant Sciences University of California Davis Davis California USA
| | - Wai‐Yin Kwan
- CALeDNA University of California Los Angeles Los Angeles California USA
| | | | - Elizabeth A. LaRue
- Department of Forestry and Natural Resources Purdue University West Lafayette Indiana USA
| | - Daijiang Li
- Department of Biological Sciences Louisiana State University Baton Rouge Louisiana USA
- Center for Computation & Technology Louisiana State University Baton Rouge Louisiana USA
| | - Bonan Li
- Department of Biological & Ecological Engineering Oregon State University Corvallis Oregon USA
| | - Yang Lin
- Soil and Water Sciences Department University of Florida Gainesville Florida USA
| | | | - William Alex Long
- Science and Technology Innovation Program Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Washington D.C. USA
| | - Adam L. Mahood
- Department of Geography University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Colorado USA
| | - Samuel S. Malloy
- Battelle Center for Science, Engineering and Public Policy in the John Glenn College of Public Affairs Ohio State University Columbus Ohio USA
| | - Sparkle L. Malone
- Department of Biological Sciences Florida International University Miami Florida USA
| | | | - Courtney L. Meier
- Battelle National Ecological Observatory Network Boulder Colorado USA
| | - Brett A. Melbourne
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Colorado USA
| | | | - Jeffery T. Morisette
- U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station Fort Collins Colorado USA
| | - Moussa Moustapha
- Department of Biological Science University of Ngaoundere Ngaoundere Adamawa Cameroon
| | - Chance Muscarella
- Department of Environmental Science University of Arizona Tucson Arizona USA
| | - John Musinsky
- Battelle National Ecological Observatory Network Boulder Colorado USA
| | | | - Kusum Naithani
- Department of Biological Sciences University of Arkansas‐Fayetteville Fayetteville Arkansas USA
| | - Merrie Neely
- GEO AquaWatch Clearwater Florida USA
- Global Science and Technology, Inc Greenbelt Maryland USA
| | - Kari Norman
- Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management University of California Berkeley Berkeley California USA
| | | | | | - Laís Petri
- School for Environment and Sustainability University of Michigan East Lansing Michigan USA
| | - Colette A. Ramey
- Biology Department Metropolitan State University of Denver Denver Colorado USA
| | - Sydne Record
- Department of Biology Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr Pennsylvania USA
| | - Matthew W. Rossi
- Earth Lab, CIRES University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Colorado USA
| | | | - Victoria M. Scholl
- Earth Lab, CIRES University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Colorado USA
- Department of Geography University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Colorado USA
| | - Anna K. Schweiger
- Remote Sensing Laboratories Department of Geography University of Zurich Zurich Switzerland
| | - Bijan Seyednasrollah
- School of Informatics, Computing & Cyber Systems Northern Arizona University Flagstaff Arizona USA
| | - Debjani Sihi
- Department of Environmental Sciences Emory University Atlanta Georgia USA
| | - Kathleen R. Smith
- Biology Department Metropolitan State University of Denver Denver Colorado USA
| | - Eric R. Sokol
- Battelle National Ecological Observatory Network Boulder Colorado USA
- INSTAAR University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Colorado USA
| | | | - Anna I. Spiers
- Earth Lab, CIRES University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Colorado USA
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Colorado USA
| | - Lise A. St. Denis
- Earth Lab, CIRES University of Colorado Boulder Boulder Colorado USA
| | - Anika P. Staccone
- Department of Ecology, Evolution, & Environmental Biology Columbia University New York New York USA
| | - Kaitlin Stack Whitney
- Department of Science, Technology, and Society Rochester Institute of Technology Henrietta New York USA
| | | | - Eva Stricker
- Department of Biology University of New Mexico Albuquerque New Mexico USA
| | - Thilina D. Surasinghe
- Department of Biological Sciences Bridgewater State University Bridgewater Massachusetts USA
| | - Sarah K. Thomsen
- Department of Integrative Biology Oregon State University Corvallis Oregon USA
| | - Patrisse M. Vasek
- Department of Math, Science, and Technology Oglala Lakota College Kyle South Dakota USA
| | - Li Xiaolu
- Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Cornell University Ithaca New York USA
| | - Di Yang
- Wyoming GIS Center University of Wyoming Laramie Wyoming USA
| | - Rong Yu
- Department of Geography University of Wisconsin‐Milwaukee Milwaukee Wisconsin USA
| | - Kelsey M. Yule
- Biodiversity Knowledge Integration Center Arizona State University Tempe Arizona USA
| | - Kai Zhu
- Department of Environmental Studies University of California, Santa Cruz Santa Cruz California USA
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9
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Scholl VM, McGlinchy J, Price-Broncucia T, Balch JK, Joseph MB. Fusion neural networks for plant classification: learning to combine RGB, hyperspectral, and lidar data. PeerJ 2021; 9:e11790. [PMID: 34395073 PMCID: PMC8325917 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.11790] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/27/2021] [Accepted: 06/25/2021] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Airborne remote sensing offers unprecedented opportunities to efficiently monitor vegetation, but methods to delineate and classify individual plant species using the collected data are still actively being developed and improved. The Integrating Data science with Trees and Remote Sensing (IDTReeS) plant identification competition openly invited scientists to create and compare individual tree mapping methods. Participants were tasked with training taxon identification algorithms based on two sites, to then transfer their methods to a third unseen site, using field-based plant observations in combination with airborne remote sensing image data products from the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). These data were captured by a high resolution digital camera sensitive to red, green, blue (RGB) light, hyperspectral imaging spectrometer spanning the visible to shortwave infrared wavelengths, and lidar systems to capture the spectral and structural properties of vegetation. As participants in the IDTReeS competition, we developed a two-stage deep learning approach to integrate NEON remote sensing data from all three sensors and classify individual plant species and genera. The first stage was a convolutional neural network that generates taxon probabilities from RGB images, and the second stage was a fusion neural network that “learns” how to combine these probabilities with hyperspectral and lidar data. Our two-stage approach leverages the ability of neural networks to flexibly and automatically extract descriptive features from complex image data with high dimensionality. Our method achieved an overall classification accuracy of 0.51 based on the training set, and 0.32 based on the test set which contained data from an unseen site with unknown taxa classes. Although transferability of classification algorithms to unseen sites with unknown species and genus classes proved to be a challenging task, developing methods with openly available NEON data that will be collected in a standardized format for 30 years allows for continual improvements and major gains for members of the computational ecology community. We outline promising directions related to data preparation and processing techniques for further investigation, and provide our code to contribute to open reproducible science efforts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Victoria M Scholl
- Earth Lab, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, United States.,Department of Geography, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, United States
| | - Joseph McGlinchy
- Earth Lab, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, United States
| | - Teo Price-Broncucia
- Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, United States
| | - Jennifer K Balch
- Earth Lab, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, United States.,Department of Geography, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, United States
| | - Maxwell B Joseph
- Earth Lab, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, United States
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10
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Armenteras D, Meza MC, González TM, Oliveras I, Balch JK, Retana J. Fire threatens the diversity and structure of tropical gallery forests. Ecosphere 2021. [DOI: 10.1002/ecs2.3347] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/13/2023] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Dolors Armenteras
- Laboratorio de Ecología del Paisaje y Modelación de Ecosistemas ECOLMOD Departamento de Biología Facultad de Ciencias Universidad Nacional de Colombia Bogotá Colombia
| | - María Constanza Meza
- Laboratorio de Ecología del Paisaje y Modelación de Ecosistemas ECOLMOD Departamento de Biología Facultad de Ciencias Universidad Nacional de Colombia Bogotá Colombia
| | - Tania Marisol González
- Laboratorio de Ecología del Paisaje y Modelación de Ecosistemas ECOLMOD Departamento de Biología Facultad de Ciencias Universidad Nacional de Colombia Bogotá Colombia
| | - Immaculada Oliveras
- School of Geography and the Environment Environmental Change Institute University of Oxford South Parks Road OxfordOX13QYUK
| | - Jennifer K. Balch
- Department of Geography University of Colorado‐Boulder Guggenheim 110 Boulder Colorado260 UCB80309USA
| | - Javier Retana
- CREAF‐Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications Cerdanyola del Valles Barcelona08193Spain
- Unitat d'Ecología Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona Cerdanyola del Valles Barcelona08193Spain
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11
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Nagy RC, Fusco EJ, Balch JK, Finn JT, Mahood A, Allen JM, Bradley BA. A synthesis of the effects of cheatgrass invasion on US Great Basin carbon storage. J Appl Ecol 2020. [DOI: 10.1111/1365-2664.13770] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Affiliation(s)
| | - Emily J. Fusco
- Organismic and Evolutionary Biology University of Massachusetts Amherst MA USA
| | - Jennifer K. Balch
- Earth Lab University of Colorado Boulder CO USA
- Department of Geography University of Colorado Boulder CO USA
| | - John T. Finn
- Department of Environmental Conservation University of Massachusetts Amherst MA USA
| | - Adam Mahood
- Earth Lab University of Colorado Boulder CO USA
- Department of Geography University of Colorado Boulder CO USA
| | - Jenica M. Allen
- Miller Worley Center for the Environment Mount Holyoke College South Hadley MA USA
| | - Bethany A. Bradley
- Organismic and Evolutionary Biology University of Massachusetts Amherst MA USA
- Department of Environmental Conservation University of Massachusetts Amherst MA USA
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12
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Leyk S, Uhl JH, Connor DS, Braswell AE, Mietkiewicz N, Balch JK, Gutmann M. Two centuries of settlement and urban development in the United States. Sci Adv 2020; 6:eaba2937. [PMID: 32537503 PMCID: PMC7269677 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aba2937] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/20/2019] [Accepted: 04/10/2020] [Indexed: 05/17/2023]
Abstract
Over the past 200 years, the population of the United States grew more than 40-fold. The resulting development of the built environment has had a profound impact on the regional economic, demographic, and environmental structure of North America. Unfortunately, constraints on data availability limit opportunities to study long-term development patterns and how population growth relates to land-use change. Using hundreds of millions of property records, we undertake the finest-resolution analysis to date, in space and time, of urbanization patterns from 1810 to 2015. Temporally consistent metrics reveal distinct long-term urban development patterns characterizing processes such as settlement expansion and densification at fine granularity. Furthermore, we demonstrate that these settlement measures are robust proxies for population throughout the record and thus potential surrogates for estimating population changes at fine scales. These new insights and data vastly expand opportunities to study land use, population change, and urbanization over the past two centuries.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stefan Leyk
- Department of Geography, University of Colorado Boulder, 260 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
- Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado Boulder, 483 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
- Earth Lab, University of Colorado Boulder, 4001 Discovery Drive Suite S348, 611 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
- Corresponding author.
| | - Johannes H. Uhl
- Department of Geography, University of Colorado Boulder, 260 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
- Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado Boulder, 483 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
| | - Dylan S. Connor
- School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85281, USA
| | - Anna E. Braswell
- Earth Lab, University of Colorado Boulder, 4001 Discovery Drive Suite S348, 611 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
- Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, 216 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
| | - Nathan Mietkiewicz
- Earth Lab, University of Colorado Boulder, 4001 Discovery Drive Suite S348, 611 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
- Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, 216 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
| | - Jennifer K. Balch
- Department of Geography, University of Colorado Boulder, 260 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
- Earth Lab, University of Colorado Boulder, 4001 Discovery Drive Suite S348, 611 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
- Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, 216 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
| | - Myron Gutmann
- Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado Boulder, 483 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
- Department of History, University of Colorado Boulder, 234 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
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13
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St Denis LA, Mietkiewicz NP, Short KC, Buckland M, Balch JK. All-hazards dataset mined from the US National Incident Management System 1999-2014. Sci Data 2020; 7:64. [PMID: 32081906 PMCID: PMC7035274 DOI: 10.1038/s41597-020-0403-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/08/2019] [Accepted: 01/15/2020] [Indexed: 11/15/2022] Open
Abstract
This paper describes a new dataset mined from the public archive (1999-2014) of the U.S. National Incident Management System/Incident Command System Incident Status Summary Form (a total of 124,411 reports for 25,083 incidents, including 24,608 wildfires). This system captures detailed information on incident management costs, personnel, hazard characteristics, values at risk, fatalities, and structural damage. Most (98.5%) of the reports are fire-related, followed in decreasing order by other, hurricane, hazardous materials, flood, tornado, search and rescue, civil unrest, and winter storms. The archive, although publicly available, has been difficult to use due to multiple record formats, inconsistent free-form fields, and no bridge between individual reports and high-level incident analysis. Here, we describe this improved dataset and the open, reproducible methods used, including merging records across three versions of the system, cleaning and aligning with the current system, smoothing values across reports, and supporting incident-level analysis. This integrated record offers the opportunity to explore the daily progression of the most costly, damaging, and deadly events in the U.S., particularly for wildfires.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lise A St Denis
- Earth Lab, 4001 Discovery Drive Suite S348-UCB 611, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, 80309, USA.
- Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, 216 UCB, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, 80309, USA.
| | - Nathan P Mietkiewicz
- Earth Lab, 4001 Discovery Drive Suite S348-UCB 611, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, 80309, USA
- Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, 216 UCB, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, 80309, USA
| | - Karen C Short
- USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, 800 Beckwith Ave., Missoula, MT, 59801, USA
| | - Mollie Buckland
- Earth Lab, 4001 Discovery Drive Suite S348-UCB 611, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, 80309, USA
- Department of Geography, GUGG 110, 260 UCB, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, 80309, USA
| | - Jennifer K Balch
- Earth Lab, 4001 Discovery Drive Suite S348-UCB 611, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, 80309, USA
- Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, 216 UCB, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, 80309, USA
- Department of Geography, GUGG 110, 260 UCB, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, 80309, USA
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14
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Abstract
Fire-prone invasive grasses create novel ecosystem threats by increasing fine-fuel loads and continuity, which can alter fire regimes. While the existence of an invasive grass-fire cycle is well known, evidence of altered fire regimes is typically based on local-scale studies or expert knowledge. Here, we quantify the effects of 12 nonnative, invasive grasses on fire occurrence, size, and frequency across 29 US ecoregions encompassing more than one third of the conterminous United States. These 12 grass species promote fire locally and have extensive spatial records of abundant infestations. We combined agency and satellite fire data with records of abundant grass invasion to test for differences in fire regimes between invaded and nearby "uninvaded" habitat. Additionally, we assessed whether invasive grass presence is a significant predictor of altered fire by modeling fire occurrence, size, and frequency as a function of grass invasion, in addition to anthropogenic and ecological covariates relevant to fire. Eight species showed significantly higher fire-occurrence rates, which more than tripled for Schismus barbatus and Pennisetum ciliare. Six species demonstrated significantly higher mean fire frequency, which more than doubled for Neyraudia reynaudiana and Pennisetum ciliare Grass invasion was significant in fire occurrence and frequency models, but not in fire-size models. The significant differences in fire regimes, coupled with the importance of grass invasion in modeling these differences, suggest that invasive grasses alter US fire regimes at regional scales. As concern about US wildfires grows, accounting for fire-promoting invasive grasses will be imperative for effectively managing ecosystems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emily J Fusco
- Graduate Program in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003;
| | - John T Finn
- Department of Environmental Conservation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003
| | - Jennifer K Balch
- Earth Lab, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309
- Department of Geography, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309
| | | | - Bethany A Bradley
- Graduate Program in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003
- Department of Environmental Conservation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003
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15
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Brando PM, Silvério D, Maracahipes-Santos L, Oliveira-Santos C, Levick SR, Coe MT, Migliavacca M, Balch JK, Macedo MN, Nepstad DC, Maracahipes L, Davidson E, Asner G, Kolle O, Trumbore S. Prolonged tropical forest degradation due to compounding disturbances: Implications for CO 2 and H 2 O fluxes. Glob Chang Biol 2019; 25:2855-2868. [PMID: 31237398 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.14659] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/31/2018] [Revised: 03/13/2019] [Accepted: 03/31/2019] [Indexed: 06/09/2023]
Abstract
Drought, fire, and windstorms can interact to degrade tropical forests and the ecosystem services they provide, but how these forests recover after catastrophic disturbance events remains relatively unknown. Here, we analyze multi-year measurements of vegetation dynamics and function (fluxes of CO2 and H2 O) in forests recovering from 7 years of controlled burns, followed by wind disturbance. Located in southeast Amazonia, the experimental forest consists of three 50-ha plots burned annually, triennially, or not at all from 2004 to 2010. During the subsequent 6-year recovery period, postfire tree survivorship and biomass sharply declined, with aboveground C stocks decreasing by 70%-94% along forest edges (0-200 m into the forest) and 36%-40% in the forest interior. Vegetation regrowth in the forest understory triggered partial canopy closure (70%-80%) from 2010 to 2015. The composition and spatial distribution of grasses invading degraded forest evolved rapidly, likely because of the delayed mortality. Four years after the experimental fires ended (2014), the burned plots assimilated 36% less carbon than the Control, but net CO2 exchange and evapotranspiration (ET) had fully recovered 7 years after the experimental fires ended (2017). Carbon uptake recovery occurred largely in response to increased light-use efficiency and reduced postfire respiration, whereas increased water use associated with postfire growth of new recruits and remaining trees explained the recovery in ET. Although the effects of interacting disturbances (e.g., fires, forest fragmentation, and blowdown events) on mortality and biomass persist over many years, the rapid recovery of carbon and water fluxes can help stabilize local climate.
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Affiliation(s)
- Paulo M Brando
- Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, Massachusetts
- Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia (IPAM), Brasília, Brazil
| | - Divino Silvério
- Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia (IPAM), Brasília, Brazil
- Ecology Department, University of Brasília, Brasília, Brazil
| | | | - Claudinei Oliveira-Santos
- Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia (IPAM), Brasília, Brazil
- Federal University of Goiás, Goiânia, Brazil
| | - Shaun R Levick
- Charles Darwin University, Darwin, NT, Australia
- CSIRO Tropical Ecosystems Research Centre, Darwin, NT, Australia
- Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany
| | | | | | - Jennifer K Balch
- Geography Department, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, Colorado
| | - Marcia N Macedo
- Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, Massachusetts
- Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia (IPAM), Brasília, Brazil
| | | | | | - Eric Davidson
- Appalachian Laboratory, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Frostburg, Maryland
| | - Gregory Asner
- Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona
| | - Olaf Kolle
- Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany
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Joseph MB, Rossi MW, Mietkiewicz NP, Mahood AL, Cattau ME, St. Denis LA, Nagy RC, Iglesias V, Abatzoglou JT, Balch JK. Spatiotemporal prediction of wildfire size extremes with Bayesian finite sample maxima. Ecol Appl 2019; 29:e01898. [PMID: 30980779 PMCID: PMC6851762 DOI: 10.1002/eap.1898] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/14/2018] [Revised: 02/19/2019] [Accepted: 03/19/2019] [Indexed: 05/09/2023]
Abstract
Wildfires are becoming more frequent in parts of the globe, but predicting where and when wildfires occur remains difficult. To predict wildfire extremes across the contiguous United States, we integrate a 30-yr wildfire record with meteorological and housing data in spatiotemporal Bayesian statistical models with spatially varying nonlinear effects. We compared different distributions for the number and sizes of large fires to generate a posterior predictive distribution based on finite sample maxima for extreme events (the largest fires over bounded spatiotemporal domains). A zero-inflated negative binomial model for fire counts and a lognormal model for burned areas provided the best performance. This model attains 99% interval coverage for the number of fires and 93% coverage for fire sizes over a six year withheld data set. Dryness and air temperature strongly predict extreme wildfire probabilities. Housing density has a hump-shaped relationship with fire occurrence, with more fires occurring at intermediate housing densities. Statistically, these drivers affect the chance of an extreme wildfire in two ways: by altering fire size distributions, and by altering fire frequency, which influences sampling from the tails of fire size distributions. We conclude that recent extremes should not be surprising, and that the contiguous United States may be on the verge of even larger wildfire extremes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maxwell B. Joseph
- Earth LabUniversity of Colorado Boulder4001 Discovery Drive, Suite S348 611 UCBBoulderColorado80303USA
| | - Matthew W. Rossi
- Earth LabUniversity of Colorado Boulder4001 Discovery Drive, Suite S348 611 UCBBoulderColorado80303USA
| | - Nathan P. Mietkiewicz
- Earth LabUniversity of Colorado Boulder4001 Discovery Drive, Suite S348 611 UCBBoulderColorado80303USA
| | - Adam L. Mahood
- Earth LabUniversity of Colorado Boulder4001 Discovery Drive, Suite S348 611 UCBBoulderColorado80303USA
| | - Megan E. Cattau
- Earth LabUniversity of Colorado Boulder4001 Discovery Drive, Suite S348 611 UCBBoulderColorado80303USA
| | - Lise Ann St. Denis
- Earth LabUniversity of Colorado Boulder4001 Discovery Drive, Suite S348 611 UCBBoulderColorado80303USA
| | - R. Chelsea Nagy
- Earth LabUniversity of Colorado Boulder4001 Discovery Drive, Suite S348 611 UCBBoulderColorado80303USA
| | - Virginia Iglesias
- Earth LabUniversity of Colorado Boulder4001 Discovery Drive, Suite S348 611 UCBBoulderColorado80303USA
| | - John T. Abatzoglou
- Department of GeographyUniversity of Idaho875 Perimeter Drive, MS 3021MoscowIdaho83844‐3021USA
| | - Jennifer K. Balch
- Earth LabUniversity of Colorado Boulder4001 Discovery Drive, Suite S348 611 UCBBoulderColorado80303USA
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17
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Affiliation(s)
- Adam L. Mahood
- Department of Geography; University of Colorado Boulder; GUGG 110, 260 UCB Boulder Colorado 80309 USA
| | - Jennifer K. Balch
- Department of Geography; University of Colorado Boulder; GUGG 110, 260 UCB Boulder Colorado 80309 USA
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18
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Metcalfe DB, Rocha W, Balch JK, Brando PM, Doughty CE, Malhi Y. Impacts of fire on sources of soil CO 2 efflux in a dry Amazon rain forest. Glob Chang Biol 2018; 24:3629-3641. [PMID: 29748988 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.14305] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/30/2018] [Revised: 04/27/2018] [Accepted: 04/30/2018] [Indexed: 06/08/2023]
Abstract
Fire at the dry southern margin of the Amazon rainforest could have major consequences for regional soil carbon (C) storage and ecosystem carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emissions, but relatively little information exists about impacts of fire on soil C cycling within this sensitive ecotone. We measured CO2 effluxes from different soil components (ground surface litter, roots, mycorrhizae, soil organic matter) at a large-scale burn experiment designed to simulate a severe but realistic potential future scenario for the region (Fire plot) in Mato Grosso, Brazil, over 1 year, and compared these measurements to replicated data from a nearby, unmodified Control plot. After four burns over 5 years, soil CO2 efflux (Rs ) was ~5.5 t C ha-1 year-1 lower on the Fire plot compared to the Control. Most of the Fire plot Rs reduction was specifically due to lower ground surface litter and root respiration. Mycorrhizal respiration on both plots was around ~20% of Rs . Soil surface temperature appeared to be more important than moisture as a driver of seasonal patterns in Rs at the site. Regular fire events decreased the seasonality of Rs at the study site, due to apparent differences in environmental sensitivities among biotic and abiotic soil components. These findings may contribute toward improved predictions of the amount and temporal pattern of C emissions across the large areas of tropical forest facing increasing fire disturbances associated with climate change and human activities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel B Metcalfe
- Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
- Department of Ecology and Environmental Science, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden
| | - Wanderley Rocha
- Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia, Canarana, Brazil
| | - Jennifer K Balch
- Department of Geography, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, Colorado
| | - Paulo M Brando
- Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia, Canarana, Brazil
- Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, Massachusetts
| | - Christopher E Doughty
- School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona
| | - Yadvinder Malhi
- Environmental Change Institute, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
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de Andrade RB, Balch JK, Parsons AL, Armenteras D, Roman-Cuesta RM, Bulkan J. Scenarios in tropical forest degradation: carbon stock trajectories for REDD. Carbon Balance Manag 2017; 12:6. [PMID: 28413850 PMCID: PMC5344878 DOI: 10.1186/s13021-017-0074-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/10/2016] [Accepted: 02/28/2017] [Indexed: 06/07/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Human-caused disturbance to tropical rainforests-such as logging and fire-causes substantial losses of carbon stocks. This is a critical issue to be addressed in the context of policy discussions to implement REDD+. This work reviews current scientific knowledge about the temporal dynamics of degradation-induced carbon emissions to describe common patterns of emissions from logging and fire across tropical forest regions. Using best available information, we: (i) develop short-term emissions factors (per area) for logging and fire degradation scenarios in tropical forests; and (ii) describe the temporal pattern of degradation emissions and recovery trajectory post logging and fire disturbance. RESULTS Average emissions from aboveground biomass were 19.9 MgC/ha for logging and 46.0 MgC/ha for fire disturbance, with an average period of study of 3.22 and 2.15 years post-disturbance, respectively. Longer-term studies of post-logging forest recovery suggest that biomass accumulates to pre-disturbance levels within a few decades. Very few studies exist on longer-term (>10 years) effects of fire disturbance in tropical rainforests, and recovery patterns over time are unknown. CONCLUSIONS This review will aid in understanding whether degradation emissions are a substantial component of country-level emissions portfolios, or whether these emissions would be offset by forest recovery and regeneration.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | - Dolors Armenteras
- Departamento de Biologia, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia
| | - Rosa Maria Roman-Cuesta
- WU Environmental Sciences, Wageningen University and Research Centre, Wageningen, Netherlands
| | - Janette Bulkan
- Department of Forest Resources Management, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
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20
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Bradley BA, Curtis CA, Fusco EJ, Abatzoglou JT, Balch JK, Dadashi S, Tuanmu MN. Cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) distribution in the intermountain Western United States and its relationship to fire frequency, seasonality, and ignitions. Biol Invasions 2017. [DOI: 10.1007/s10530-017-1641-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 113] [Impact Index Per Article: 16.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
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Balch JK, Nagy RC, Archibald S, Bowman DMJS, Moritz MA, Roos CI, Scott AC, Williamson GJ. Global combustion: the connection between fossil fuel and biomass burning emissions (1997-2010). Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2017; 371:rstb.2015.0177. [PMID: 27216509 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0177] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 03/09/2016] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Humans use combustion for heating and cooking, managing lands, and, more recently, for fuelling the industrial economy. As a shift to fossil-fuel-based energy occurs, we expect that anthropogenic biomass burning in open landscapes will decline as it becomes less fundamental to energy acquisition and livelihoods. Using global data on both fossil fuel and biomass burning emissions, we tested this relationship over a 14 year period (1997-2010). The global average annual carbon emissions from biomass burning during this time were 2.2 Pg C per year (±0.3 s.d.), approximately one-third of fossil fuel emissions over the same period (7.3 Pg C, ±0.8 s.d.). There was a significant inverse relationship between average annual fossil fuel and biomass burning emissions. Fossil fuel emissions explained 8% of the variation in biomass burning emissions at a global scale, but this varied substantially by land cover. For example, fossil fuel burning explained 31% of the variation in biomass burning in woody savannas, but was a non-significant predictor for evergreen needleleaf forests. In the land covers most dominated by human use, croplands and urban areas, fossil fuel emissions were more than 30- and 500-fold greater than biomass burning emissions. This relationship suggests that combustion practices may be shifting from open landscape burning to contained combustion for industrial purposes, and highlights the need to take into account how humans appropriate combustion in global modelling of contemporary fire. Industrialized combustion is not only an important driver of atmospheric change, but also an important driver of landscape change through companion declines in human-started fires.This article is part of the themed issue 'The interaction of fire and mankind'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jennifer K Balch
- Department of Geography, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA Earth Lab, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
| | - R Chelsea Nagy
- Department of Geography, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA Earth Lab, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
| | - Sally Archibald
- School of Animal Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2000, South Africa
| | - David M J S Bowman
- School of Biological Sciences, The University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS 7011, Australia
| | - Max A Moritz
- Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Christopher I Roos
- Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275, USA
| | - Andrew C Scott
- Department of Earth Sciences, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham TW20 OEX, UK
| | - Grant J Williamson
- School of Biological Sciences, The University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS 7011, Australia
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Abstract
The economic and ecological costs of wildfire in the United States have risen substantially in recent decades. Although climate change has likely enabled a portion of the increase in wildfire activity, the direct role of people in increasing wildfire activity has been largely overlooked. We evaluate over 1.5 million government records of wildfires that had to be extinguished or managed by state or federal agencies from 1992 to 2012, and examined geographic and seasonal extents of human-ignited wildfires relative to lightning-ignited wildfires. Humans have vastly expanded the spatial and seasonal "fire niche" in the coterminous United States, accounting for 84% of all wildfires and 44% of total area burned. During the 21-y time period, the human-caused fire season was three times longer than the lightning-caused fire season and added an average of 40,000 wildfires per year across the United States. Human-started wildfires disproportionally occurred where fuel moisture was higher than lightning-started fires, thereby helping expand the geographic and seasonal niche of wildfire. Human-started wildfires were dominant (>80% of ignitions) in over 5.1 million km2, the vast majority of the United States, whereas lightning-started fires were dominant in only 0.7 million km2, primarily in sparsely populated areas of the mountainous western United States. Ignitions caused by human activities are a substantial driver of overall fire risk to ecosystems and economies. Actions to raise awareness and increase management in regions prone to human-started wildfires should be a focus of United States policy to reduce fire risk and associated hazards.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jennifer K Balch
- Earth Lab, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309;
- Department of Geography, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309
| | - Bethany A Bradley
- Department of Environmental Conservation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003;
- Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Program, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003
| | | | | | - Emily J Fusco
- Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Program, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003
| | - Adam L Mahood
- Earth Lab, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309
- Department of Geography, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309
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Fusco EJ, Abatzoglou JT, Balch JK, Finn JT, Bradley BA. Quantifying the human influence on fire ignition across the western USA. Ecol Appl 2016; 26:2388-2399. [PMID: 27907256 DOI: 10.1002/eap.1395] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/22/2015] [Revised: 04/30/2016] [Accepted: 06/27/2016] [Indexed: 06/06/2023]
Abstract
Humans have a profound effect on fire regimes by increasing the frequency of ignitions. Although ignition is an integral component of understanding and predicting fire, to date fire models have not been able to isolate the ignition location, leading to inconsistent use of anthropogenic ignition proxies. Here, we identified fire ignitions from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) Burned Area Product (2000-2012) to create the first remotely sensed, consistently derived, and regionally comprehensive fire ignition data set for the western United States. We quantified the spatial relationships between several anthropogenic land-use/disturbance features and ignition for ecoregions within the study area and used hierarchical partitioning to test how the anthropogenic predictors of fire ignition vary among ecoregions. The degree to which anthropogenic features predicted ignition varied considerably by ecoregion, with the strongest relationships found in the Marine West Coast Forest and North American Desert ecoregions. Similarly, the contribution of individual anthropogenic predictors varied greatly among ecoregions. Railroad corridors and agricultural presence tended to be the most important predictors of anthropogenic ignition, while population density and roads were generally poor predictors. Although human population has often been used as a proxy for ignitions at global scales, it is less important at regional scales when more specific land uses (e.g., agriculture) can be identified. The variability of ignition predictors among ecoregions suggests that human activities have heterogeneous impacts in altering fire regimes within different vegetation types and geographies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emily J Fusco
- Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Program, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts, 01003, USA
| | - John T Abatzoglou
- Department of Geography, University of Idaho, 875 Perimeter Drive, MS 3021 Moscow, Idaho, 83844-3021, USA
| | - Jennifer K Balch
- Department of Geography, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, Guggenheim 110, 260 UCB Colorado, 80309-0260, USA
| | - John T Finn
- Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Program, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts, 01003, USA
- Department of Environmental Conservation, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, 160 Holdsworth Way Amherst, Massachusetts, 01003, USA
| | - Bethany A Bradley
- Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Program, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts, 01003, USA
- Department of Environmental Conservation, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, 160 Holdsworth Way Amherst, Massachusetts, 01003, USA
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Balch JK, Brando PM, Nepstad DC, Coe MT, Silvério D, Massad TJ, Davidson EA, Lefebvre P, Oliveira-Santos C, Rocha W, Cury RTS, Parsons A, Carvalho KS. The Susceptibility of Southeastern Amazon Forests to Fire: Insights from a Large-Scale Burn Experiment. Bioscience 2015. [DOI: 10.1093/biosci/biv106] [Citation(s) in RCA: 68] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
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25
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Silvério DV, Brando PM, Balch JK, Putz FE, Nepstad DC, Oliveira-Santos C, Bustamante MMC. Testing the Amazon savannization hypothesis: fire effects on invasion of a neotropical forest by native cerrado and exotic pasture grasses. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2013; 368:20120427. [PMID: 23610179 PMCID: PMC3638439 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2012.0427] [Citation(s) in RCA: 123] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Changes in climate and land use that interact synergistically to increase fire frequencies and intensities in tropical regions are predicted to drive forests to new grass-dominated stable states. To reveal the mechanisms for such a transition, we established 50 ha plots in a transitional forest in the southwestern Brazilian Amazon to different fire treatments (unburned, burned annually (B1yr) or at 3-year intervals (B3yr)). Over an 8-year period since the commencement of these treatments, we documented: (i) the annual rate of pasture and native grass invasion in response to increasing fire frequency; (ii) the establishment of Brachiaria decumbens (an African C4 grass) as a function of decreasing canopy cover and (iii) the effects of grass fine fuel on fire intensity. Grasses invaded approximately 200 m from the edge into the interiors of burned plots (B1yr: 4.31 ha; B3yr: 4.96 ha) but invaded less than 10 m into the unburned plot (0.33 ha). The probability of B. decumbens establishment increased with seed availability and decreased with leaf area index. Fine fuel loads along the forest edge were more than three times higher in grass-dominated areas, which resulted in especially intense fires. Our results indicate that synergies between fires and invasive C4 grasses jeopardize the future of tropical forests.
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Affiliation(s)
- Divino V Silvério
- Departamento de Ecologia Brasília, Universidade de Brasília, Brasilia, Distrito Federal, Brazil.
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26
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Balch JK, Massad TJ, Brando PM, Nepstad DC, Curran LM. Effects of high-frequency understorey fires on woody plant regeneration in southeastern Amazonian forests. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2013; 368:20120157. [PMID: 23610167 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2012.0157] [Citation(s) in RCA: 38] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Anthropogenic understorey fires affect large areas of tropical forest, yet their effects on woody plant regeneration post-fire remain poorly understood. We examined the effects of repeated experimental fires on woody stem (less than 1 cm at base) mortality, recruitment, species diversity, community similarity and regeneration mode (seed versus sprout) in Mato Grosso, Brazil. From 2004 to 2010, forest plots (50 ha) were burned twice (B2) or five times (B5), and compared with an unburned control (B0). Stem density recovered within a year after the first burn (initial density: 12.4-13.2 stems m(-2)), but after 6 years, increased mortality and decreased regeneration--primarily of seedlings--led to a 63 per cent and 85 per cent reduction in stem density in B2 and B5, respectively. Seedlings and sprouts across plots in 2010 displayed remarkable community similarity owing to shared abundant species. Although the dominant surviving species were similar across plots, a major increase in sprouting occurred--almost three- and fourfold greater in B2 and B5 than in B0. In B5, 29 species disappeared and were replaced by 11 new species often present along fragmented forest edges. By 2010, the annual burn regime created substantial divergence between the seedling community and the initial adult tree community (greater than or equal to 20 cm dbh). Increased droughts and continued anthropogenic ignitions associated with frontier land uses may promote high-frequency fire regimes that may substantially alter regeneration and therefore successional processes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jennifer K Balch
- Department of Geography, The Pennsylvania State University, 315 Walker Building, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
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27
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Balch JK, Bradley BA, D'Antonio CM, Gómez-Dans J. Introduced annual grass increases regional fire activity across the arid western USA (1980-2009). Glob Chang Biol 2013; 19:173-183. [PMID: 23504729 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.12046] [Citation(s) in RCA: 209] [Impact Index Per Article: 19.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/11/2012] [Accepted: 07/09/2012] [Indexed: 06/01/2023]
Abstract
Non-native, invasive grasses have been linked to altered grass-fire cycles worldwide. Although a few studies have quantified resulting changes in fire activity at local scales, and many have speculated about larger scales, regional alterations to fire regimes remain poorly documented. We assessed the influence of large-scale Bromus tectorum (hereafter cheatgrass) invasion on fire size, duration, spread rate, and interannual variability in comparison to other prominent land cover classes across the Great Basin, USA. We compared regional land cover maps to burned area measured using the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) for 2000-2009 and to fire extents recorded by the USGS registry of fires from 1980 to 2009. Cheatgrass dominates at least 6% of the central Great Basin (650 000 km(2) ). MODIS records show that 13% of these cheatgrass-dominated lands burned, resulting in a fire return interval of 78 years for any given location within cheatgrass. This proportion was more than double the amount burned across all other vegetation types (range: 0.5-6% burned). During the 1990s, this difference was even more extreme, with cheatgrass burning nearly four times more frequently than any native vegetation type (16% of cheatgrass burned compared to 1-5% of native vegetation). Cheatgrass was also disproportionately represented in the largest fires, comprising 24% of the land area of the 50 largest fires recorded by MODIS during the 2000s. Furthermore, multi-date fires that burned across multiple vegetation types were significantly more likely to have started in cheatgrass. Finally, cheatgrass fires showed a strong interannual response to wet years, a trend only weakly observed in native vegetation types. These results demonstrate that cheatgrass invasion has substantially altered the regional fire regime. Although this result has been suspected by managers for decades, this study is the first to document recent cheatgrass-driven fire regimes at a regional scale.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jennifer K Balch
- Department of Geography, The Pennsylvania State University, Walker Building, University Park, PA, USA.
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28
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Massad TJ, Balch JK, Davidson EA, Brando PM, Mews CL, Porto P, Quintino RM, Vieira SA, Junior BHM, Trumbore SE. Interactions between repeated fire, nutrients, and insect herbivores affect the recovery of diversity in the southern Amazon. Oecologia 2012; 172:219-29. [PMID: 23053239 DOI: 10.1007/s00442-012-2482-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/25/2011] [Accepted: 09/12/2012] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
Surface fires burn extensive areas of tropical forests each year, altering resource availability, biotic interactions, and, ultimately, plant diversity. In transitional forest between the Brazilian cerrado (savanna) and high stature Amazon forest, we took advantage of a long-term fire experiment to establish a factorial study of the interactions between fire, nutrient availability, and herbivory on early plant regeneration. Overall, five annual burns reduced the number and diversity of regenerating stems. Community composition changed substantially after repeated fires, and species common in the cerrado became more abundant. The number of recruits and their diversity were reduced in the burned area, but burned plots closed to herbivores with nitrogen additions had a 14 % increase in recruitment. Diversity of recruits also increased up to 50 % in burned plots when nitrogen was added. Phosphorus additions were related to an increase in species evenness in burned plots open to herbivores. Herbivory reduced seedling survival overall and increased diversity in burned plots when nutrients were added. This last result supports our hypothesis that positive relationships between herbivore presence and diversity would be strongest in treatments that favor herbivory--in this case herbivory was higher in burned plots which were initially lower in diversity. Regenerating seedlings in less diverse plots were likely more apparent to herbivores, enabling increased herbivory and a stronger signal of negative density dependence. In contrast, herbivores generally decreased diversity in more species rich unburned plots. Although this study documents complex interactions between repeated burns, nutrients, and herbivory, it is clear that fire initiates a shift in the factors that are most important in determining the diversity and number of recruits. This change may have long-lasting effects as the forest progresses through succession.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tara Joy Massad
- Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Hans-Knöll-Str 10, 07745 Jena, Germany.
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Davidson EA, de Araújo AC, Artaxo P, Balch JK, Brown IF, C Bustamante MM, Coe MT, DeFries RS, Keller M, Longo M, Munger JW, Schroeder W, Soares-Filho BS, Souza CM, Wofsy SC. The Amazon basin in transition. Nature 2012; 481:321-8. [PMID: 22258611 DOI: 10.1038/nature10717] [Citation(s) in RCA: 755] [Impact Index Per Article: 62.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/10/2022]
Abstract
Agricultural expansion and climate variability have become important agents of disturbance in the Amazon basin. Recent studies have demonstrated considerable resilience of Amazonian forests to moderate annual drought, but they also show that interactions between deforestation, fire and drought potentially lead to losses of carbon storage and changes in regional precipitation patterns and river discharge. Although the basin-wide impacts of land use and drought may not yet surpass the magnitude of natural variability of hydrologic and biogeochemical cycles, there are some signs of a transition to a disturbance-dominated regime. These signs include changing energy and water cycles in the southern and eastern portions of the Amazon basin.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eric A Davidson
- The Woods Hole Research Center, 149 Woods Hole Road, Falmouth, Massachusetts 02540-1644, USA.
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Abstract
Aragão and Shimabukuro (Reports, 4 June 2010, p. 1275) reported that fires increase in agricultural frontiers even as deforestation decreases and concluded that these fires lead to unaccounted carbon emissions under the United Nations climate treaty's tropical deforestation and forest degradation component. Emissions from post-deforestation management activities are, in fact, included in these estimates--but burning of standing forests is not.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jennifer K Balch
- Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), Brasília, DF 71.503-505, Brazil.
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31
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Bowman DMJS, Balch JK, Artaxo P, Bond WJ, Carlson JM, Cochrane MA, D'Antonio CM, Defries RS, Doyle JC, Harrison SP, Johnston FH, Keeley JE, Krawchuk MA, Kull CA, Marston JB, Moritz MA, Prentice IC, Roos CI, Scott AC, Swetnam TW, van der Werf GR, Pyne SJ. Fire in the Earth system. Science 2009; 324:481-4. [PMID: 19390038 DOI: 10.1126/science.1163886] [Citation(s) in RCA: 705] [Impact Index Per Article: 47.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/02/2022]
Abstract
Fire is a worldwide phenomenon that appears in the geological record soon after the appearance of terrestrial plants. Fire influences global ecosystem patterns and processes, including vegetation distribution and structure, the carbon cycle, and climate. Although humans and fire have always coexisted, our capacity to manage fire remains imperfect and may become more difficult in the future as climate change alters fire regimes. This risk is difficult to assess, however, because fires are still poorly represented in global models. Here, we discuss some of the most important issues involved in developing a better understanding of the role of fire in the Earth system.
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