How resilient are southwestern ponderosa pine forests after crown fires?
- 1 April 2005
- journal article
- Published by Canadian Science Publishing in Canadian Journal of Forest Research
- Vol. 35 (4), 967-977
- https://doi.org/10.1139/x05-028
Abstract
The exclusion of low-severity surface fire from ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa P. & C. Lawson) forests of the Southwest has changed ecosystem structure and function such that severe crown fires are increasingly causing extensive stand mortality. This altered fire regime has resulted from the intersection of natural drought cycles with human activities that have suppressed natural fires for over a century. What is the trajectory of forest recovery after such fires? This study explores the regeneration response of ponderosa pine and other species to crown fires that occurred in the region from the late 1940s to the mid-1970s. We address two main questions: (1) What is the success of ponderosa regeneration and establishment, and (2) Can these sites, burned in stand-destroying fires, be "captured" by other species on the scale of decades? Two main trajectories of recovery were found: (1) establishment of unnaturally dense ponderosa pine stands vulnerable to further crown fire and (2) establishment of nonforested grass or shrub communities.Keywords
This publication has 31 references indexed in Scilit:
- Intense wildfire in southeastern Arizona: transformation of a Madrean oak–pine forest to oak woodlandForest Ecology and Management, 2002
- Understory response to management treatments in northern Arizona ponderosa pine forestsForest Ecology and Management, 2001
- REFERENCE CONDITIONS FOR GIANT SEQUOIA FOREST RESTORATION: STRUCTURE, PROCESS, AND PRECISIONEcological Applications, 1999
- APPLIED HISTORICAL ECOLOGY: USING THE PAST TO MANAGE FOR THE FUTUREEcological Applications, 1999
- DETERMINING REFERENCE CONDITIONS FOR ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT OF SOUTHWESTERN PONDEROSA PINE FORESTSEcological Applications, 1997
- UnsustainabilityForest Ecology and Management, 1995
- Postsettlement Changes in Natural Fire Regimes and Forest StructureJournal of Sustainable Forestry, 1994
- Historical Range of VariabilityJournal of Sustainable Forestry, 1994
- Spatial Patterns of Tree-Growth Anomalies in the United States and Southeastern CanadaJournal of Climate, 1993
- Structural Dynamics of a Southwestern Pine Forest under Chronic Human InfluenceAnnals of the American Association of Geographers, 1991