Research by USGS scientist Dr. Jon Keeley and colleagues published recently in Ecology examined the utility of plant functional traits for global prediction in crown-fire ecosystems.
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Three sites of "blackbrush vegetation type" were compared under unburned and burned (6–14 years postfire) sites for a variety of characteristics in the Mojave Desert.
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In the 1940's California Division of Forestry (CDF) rangeland managers believed that the grazing capacity of the California foothills had decreased due to weedy herbs and invading chaparral. The most effective methods were explored to convert chaparral to rangeland.
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Using GIS fire history data, 1930-‐1934 VTM maps and modern vegetation maps, four experimental sites with short fire return intervals (<6 years) were paired to four control sites with similar vegetation, slope, aspect and elevation but with longer fire intervals (>12 years).
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Janet Franklin and colleagues used LANDIS, a landscape disturbance and succession model to investigate how short, moderate and long fire return intervals (FRI's) in southern California affect persistence of different shrub life histories.
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In this study, two atmosphere-‐ocean general circulation models to explore shifts in Santa Ana occurrences.
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In some ecosystems, high-severity regimes are appropriate, but climate change may modify these fire regimes and ecosystems as well. Some undesirable impacts may be avoided or reduced through global strategies, as well as distinct strategies based on a forest’s historical fire regime.
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This paper analyzed patterns of lightning and human caused fires for a 10 year period in California.
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In 2003, Southern California experienced several large fires that burned thousands of hectares of wildlife habitats and conserved lands. A USGS study published in the Journal of Herpetology reports that after the fires, burned chaparral and coastal sage scrub (CSS) plots lost herpetological diversity and displayed a significant shift in overall community structure.
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A study demonstrates some critically important flaws in some of the published studies and suggests approaches for increasing the credibility of studies using historical VTM data.
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A study that offers insight into the impacts of prescribed and wildfire on stream and riparian systems.
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In a recent publication by USGS scientists, Drs. Matthew L. Brooks and David A. Pyke discussed these interrelationships, and concluded that the management of fire and invasive plants must be closely integrated for each to be managed effectively.
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A 2009 study by Collins et al. suggests that freely burning fires in upper elevation mixed-‐conifer forests of the Sierra Nevada may effectively regulate fire-‐induced effects across an entire landscape.
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Tree and shrub encroachment is common in areas where fire has been excluded, and has become a focal point of many oak management and restoration programs.
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Fire in chaparral is a natural process, but only when it occurs within the range of conditions represented by its fire regime.
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Here, Jon Keeley and his colleagues document an example of immaturity risk for population decline in knobcone pine (Pinus attenuate), a rare, serotinous, obligate-seeding pine species.
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Four decades after being type converted to a non native grassland, the soil and hydrology of the USFS San Dimas Experimental Forest in southern California was compared to the adjacent, natural chaparral.
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Researchers studied the human influence on fire regimes at the WUI using California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF) data from a majority of counties in the state, coupled with associated housing and other human infrastructure data.
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At two sites in Mono County, California, two thinning treatments were compared: machine mastication versus cut/pile/burn by hand crews using chain saws.
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Syphard, Brennan and Keeley asked how the size of the defensible space zone affected fire outcomes using a dataset of 687,869 homes with their property boundaries.
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The California Fire Science Consortium is divided into 4 geographic regions and 1 wildland-urban interface (WUI) team. Statewide coordination of this program is based at UC Berkeley.
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This regional Fire Science Exchange is one of 15 regional fire science exchanges.
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