Fire suppression and ecosystem carbon storage
David Tilman,Peter B. Reich,Hope Phillips,Mary Menton,Ami Patel,Erin Vos,David W. Peterson,Johannes M. H. Knops +7 more
Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
A 35-year controlled burning experiment in Minnesota oak savanna showed that fire frequency had a great impact on ecosystem carbon (C) stores, with most carbon stored in woody biomass.Abstract:
A 35-year controlled burning experiment in Minnesota oak savanna showed that fire frequency had a great impact on ecosystem carbon (C) stores. Specifically, compared to the historical fire regime, fire suppression led to an average of 1.8 Mg·ha−1·yr−1 of C storage, with most carbon stored in woody biomass. Forest floor carbon stores were also significantly impacted by fire frequency, but there were no detectable effects of fire suppression on carbon in soil and fine roots combined, or in woody debris. Total ecosystem C stores averaged ∼110 Mg/ha in stands experiencing presettlement fire frequencies, but ∼220 Mg/ha in stands experiencing fire suppression. If comparable rates of C storage were to occur in other ecosystems in response to the current extent of fire suppression in the United States, fire suppression in the USA might account for 8–20% of missing global carbon.read more
Citations
More filters
Flames and Frogs – The Impact of Environmental Disturbances on Host-Parasite Dynamics
TL;DR: The results suggest that an introduced host along with one of its introduced parasites could have effects on native treefrog populations.
Journal ArticleDOI
Effects of fire on a forest-grassland ecotone in De La Plata River, Argentina
H. Sirolli,F. A. Kalesnik +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the effects of fire on the regeneration dynamics and ecological attributes of a Tessaria integrifolia forest and a Cortaderia selloana grassland, located in the Costanera Sur Ecological Reserve, Buenos Aires, are analyzed.
Understanding mixed conifer forests in Yosemite National Park: An historical analysis of fires regimes and vegetation dynamics
Abstract: This dissertation presents the results of an historical ecological analysis that quantifies the temporal and spatial variation in forest structure and fire regimes in the mixed conifer forests of Yosemite National Park. I used stand structural analysis and reconstructed fire regime characteristics to determine the relationship between fire regimes and forest structure (i.e. age, size, composition, and spatial patterning) at the plot scale. The structure and composition of the contemporary forest varied spatially with several environmental factors (i.e. slope aspect, TRMI, elevation), although there were no significant differences in fire regime parameters across environmental gradients and forest compositional groups. The contemporary forest was significantly different from the reconstructed forest in basal area, density and mean diameter. The contemporary forest was denser, contained more basal area, but the mean diameter decreased due to the infilling of younger trees since fire suppression. In addition, the majority of the increased density in the forest was due to increases in the number of fire intolerant species (e.g. white fir, incense cedar). The spatial pattern of trees in the contemporary forest also changed from the reconstructed forest with a smaller number of plots demonstrating a clustering of trees of similar ages. Several fire regime parameters varied at the study area scale (extent, severity). Fires of all sizes were present in the study area, although the majority of the fires were < 250 ha in size. There was also a combination of low to moderate severity fires, with no evidence of high severity fires occurring. The relationship between fires and changing climate conditions
Journal ArticleDOI
Using a demographic model to project the long‐term effects of fire management on tree biomass in Australian savannas
Brett P. Murphy,Peter J. Whitehead,Jay Evans,Cameron Yates,Andrew Edwards,Harry J. MacDermott,Dominique Lynch,Jeremy Russell-Smith +7 more
TL;DR: In this article , the authors developed a process-explicit demographic model describing the effects of fire on savanna tree populations and used the demographic model to address the question: to what extent is it feasible, through the strategic application of prescribed burning, to increase tree biomass in Australian tropical savannas?
Dissertation
From little things big things grow - savanna burning, suppressed trees and escape from the fire trap in Australian mesic savannas
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a new framework for modelling the resprout curve, which recognizes that local environmental stochasticity and growth patterns can interact to change the growth response function entirely.
References
More filters
Book
Biogeochemistry : An Analysis of Global Change
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a perspective of the global cycle of nitrogen and phosphorous, the global water cycle, and the global sulfur cycle from a global point of view.
Journal ArticleDOI
Carbon pools and flux of global forest ecosystems.
Robert K. Dixon,Allen M. Solomon,Sandra Brown,Richard A. Houghton,M. C. Trexier,J. Wisniewski +5 more
TL;DR: Slowing deforestation, combined with an increase in forestation and other management measures to improve forest ecosystem productivity, could conserve or sequester significant quantities of carbon.
Journal ArticleDOI
Terrestrial ecosystems and the carbon cycle
TL;DR: The terrestrial biosphere plays an important role in the global carbon cycle as mentioned in this paper, which is the fluxes of carbon among four main reservoirs: fossil carbon, the atmosphere, the oceans, and the terrestrial Biosphere.
Journal ArticleDOI
Biogeochemistry, An Analysis of Global Change
TL;DR: The first edition of Schlesinger's Biogeochemistry in 1991 was an early entry in the field of Earth system science/global change, and has since gained sufficient popularity and demand to merit a second, extensively revised edition.
Journal ArticleDOI
The U.S. Carbon Budget: Contributions from Land-Use Change
TL;DR: The rates at which lands in the United States were cleared for agriculture, abandoned, harvested for wood, and burned were reconstructed from historical data for the period 1700-1990 and used in a terrestrial carbon model to calculate annual changes in the amount of carbon stored in terrestrial ecosystems, including wood products.
Related Papers (5)
The U.S. Carbon Budget: Contributions from Land-Use Change
Consistent land- and atmosphere-based U.S. carbon sink estimates.
Stephen W. Pacala,George C. Hurtt,David J. Baker,Philippe Peylin,Richard A. Houghton,Richard Birdsey,Linda S. Heath,Eric T. Sundquist,Robert F. Stallard,Philippe Ciais,Paul R. Moorcroft,John P. Caspersen,Elena Shevliakova,Berrien Moore,G. H. Kohlmaier,Elisabeth A. Holland,Manuel Gloor,Mark E. Harmon,Song-Miao Fan,Jorge L. Sarmiento,Christine L. Goodale,David S. Schimel,Christopher B. Field +22 more