Ashley Perry
October 10, 2015
Tuesday group 5
Literature Review and Critique
Larson, Andrew J., R. Travis Belote, C. Alina Cansler, Sean A. Parks, and Matthew S. Dietz. "Latent Resilience in Ponderosa Pine Forest: Effects of Resumed Frequent Fire." Ecological Applications 23, no. 6 (2013): 1243-249.
The article “Latent resilience in ponderosa pine forest: effects of resumed frequent fire” objective was to see the effects on the structure of the forest after a lightning-ignited fire. The study also looked at the composition in unlogged, fire-excluded, ponderosa pine forests. In the Bob Marshall Wilderness area in Montana they established 15 900m^2 plots along systematically array transects. The area they studied was burnt twice, once …show more content…
The objective of the article was to present a review of the effects of large fires on different ecosystem in the west. The article highlights the different forest development patterns in specific western ecosystems. The section about the northern Rocky Mountains was helpful in respect to the design of our research project because there was information on the history of fires, severity patterns and succession in relation to the severity of the fires. The information was also helpful because we are specifically looking at the difference of revegetation of a upland dry site and a riparian area after a fire in the Rocky Mountains. They assessed the severity patterns by comparing small fires and larger fires in the last 10 years. To compare patterns they created digital burn severity map layers for 11 large fires that burned more than 10,500 ha and 11 small fires that burned less than 3300 ha. The findings were not significant as they found that high severity fires averaged 25% of a burned area and 19% for small fires. However, they found that large fires have larger patches that are more regular in shape and small fires have more edge. In their study they used Landsat TM (Thematic Mapper), which creates satellite images to categorise the burn severity. They also used FRAGSTAT to calculate the …show more content…
The article focuses on the probabilities for areas to burn multiple times in relation to topography, vegetation and climate. They compared two specific fires, one in the Gila/Aldo Leopold Wilderness Complex in New Mexico that burned 486,673 ha and the other in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Complex in Idaho and Montana that burned 785,090 ha. To find the relationships they looked at the spatial patterning of fire frequency and long time series of fire perimeter data. The digital elevation model (DEM) was used to obtain the complete coverage of each study area and identify patterns. To describe the biophysical settings at each site they used potential vegetation type (PTV), also showing the succession of the area. They documented areas at each site that were unburnt, burnt once, burnt twice and burnt three or more times. The study highlighted the important fire regime characteristics in the Rocky Mountains and suggests that herbaceous fuels limit the frequency and spread of surface fires. They found that 220 fires in the Gila Wilderness burned 139,716 ha and 524 fires in the Selway Wilderness burned 472,921 ha. Of those fires the highest proportion of species burned were ponderosa pine and Douglas-fir. The mean elevation of
October 10, 2015
Tuesday group 5
Literature Review and Critique
Larson, Andrew J., R. Travis Belote, C. Alina Cansler, Sean A. Parks, and Matthew S. Dietz. "Latent Resilience in Ponderosa Pine Forest: Effects of Resumed Frequent Fire." Ecological Applications 23, no. 6 (2013): 1243-249.
The article “Latent resilience in ponderosa pine forest: effects of resumed frequent fire” objective was to see the effects on the structure of the forest after a lightning-ignited fire. The study also looked at the composition in unlogged, fire-excluded, ponderosa pine forests. In the Bob Marshall Wilderness area in Montana they established 15 900m^2 plots along systematically array transects. The area they studied was burnt twice, once …show more content…
The objective of the article was to present a review of the effects of large fires on different ecosystem in the west. The article highlights the different forest development patterns in specific western ecosystems. The section about the northern Rocky Mountains was helpful in respect to the design of our research project because there was information on the history of fires, severity patterns and succession in relation to the severity of the fires. The information was also helpful because we are specifically looking at the difference of revegetation of a upland dry site and a riparian area after a fire in the Rocky Mountains. They assessed the severity patterns by comparing small fires and larger fires in the last 10 years. To compare patterns they created digital burn severity map layers for 11 large fires that burned more than 10,500 ha and 11 small fires that burned less than 3300 ha. The findings were not significant as they found that high severity fires averaged 25% of a burned area and 19% for small fires. However, they found that large fires have larger patches that are more regular in shape and small fires have more edge. In their study they used Landsat TM (Thematic Mapper), which creates satellite images to categorise the burn severity. They also used FRAGSTAT to calculate the …show more content…
The article focuses on the probabilities for areas to burn multiple times in relation to topography, vegetation and climate. They compared two specific fires, one in the Gila/Aldo Leopold Wilderness Complex in New Mexico that burned 486,673 ha and the other in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Complex in Idaho and Montana that burned 785,090 ha. To find the relationships they looked at the spatial patterning of fire frequency and long time series of fire perimeter data. The digital elevation model (DEM) was used to obtain the complete coverage of each study area and identify patterns. To describe the biophysical settings at each site they used potential vegetation type (PTV), also showing the succession of the area. They documented areas at each site that were unburnt, burnt once, burnt twice and burnt three or more times. The study highlighted the important fire regime characteristics in the Rocky Mountains and suggests that herbaceous fuels limit the frequency and spread of surface fires. They found that 220 fires in the Gila Wilderness burned 139,716 ha and 524 fires in the Selway Wilderness burned 472,921 ha. Of those fires the highest proportion of species burned were ponderosa pine and Douglas-fir. The mean elevation of