Interested in watching this video? You have two options:
This video is part of the SER Conference Library. If you want to learn more about this resource please see this guide.
You can purchase a pass for this video on our website.
Already purchased access to this video, or want to redeem credit for a new order? Just enter your order number or email below:
Sign in below to get unrestricted access:
Authors:
Victoria Donovan
Publication Date:
2019
Abstract/Summary:
Wildfires are implicated as ecosystem-level drivers of regime shifts in vegetated biomes across the globe. Policies and programs abound to mitigate for post-wildfire vegetation responses, encouraging large-scale reseeding campaigns and mitigation of bare ground to restore recently burned areas. In an exhaustive analysis of wildfire-scale vegetation response to large wildfires across an entire grassland biome, we assess the persistence of vegetation change to detect wildfire driven regime shifts. There was no indication of large-scale persistent transitions driven by wildfire in the Great Plains. Immediate wildfire and drought induced signals of functional group response to wildfire were so recurrent within wildfire perimeters that these signals were evident at the scale of the wildfire across the biome. In contrast, a persistent change in functional group abundance indicative of a regime shift occurred for only one of the five assessed functional groups (trees) within one of 11 ecoregions assessed. Traditional perspectives of wildfire driven collapse were restricted to the 30-meter pixel level of analysis, suggesting that many of the transitions described in policies and land management frameworks are localized and represent extreme cases within larger wildfires. Rather than driving undesirable regime shifts, large wildfires may help restore grassland biomes at a large scale where fire suppression has altered fire regimes. Our results support that restoration of ecological processes like wildfire can assist rather than hinder large-scale ecosystem restoration goals.
Resource Type:
Audio/Video, Conference Presentation, SER2019
Pre-approved for CECs under SER's CERP program
Source:
Society for Ecological Restoration