Latent resilience in ponderosa pine forest: effects of resumed frequent fire
Latent resilience in ponderosa pine forest: effects of resumed frequent fire
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DOI：
10.1890/13-0066.1
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发表时间：
2013-09-01
影响因子：
5
通讯作者：
Dietz, Matthew S.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Larson, Andrew J.;Belote, R. Travis;Dietz, Matthew S.
生态系统通常表现出通过负反馈维持的弹性状态。在黄松森林，火灾历史上代表了负反馈机制，保持生态系统的弹性;火灾排除减少了弹性，易过渡到一个替代的生态系统状态后，重新引入火灾。我们评估了美国蒙大拿州鲍勃马歇尔荒野中未伐木、防火、黄松林中频繁发生野火的影响。在2003年首次重新引入火减少了树木密度和消耗表面燃料，但也刺激了建立一个密集的队列的黑松，保持一个轨迹走向另一种状态。2011年第二次火灾恢复了频繁的火灾制度，恢复了以大直径黄松为主的低密度森林，消除了许多再生的黑松，并继续清除在灭火时代建立的地表燃料和小直径黑松和道格拉斯冷杉。我们的数据表明，一些未记录，火灾排除，黄松森林具有潜在的恢复力重新引入火灾。简单地让闪电点燃的火燃烧的被动模式似乎是恢复这种森林的可行方法。
Ecological systems often exhibit resilient states that are maintained through negative feedbacks. In ponderosa pine forests, fire historically represented the negative feedback mechanism that maintained ecosystem resilience; fire exclusion reduced that resilience, predisposing the transition to an alternative ecosystem state upon reintroduction of fire. We evaluated the effects of reintroduced frequent wildfire in unlogged, fire-excluded, ponderosa pine forest in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, Montana, USA. Initial reintroduction of fire in 2003 reduced tree density and consumed surface fuels, but also stimulated establishment of a dense cohort of lodgepole pine, maintaining a trajectory toward an alternative state. Resumption of a frequent fire regime by a second fire in 2011 restored a low-density forest dominated by large-diameter ponderosa pine by eliminating many regenerating lodgepole pines and by continuing to remove surface fuels and small-diameter lodgepole pine and Douglas-fir that established during the fire suppression era. Our data demonstrate that some unlogged, fire-excluded, ponderosa pine forests possess latent resilience to reintroduced fire. A passive model of simply allowing lightning-ignited fires to burn appears to be a viable approach to restoration of such forests.