Doctoral Dissertation Research: Effects of Prescribed Fire on Forest Dynamics and Resource Use

这个博士论文的研究项目将分析如何规定火灾和火灾排除影响森林动态，野火风险，和本土资源使用的Yurok和Karuk部落在克拉马斯河流域西北部加州。 本计画将增进人类与生态关系、火生态学、地理学及人类行为生态学的知识。 通过采用替代稳定状态的概念框架，该项目将提供有关故意纵火和美洲原住民资源使用对生态社区动态的潜在影响的新见解。 该项目将协助Yurok和Karuk部落以及美国林务局努力恢复规定的火灾，以改善获得文化和生存资源的机会，减少野火风险，并将有助于评估在其他地区使用规定的火灾的潜在效用。 该项目还将提供有关火灾制度历史特征的新观点和数据。 作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将为有前途的学生提供支持，使其能够建立强大的独立研究事业。世界各地的小规模生存团体和土地管理者故意放火，以改善自然资源的可及性，提高资源丰度和分布，并减少野火的蔓延。 经过几十年的火灾排除在北美，努力恢复使用规定燃烧面临着几个障碍，如限制，行政程序和财政限制。 与不断变化的气候和土地使用制度相结合，火灾排除改变了火灾制度，往往导致野火规模和强度的增加。 在美国的一些地区，美洲原住民社区正在领导规定的燃烧努力，因为他们的文化联系和依赖火的资源。 恢复规定的火由Yurok和Karuk部落成员提供了一个机会，以测试有关使用规定的火和生态群落动态的假设。 规定的火灾也有助于满足多个部落的目标，包括增加榛子茎的编织材料的可用性;保持稀树草原鹿和麋鹿饲料，以改善狩猎;并减少野火的风险。 进行这个项目的博士生将比较榛子茎密度，鹿的频率，并在燃烧的地块沿着与未燃烧地区的匹配地块的表面燃料负荷。 他将通过观察部落成员在寻找依赖于火的资源时的收获行程来评估这些火制度可能对资源获取的影响，他还将进行集中于收获地点火灾历史的采访。 他将在这些收获和规定的火灾地点建立植被地块，以监测每个地点的生态变化，他将分析1944年至2016年的航空照片和卫星图像，以比较历史和当代稀树草原的特征。样带将分层沿着残余稀树草原边界，最近规定的烧伤，和邻近的未燃烧的地区，以评估不同的火灾制度下的物种组成。 为了评估对野火风险的影响，学生将在这些生态社区中使用野火模型对比规定的燃烧和非燃烧区域之间的表面燃料负荷。

This doctoral dissertation research project will analyze how prescribed fire and fire exclusion affect forest dynamics, wildfire risk, and indigenous resource use by the Yurok and Karuk tribes in the Klamath River basin of northwestern California. This project will enhance knowledge about coupled human-ecological relationships, fire ecology, biogeography, and human behavioral ecology. By employing the conceptual framework of alternative stable states, this project will provide new insights about the potential influence of intentionally set fires and Native American resource use on ecological community dynamics. The project will assist the Yurok and Karuk tribes as well as the U.S. Forest Service with their efforts to reinstate prescribed fire as a means to improve access to cultural and subsistence resources and reduce wildfire risk, and it will contribute to assessment of the potential utility of employing prescribed fire in other locales. The project also will provide new perspectives and data regarding the historical characteristics of fire regimes. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.Small-scale subsistence groups and land managers worldwide intentionally set prescribed fires to improve accessibility to natural resources, enhance resource abundance and distribution, and reduce the spread of wildfire. After decades of fire exclusion in North America, efforts to revive the use of prescribed burning face several obstacles, such as restrictions, administrative processes, and financial constraints. Combined with changing climate and land-use regimes, fire exclusion has altered fire regimes, often leading to increases in wildfire size and intensity. In some parts of the nation, Native American communities are leading prescribed burning efforts because of their cultural connection and reliance on fire-dependent resources. The restoration of prescribed fire by Yurok and Karuk tribal members provides an opportunity to test hypotheses related to the use of prescribed fire and ecological community dynamics. Prescribed fires also help meet multiple tribal objectives, including increasing the availability of hazelnut stems for basketry materials; maintaining savannas for deer and elk forage to improve hunting; and reducing wildfire risk. The doctoral student conducting this project will compare hazelnut stem densities, deer frequencies, and surface fuel loads in burned plots along with matched plots in unburned areas. He will evaluate the effects these fire regimes may have on resource access by observing the harvesting trips of tribal members as they search for fire-dependent resources, and he will conduct interviews focusing on fire histories at harvesting sites. He will establish vegetation plots at these harvesting and prescribed fire locations in order to monitor ecological change at each site, and he will analyze aerial photographs and satellite imagery ranging from 1944 to 2016 to compare historical and contemporary savanna characteristics. Transects will be stratified along remnant savanna borders, recent prescribed burns, and adjacent unburned areas to assess species composition under distinctive fire regimes. To assess effects on wildfire risk, the student will contrast surface fuel loads between prescribed burn and non-burn areas with wildfire models in those ecological communities.