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

本博士论文研究项目将分析加州西北部克拉马斯河流域的Yurok和Karuk部落的规定火灾和火灾排除如何影响森林动态、野火风险和土著资源利用。该项目将提高人们对人类生态耦合关系、火灾生态学、生物地理学和人类行为生态学的认识。通过采用替代稳定状态的概念框架，该项目将提供关于故意纵火和美洲原住民资源利用对生态群落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途径，减少野火风险，并将有助于评估在其他地区使用规定火灾的潜在效用。该项目还将提供有关消防制度历史特征的新视角和数据。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立研究生涯。世界各地的小规模生存群体和土地管理者故意设置规定的火灾，以改善自然资源的可及性，提高资源的丰度和分布，并减少野火的蔓延。在北美经历了几十年的火灾排除之后，恢复使用规定燃烧的努力面临着一些障碍，如限制、行政程序和财政限制。与不断变化的气候和土地利用制度相结合，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，由于他们的文化联系和对依赖火的资源的依赖，美洲原住民社区正在领导规定的焚烧工作。Yurok和Karuk部落成员恢复规定的火提供了一个机会来测试有关规定火的使用和生态群落动态的假设。规定的火灾也有助于实现部落的多个目标，包括增加用于制作篮子材料的榛子茎的可用性；维持草原为鹿和麋鹿提供饲料，以改善狩猎；减少野火风险。主持这个项目的博士生将比较烧焦区域和未烧焦区域的榛子茎密度、鹿的频率和表面燃料负荷。他将通过观察部落成员在寻找依赖火的资源时的采伐行程来评估这些火灾制度可能对资源获取的影响，并将在采伐地点进行重点采访，了解火灾历史。他将在这些收获地点和规定的火灾地点建立植被分布区，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。样件将沿着残余的稀树草原边界分层，最近规定的烧伤，和邻近的未烧伤地区，以评估在独特的火灾制度下的物种组成。为了评估对野火风险的影响，学生将在这些生态群落的野火模型中对比规定燃烧和非燃烧区域的表面燃料负荷。

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.