RAPID: Quantifying the Effects of Historical Indigenous Burning and Bison on Mountain Valley Forest Structure and Fire Regimes

该奖项由快速反应研究（Rapid）资助。调查人员计划恢复将在2017年春季计划的森林大火中被破坏的数据。在殖民前和殖民后时期，印第安人积极地管理他们的自然环境，通过使用火来生产草地和增加野牛的数量，这些处于危险中的数据有可能为从17世纪到现在的北美原住民的自然资源管理实践提供重要的见解。这项研究的一个关键要素是利用恢复的数据绘制加拿大阿尔伯塔省清水河谷的景观图，并估计该地区从历史到现在的野牛数量。了解该地区的历史生态系统和野牛种群是决定在落基山脉地区重新引入野牛物种的关键部分。作为早期美洲原住民的食物、住所、衣服和宗教活动的维生物种，野牛是该地区文化和自然的基石物种。作为一个在19世纪后期被猎杀到濒临灭绝的物种，目前，公共和部落的土地管理者都在考虑将野牛重新引入现代生态系统的项目。研究人员认为，在19世纪晚期，野牛和传统的土著土地管理从这些生态系统中移除后，景观发生了巨大变化，以至于可能不再适合野牛的重新引入。该项目将绘制、量化并提供有关土著燃烧历史上如何在加拿大班夫国家公园（BNP）附近的落基山脉创造栖息地支持大量野牛种群的见解，可以将其与北方其他地区进行文化燃烧的地区进行比较。此外，研究人员还将深入研究这些景观变化及其消失对当今森林、火灾和动物管理的影响。预计开展快速发展研究的区域特别适合进行研究；1)班夫国家公园（Banff National Park）有一个野牛放归计划；2)在这个地区，像库特奈族（Kootenai）这样的原住民，在历史上曾利用文化焚烧为野牛创造开放且营养丰富的草地栖息地。今天，由于排除了传统的土著燃烧，引入了现代灭火技术和其他因素，这些和类似的落基山脉山谷森林茂密。为了评估和实现类似于历史上存在的野牛恢复目标，量化传统土著管理时期的景观状况至关重要。火灾管理计划和野牛放归群体之间的协调可以使双方的利益受益，并提高实现野牛种群恢复目标的几率。这个项目将通过创建一个3D延时地图来展示加拿大阿尔伯塔省清水谷从17世纪到现在的变化，从而展示和量化野牛栖息地的变化。研究小组将利用现代树木年代学重现山谷的火灾历史，对历史火灾留下的树木疤痕进行交叉测年。这一阶段的研究将产生林分年龄结构重建、使用FHAES程序的传统火灾疮面历史、气候重建（以确定随着时间的推移，人为与气候对火灾制度的影响程度）、已知历史人类和野牛种群事件（如天花爆发）与火灾频率和树木补充变化的比较，以及将上述所有内容编译成时空GIS地图。此外，一架无人机（UAV）将收集三维景观数据，以测量山谷的现代生物景观。数字延时地图将结合树木年轮历史，将3D景观模型扩展到过去。最后，研究人员将估算过去300多年来清水谷样本地区的生物质燃烧变化了多少。该项目新颖地融合了树木年代学和3D时空地理信息系统，扩展了科学方法跨越学科界限的可能性。这项研究的结果也将适用于跨越国界，它不仅表明了班夫国家公园的野牛恢复目标需要多少景观变化，而且还表明了北美土地管理者进行类似调查的必要性。

This award is supported as Rapid Response Research (RAPID). The investigators plan to recover data that will be destroyed by a planned forest burn scheduled for Spring 2017. Pre and post-colonial period Native Americans actively managed their natural environments through the use of fire to produce grasslands and boost bison populations and this at risk data has the potential to provide critical insights into the natural resource management practices of Native North Americans from the 1600's to the present. A key element of the research is to use the recovered data to map the landscape of the Clear Water Valley in Alberta Canada and to estimate the population numbers of bison supported in the region historically to the present. Understanding the historic ecosystem and the bison populations in the region is a critical part of the decision to reintroduce bison species in the Rocky Mountain region. As a subsistence species utilized by early Native Americans for food, shelter, clothing, and religious practice, bison are a cultural and natural keystone species in the region. As a species hunted to near extinction by the late 1800's, currently, both public and Tribal land managers are considering projects to reintroduce bison into contemporary ecosystems. The researchers argue that after bison and traditional indigenous land management were removed from these ecosystems in the late 1800's the landscape substantially changed, to the point that it may no longer be suitable for bison reintroduction. The project will map, quantify, and provide insights into how Indigenous burning historically created habitats supporting substantial bison populations in the Rocky Mountains near Banff National Park (BNP) in Canada, which can be compared to other regions of the North where cultural burning was also practiced. In addition, the researchers will provide insights into the implications of these landscape transformations and their disappearance for the management of forests, fire, and fauna today. The region for the RAPID is anticipated to be particularly well suited for study; 1) Banff National Park has a bison reintroduction program and 2) it is a region where Indigenous peoples, such as the Kootenai, historically used cultural burning to create open and nutrient-enriched grassy habitat for bison. Today, these and similar Rocky Mountain valleys are densely forested due to the exclusion of traditional indigenous burning, the introduction of modern fire suppression, and other factors. In order to assess and achieve bison restoration objectives similar to what existed historically, it is vital to quantify landscape condition during the period of traditional indigenous management. Coordination between fire management programs and bison reintroduction groups could benefit the interests of both groups and improve the odds of attaining bison population restoration goals.This project will demonstrate and quantify changes in bison habitat by creating a 3D time-lapse map showing the transformation of the Clearwater Valley in Alberta, Canada from the 1600s to present. The research team will recreate the valley's fire history using modern dendrochronology, cross-dating tree scars left by historical fires. This phase of research will produce a stand age structure reconstruction, a traditional fire scar history using the program FHAES, a climate reconstruction (to determine the degree of anthropogenic vs. climatic influence on the fire regime(s) over time), a comparison of known historical human and bison population events (such as smallpox outbreaks) with fire frequency and tree recruitment shifts, and spatiotemporal GIS maps compiling all of the above. In addition, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) will collect 3-dimensional landscape data to measure the valley's modern biotic landscape. A digital time-lapse map will incorporate the tree-ring history to extend the 3D landscape model back in time. Lastly, the investigators will derive estimates of how much biomass burning has changed over the course of the last 300+ years in the Clearwater Valley sample area. The project's novel fusion of dendrochronology and 3D spatiotemporal GIS expands the realm of what is possible for scientific methodology across disciplinary boundaries. The results of this study will also be applicable across national boundaries by showing not only how much change in the landscape would be necessary for Banff National Park's bison restoration goals, but also demonstrate the need for similar investigations by land managers across North America.