scholarly journals Fire Regimes and Environmental Gradients Shape Bird, Mammal and Plant Distributions in Temperate Forests

2017 ◽  
Vol 98 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-230
Author(s):  
Luke T. Kelly ◽  
Angie Haslem ◽  
Greg J. Holland ◽  
Steven W. J. Leonard ◽  
Josephine MacHunter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Temperate Forests ◽  
Environmental Gradients ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Plant Distributions

scholarly journals Fire regimes and environmental gradients shape vertebrate and plant distributions in temperate eucalypt forests

Ecosphere ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Luke T. Kelly ◽  
Angie Haslem ◽  
Greg J. Holland ◽  
Steven W. J. Leonard ◽  
Josephine MacHunter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Gradients ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Plant Distributions ◽  
Eucalypt Forests

scholarly journals Past and Present Vulnerability of Closed-Canopy Temperate Forests to Altered Fire Regimes: A Comparison of the Pacific Northwest, New Zealand, and Patagonia

BioScience ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cathy Whitlock ◽  
David B. McWethy ◽  
Alan J. Tepley ◽  
Thomas T. Veblen ◽  
Andrés Holz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Pacific Northwest ◽  
Temperate Forests ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Closed Canopy

Fire History and Fire Regimes Shifts in Patagonian Temperate Forests

2017 ◽  
pp. 211-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ignacio A. Mundo ◽  
Andrés Holz ◽  
Mauro E. González ◽  
Juan Paritsis
Keyword(s):  
Fire History ◽  
Temperate Forests ◽  
Fire Regimes

Modeling fire interval data from the American southwest with the Weibull distribution

1999 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henri D. Grissino-Mayer
Keyword(s):  
Weibull Distribution ◽  
Environmental Gradients ◽  
Habitat Type ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Interval Data ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Underlying Structure ◽  
Shift Parameter ◽  
Modal Interval ◽  
Fire Intervals

In this study, the Weibull distribution is tested as a possible model for fire interval data derived from dendrochronologically-dated fire scars from four sites in the American Southwest. Two- and three-parameter Weibull distributions were fit to fire interval data sets, and additional statistical descriptors based on the Weibull were derived to improve our understanding of the range of variability in presettlement fire regimes. The three-parameter models failed to provide improved fits versus the more parsimonious two-parameter models, indicating the Weibull shift parameter may be superfluous for Southwestern fire regimes. The Weibull Modal Interval (MOI) was a superior overall measure of central tendency, and appears to identify a common underlying structure in Southwestern fire regimes independent of habitat type and environmental gradients. Unusually short and long fire intervals were identified by the lower and upper exceedance intervals (LEI and UEI) and the Maximum Hazard Interval (MHI) based on the Weibull hazard function. Model statistics were nearly identical between two pairs of sites that were 260 kilometers distant that differed in topography, vegetation, and land-use history. However, differences were observed between sites only 10 kilometers apart, suggesting the influence of local factors (e.g., topography and substrate) over regional influences (e.g., climate). Although the Weibull models helped quantify the historical range of variability in presettlement fire regimes, ecological interpretations of the Weibull parameters proved difficult.

scholarly journals Morphological structure of ant assemblages in tropical and temperate forests

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rogério R. Silva ◽  
Israel Del Toro ◽  
Carlos Roberto F. Brandão ◽  
Aaron M. Ellison
Keyword(s):  
Nearest Neighbor ◽  
Temperate Forests ◽  
Environmental Gradients ◽  
Morphological Structure ◽  
Morphological Diversity ◽  
Habitat Characteristics ◽  
Latitudinal Gradients ◽  
Eastern United States ◽  
Ant Assemblages ◽  
Species Packing

AbstractMorphological variation in co-occurring species often is used to infer species assembly rules and other processes structuring ecological assemblages. We compared the morphological structure of ant assemblages in two biogeographic regions along two extensive latitudinal gradients to examine common patterns and unique characteristics of trait distribution. We sampled ant assemblages along extensive latitudinal gradients in Tropical Atlantic Forest in eastern Brazil and temperate forests in the eastern United States. We quantified 14 morphological traits related to the ecology and life history of each of 599 ant species and defined the morphological space occupied by different ant assemblages. Null models were used to test whether tropical and temperate ant assemblages differed from random expectation in morphological structure. Correlations between traits and climate were used to infer associations between habitat characteristics and morphological space occupied by ant assemblages. Tropical ant assemblages had higher morphological diversity and variation in the space of occupied morphospace, whereas temperate assemblages had higher variance in size. Although tropical ant assemblages had smaller morphological distances among species, species packing (i.e., mean nearest-neighbor distance) did not differ between regions. Null model analysis revealed scant evidence of habitat filtering or niche differentiation within assemblages. Different traits had different means, variances, skewness, and kurtosis values along each environmental gradient. Mean trait values within assemblages were associated mainly with region and correlated with temperature but trait variances had more complex responses to climate, including interactions between temperature and precipitation in the models. The higher functional diversity in tropical ant assemblages occurs by expansion of the morphospace rather than through an increase in species packing. Different traits vary independently along environmental gradients. Analysis of individual traits together with categorization of the moments of trait distributions (statistical central tendencies) provide new directions for quantifying morphological diversity in ant assemblages.

scholarly journals Asymmetrical pegs in square holes? Functional and phylogenetic determinants of plant community assembly in temperate forest understories

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jared J. Beck ◽  
Daijiang Li ◽  
Sarah E. Johnson ◽  
David Rogers ◽  
Kenneth M. Cameron ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Community Assembly ◽  
Phylogenetic Relationships ◽  
Environmental Gradients ◽  
Seed Mass ◽  
Species Distributions ◽  
Functional Trait ◽  
Herbaceous Plant ◽  
Link Type ◽  
Plant Distributions ◽  
Local Species

ABSTRACTDespite advances in community assembly theory, uncertainties remain regarding how ecological and evolutionary processes shape species distributions and communities. We analyzed patterns of occurrence for 139 herbaceous plant species across 257 forest stands in Wisconsin (USA) to test predictions from community assembly theory. Specifically, we applied Bayesian phylogenetic linear mixed effects models (PGLMMs) to examine how functional traits and phylogenetic relationships influence plant distributions along environmental gradients and how functional similarity and phylogenetic relatedness affect local species co-occurrence. Leaf height, specific leaf area, and seed mass mediate species distributions along edaphic, climatic, and light gradients. In contrast, functional trait similarity and phylogenetic relationships only weakly affect patterns of local co-occurrence. These results confirm that broad-scale plant distributions are largely shaped by ecological sorting along environmental gradients but suggest deterministic assembly rules based on niche differentiation and complementary resource use may not govern local species co-occurrence in homogeneous environments.Statement of authorshipJB conceived the idea for the study. DL, SJ, and DR collected the vegetation and functional trait data. JB analyzed the data with assistance from DL. KC, KS, TG, and DW secured funding for research and oversaw data collection. JB wrote the first draft of the manuscript, all authors contributed to manuscript revisions.Data accessibility statementUpon acceptance, data will be archived at Figshare (https://figshare.com/) and scripts used to analyze the data will be shared on Github (https://github.com/jaredjbeck/).

scholarly journals Wildland Fire Science Literacy: Education, Creation, and Application

Fire ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Devan McGranahan ◽  
Carissa Wonkka
Keyword(s):  
Fire Ecology ◽  
Science Literacy ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Environmental Gradients ◽  
Wildland Fire ◽  
Fire Behavior ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Human Dimensions ◽  
Fire Science ◽  
Standard Data

Wildland fire science literacy is the capacity for wildland fire professionals to understand and communicate three aspects of wildland fire: (1) the fundamentals of fuels and fire behavior, (2) the concept of fire as an ecological regime, and (3) multiple human dimensions of wildland fire and the socio-ecological elements of fire regimes. Critical to wildland fire science literacy is a robust body of research on wildland fire. Here, we describe how practitioners, researchers, and other professionals can study, create, and apply robust wildland fire science. We begin with learning and suggest that the conventional fire ecology canon include detail on fire fundamentals and human dimensions. Beyond the classroom, creating robust fire science can be enhanced by designing experiments that test environmental gradients and report standard data on fuels and fire behavior, or at least use the latter to inform models estimating the former. Finally, wildland fire science literacy comes full circle with the application of robust fire science as professionals in both the field and in the office communicate with a common understanding of fundamental concepts of fire behavior and fire regime.

scholarly journals Fire and Vegetation History of the Last 2000 Years in Jackson Hole, Wyoming

2005 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 120-126
Author(s):  
Cathy Whitlock ◽  
Karen Jacobs
Keyword(s):  
Time Scales ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Vegetation History ◽  
Environmental Gradients ◽  
Natural Disturbance ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Jackson Hole ◽  
History Of ◽  
Short Time

Fire is an important form of natural disturbance in nearly all terrestrial ecosystems in the western United States, and it serves as a critical link between climate change and ecosystem response (Agee, 1990; Swetnam and Betancourt, 1998). The nature of these linkages depends on the time scale of interest. On short time scales, climate/weather and vegetation characteristics affect the fire conditions of particular years (and decades), as well as the dynamics of post-fire ecological succession. On centennial and millennial time scales, large-scale changes in climate alter regional fire regimes and vegetation composition. The linkages are especially complex in the western U.S., where fire regimes vary across environmental gradients and include frequent surface fires as well as infrequent stand-replacement events.

Drivers of diversity gradients of a highly mobile marine assemblage in a mesoscale seascape

2020 ◽  
Vol 638 ◽  
pp. 149-164
Author(s):  
GM Svendsen ◽  
M Ocampo Reinaldo ◽  
MA Romero ◽  
G Williams ◽  
A Magurran ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Gradients ◽  
Regression Tree ◽  
Demersal Fish ◽  
Open Ocean ◽  
Shared Resources ◽  
Thermal Front ◽  
Boosted Regression Tree ◽  
Diversity Gradients ◽  
Α Diversity ◽  
Bottom Depth

With the unprecedented rate of biodiversity change in the world today, understanding how diversity gradients are maintained at mesoscales is a key challenge. Drawing on information provided by 3 comprehensive fishery surveys (conducted in different years but in the same season and with the same sampling design), we used boosted regression tree (BRT) models in order to relate spatial patterns of α-diversity in a demersal fish assemblage to environmental variables in the San Matias Gulf (Patagonia, Argentina). We found that, over a 4 yr period, persistent diversity gradients of species richness and probability of an interspecific encounter (PIE) were shaped by 3 main environmental gradients: bottom depth, connectivity with the open ocean, and proximity to a thermal front. The 2 main patterns we observed were: a monotonic increase in PIE with proximity to fronts, which had a stronger effect at greater depths; and an increase in PIE when closer to the open ocean (a ‘bay effect’ pattern). The originality of this work resides on the identification of high-resolution gradients in local, demersal assemblages driven by static and dynamic environmental gradients in a mesoscale seascape. The maintenance of environmental gradients, specifically those associated with shared resources and connectivity with an open system, may be key to understanding community stability.

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