- Title:
-
Fire and Biodiversity Conservation in the U.S.: Assessing current conditions and predicting future trends
- Date:
- September 2008
- Organisations
- AFAC 2008 Conference
- Authors:
-
Kori Blankenship, Darren Johnson, Colleen Ryan, Jim Smith and Randy Swaty
Research abstract. - Location:
- Australia, Australia
Overview
The International Bushfire Research Conference - Incorporating the 15th annual AFAC Conference.
Fire regime alteration is a known threat to the conservation of biological diversity. Specifically, altered fire regimes often result in changes in plant and animal species composition and in ecosystem structure and function.
LANDFIRE project scientists recently produced a series of products including Fire Regime Condition Class (FRCC, a measure of the departure of current vegetation from vegetation reference conditions) maps, Fire Regime Group maps and vegetation dynamics models (reference condition models) for the U.S. that can assist in assessing current fire conditions and offer a foundation for predicting future trends.
We present the findings of an assessment of the ecological role and integrity of fire regimes across the conterminous U.S. based on LANDFIRE Rapid Assessment data. Our analyses of the data support the hypothesis that frequent fire return intervals dominate reference fire regimes across the assessment area and that approximately 80% of ecosystems are moderately to highly departed from their ecological reference conditions. Additionally, the results indicate that fire regime conditions do not differ substantially inside conservation areas or federally administered lands compared to outside these areas.
We present examples of potential applications of the LANDFIRE reference condition models that highlight their utility in predicting future trends. Examples include assessing the influence of invasive species, predicting landscape conditions and vegetation shifts under different climate scenarios and quantifying the effects of management actions over time.
Although LANDFIRE spatial datasets and ecological models cover only the U.S., the mapping methods and the non-spatial ecological models can be adapted for use in other geographies.
