Agriculture Commons^™

Collapse, Reorganization, And Regime Identity: Breaking Down Past Management Paradigms In A Forest-Grassland Ecotone, Victoria M. Donovan, Caleb P. Roberts, Carissa L. Wonkka, Daniel R. Uden, David G. Angeler, Craig R. Allen, David A. Wedin, Rhae A. Drijber, Dirac Twidwell

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

The identity of an ecological regime is central to modern resilience theory and our understanding of how systems collapse and reorganize following disturbance. However, resilience-based models used in ecosystem management have been criticized for their failure to integrate disturbance outcomes into regime identity. Assessments are needed to understand how well these classifications represent ecosystem responses that occur over management relevant time scales. We tracked post-wildfire forest and grassland dynamics 27 years after wildfire in eastern ponderosa pine savanna. We tested for differences between the assigned identity of a site (forest or grassland) versus classifications based on the site's disturbance history …