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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Compounding Fire Disturbance History Encourages Coast Redwood (Sequoia Sempervirens) Regeneration And Community Dominance, Matthew R. Brousil
Compounding Fire Disturbance History Encourages Coast Redwood (Sequoia Sempervirens) Regeneration And Community Dominance, Matthew R. Brousil
Master's Theses
Disturbance is fundamental to forest ecosystem function and overall health, but climate change is likely to increase both disturbance frequency and intensity in the future. Forests subject to increasingly frequent and intense disturbances are more likely to experience compounding disturbance effects. Compounding disturbances may exert unpredicted, non-additive stresses on ecosystems, leading to novel conditions that may exceed the capacity for local species to survive and regenerate. I further hypothesize that compounding disturbances could create conditions misaligned with species’ adaptations by altering physical and chemical growing conditions in forest soils, affecting forest composition, structure, and, subsequently, function for many years following …
Fire And Fuels: Vegetation Change Over Time In The Zuni Mountains, New Mexico, Luke Wylie
Fire And Fuels: Vegetation Change Over Time In The Zuni Mountains, New Mexico, Luke Wylie
Master's Theses
The Zuni Mountains are a region that has been dramatically changed by human interference. Anthropogenically, fire suppression practices have allowed a buildup of fuels and caused a change in the fire-adapted ponderosa pine ecosystem such that the new ecosystem now incorporates many fire-intolerant species. As a result, the low-severity fires that the ecosystem once depended on to regenerate the forest are much reduced, and these low-severity fires are now replaced by crown-level infernos that threaten the forest and nearby towns. In order to combat these effects, land managers are implementing fuel reduction practices and are striving to better understand the …