Human influence on California fire regimes.

Periodic wildfire maintains the integrity and species composition of many ecosystems, including the mediterranean-climate shrublands of California. However, human activities alter natural fire regimes, which can lead to cascading ecological effects. Increased human ignitions at the wildland-urban interface (WUI) have recently gained attention, but fire activity and risk are typically estimated using only biophysical variables. Our goal was to determine how humans influence fire in California and to examine whether this influence was linear, by relating contemporary (2000) and historic (1960-2000) fire data to both human and biophysical variables. Data for the human variables included fine-resolution maps of the WUI produced using housing density and land cover data. Interface WUI, where development abuts wildland vegetation, was differentiated from intermix WUI, where development intermingles with wildland vegetation. Additional explanatory variables included distance to WUI, population density, road density, vegetation type, and ecoregion. All data were summarized at the county level and analyzed using bivariate and multiple regression methods. We found highly significant relationships between humans and fire on the contemporary landscape, and our models explained fire frequency (R2 = 0.72) better than area burned (R2 = 0.50). Population density, intermix WUI, and distance to WUI explained the most variability in fire frequency, suggesting that the spatial pattern of development may be an important variable to consider when estimating fire risk. We found nonlinear effects such that fire frequency and area burned were highest at intermediate levels of human activity, but declined beyond certain thresholds. Human activities also explained change in fire frequency and area burned (1960-2000), but our models had greater explanatory power during the years 1960-1980, when there was more dramatic change in fire frequency. Understanding wildfire as a function of the spatial arrangement of ignitions and fuels on the landscape, in addition to nonlinear relationships, will be important to fire managers and conservation planners because fire risk may be related to specific levels of housing density that can be accounted for in land use planning. With more fires occurring in close proximity to human infrastructure, there may also be devastating ecological impacts if development continues to grow farther into wildland vegetation.     

Modelling the effect of fire-exclusion and prescribed fire on wildfire size in Mediterranean ecosystems

There is a debate on which factor, fuel accumulation or meteorological variability, is the fundamental control of the occurrence of large fires in Mediterranean-type ecosystems. Its resolution has important management implications, because if the fuel hypothesis proves to be right, then fire-exclusion would enhance the occurrence of large wildfires, and prescribed-fires would be a useful tool to fight them. On the other hand, if large fires were just a direct consequence of some extreme weather situations, neither fire-exclusion nor prescribed fire would have any influence on the size of wildfires. Here we present a simple model of vegetation dynamics and fire spread over homogeneous areas intended to treat quantitatively this issue. In particular, we wanted to address the following questions: (1) What is the effect that different fire fighting capacities have on the total area burnt and, especially, on large fires? (2) What is the effect that different levels of prescribed fire have on the area burnt in wildfires and, especially, in large fires? The model incorporates meteorological variability, different rates of fuel accumulation, number of ignitions per year, fire-fighting capacity, and prescribed burning. The model was calibrated with fire regime data (mean fire size, annual area burnt, and fire size distribution) of Tarragona (NE Spain) and Coimbra (Central Portugal), and it accurately reproduced both data sets, while allowing for multiple behavioural models and prediction uncertainties within the GLUE methodology. Results showed that for a given region, with its particular characteristics of climate, number of ignitions, and vegetation flammability, there was a fairly constant annual area burnt for different fire-fighting capacities. However, higher fire-fighting capacities resulted in a slightly higher proportion of large fires. There was also a quite constant annual area burnt (prescribed and wild fires together) for different prescribed fire intensities in each region. However, the total amount and proportion of large fires decreased as the prescribed burning intensity increased. So, according to the model, it seems that the total area burnt will be more or less the same despite any effort to reduce it by extinguishing fires or by using prescribed burning. Nevertheless, the effect of the fire exclusion policy slightly enhances the dominance of large fires, whereas the use of prescribed fires greatly reduces the importance of large fires.     

The Trifinio Region: a case study of transboundary forest change in Central America

Strategic planning to increase forest cover in Central American transboundary areas of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor requires understanding land-cover and land-use change trends and drivers. We estimated forest cover change from remotely sensed land-cover and land-use classifications from 1986, 2001, and 2010, in the tri-national Trifinio Region, bordering El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Our analysis spanned subnational, national, regional, and protected border areas. We determined correlations with direct drivers of deforestation, developing a multilevel linear regression model. Higher population density significantly correlated with deforestation; coffee, agroforestry, and pasture replaced forests. The tri-national park retained forests compared to neighboring areas, but additionality requires more research. The literature on drivers suggests similar processes and factors in other tropical regions. Forest cover governance efficacy is highly variable. Results indicate relationship between governance and forest cover though more comprehensive understanding of this complex region is needed to determine their causality.     

Trends and causes of severity, size, and number of fires in northwestern California, USA

Research in the last several years has indicated that fire size and frequency are on the rise in western U.S. forests. Although fire size and frequency are important, they do not necessarily scale with ecosystem effects of fire, as different ecosystems have different ecological and evolutionary relationships with fire. Our study assessed trends and patterns in fire size and frequency from 1910 to 2008 (all fires > 40 ha), and the percentage of high-severity in fires from 1987 to 2008 (all fires > 400 ha) on the four national forests of northwestern California. During 1910-2008, mean and maximum fire size and total annual area burned increased, but we found no temporal trend in the percentage of high-severity fire during 1987-2008. The time series of severity data was strongly influenced by four years with region-wide lightning events that burned huge areas at primarily low-moderate severity. Regional fire rotation reached a high of 974 years in 1984 and fell to 95 years by 2008. The percentage of high-severity fire in conifer-dominated forests was generally higher in areas dominated by smaller-diameter trees than in areas with larger-diameter trees. For Douglas-fir forests, the percentage of high-severity fire did not differ significantly between areas that re-burned and areas that only burned once (10% vs. 9%) when re-burned within 30 years. Percentage of high-severity fire decreased to 5% when intervals between first and second fires were > 30 years. In contrast, in both mixed-conifer and fir/high-elevation conifer forests, the percentage of high-severity fire was less when re-burned within 30 years compared to first-time burned (12% vs. 16% for mixed conifer; 11% vs. 19% for fir/high-elevation conifer). Additionally, the percentage of high-severity fire did not differ whether the re-burn interval was less than or greater than 30 years. Years with larger fires and greatest area burned were produced by region-wide lightning events, and characterized by less winter and spring precipitation than years dominated by smaller human-ignited fires. Overall percentage of high-severity fire was generally less in years characterized by these region-wide lightning events. Our results suggest that, under certain conditions, wildfires could be more extensively used to achieve ecological and management objectives in northwestern California.     

Simulation of the Effect of Spatial and Temporal Variation in Fire Regimes on the Population Viability of a Banksia Species

Populations of plants that rely on seeds for recovery from disturbance by fire (obligate seeders) are sensitive to regimes of frequent fire. Obligate seeders are prominent in fire-prone heathlands of southern Australia and South Africa. Population extinction may occur if there are successive fires during a plant's juvenile period. Research on the population biology of obligate seeders has influenced the management of fire in these heath and shrublands, but work on the effects of the spatial variability of fires is lacking. We hypothesize that extinction maybe avoided under an adverse fire frequency if fires are patchy. We present a model that simulates the effects of spatial and temporal variations in fire regimes on the viability of a plant population in a grid landscape. Seedling establishment, maturation, senescence, and seed dispersal determine the presence or absence of plants in each cell. We used values typical of serotinous Banksia species to estimate probability of extinction in relation to fire frequency and size. We examined the sensitivity of predictions to dispersal, senescence, fire frequency, spatial burning pattern and size variance, and the size of the grid. Simulations 200 years in length indicated that extinction probability was lowest when mean fire frequency was intermediate and mean fire size was large. When fire frequency was high, extinction probability was high irrespective of fire size. Senescence was more important than high-frequency fire as a cause of extinction in cells. Interactions between dispersal, fire frequency, and size were complex, indicating that extinction is governed by intercell connectivity. The model indicates that fire patchiness cannot be assumed to ensure avoidance of extinction of populations. Conservation of populations is most likely when fire patchiness is relatively low—when the size of fires is moderate to large and when burned patches are contiguous.     

The Botanist Effect Revisited: Plant Species Richness, County Area, and Human Population Size in the United States

Abstract:  The "botanist effect" is thought to be the reason for higher plant species richness in areas where botanists are disproportionately present as an artefactual consequence of a more thorough sampling. We examined whether this was the case for U.S. counties. We collated the number of species of vascular plants, human population size, and the area of U.S. counties. Controlling for spatial autocorrelation and county area, plant species richness increased with human population size and density in counties with and without universities and/or botanical gardens, with no significant differences in the relation between the two subsets. This is consistent with previous findings and further evidence of a broad-scale positive correlation between species richness and human population presence, which has important consequences for the experience of nature by inhabitants of densely populated regions. Combined with the many reports of a negative correlation between the two variables at a local scale, the positive relation between plant species richness in U.S. counties and human population presence stresses the need for the conservation of seminatural areas in urbanized ecosystems and for the containment of urban and suburban sprawl.     

Coexistence between People and Elephants in African Savannas

Abstract: The decline in the range and numbers of elephants as a result of expanding human activity in Africa is recognized as one of the continent's more serious conservation problems. Understanding the relationship between human settlement patterns and elephant abundance is fundamental to predicting the viability of elephant populations. The prevailing model of human-elephant interaction predicts a negative linear relationship between rising human density and declining elephant density at a coarse (national or subcontinental) scale. Using observed elephant densities and human population data, we tested this prediction in a study area of 15,000 km² in northwestern Zimbabwe. The results did not fit a linear model. Elephant and human coexistence occurs at various levels of human density, up to a threshold of human density beyond which elephant populations disappear. This threshold seems to be related to a particular stage in the process of agriculturally transformed land becoming spatially dominant over the natural woodland that constitutes elephant habitat. Within the contexts of conservation and sustainable development in African savannas, investigating spatial relationships between elephant and human abundance should be a priority topic for future research.     

Response of Savanna Fire Regimes to Changing Fire-Management Policies in a Large African National Park

Abstract:  Approaches to fire management in the savanna ecosystems of the 2-million ha Kruger National Park, South Africa, have changed several times over the past six decades. These approaches have included regular and flexible prescribed burning on fixed areas and a policy that sought to establish a lightning-dominated fire regime. We sought to establish whether changes in management induced the desired variability in fire regimes over a large area. We used a spatial database of information on all fires in the park between 1957 and 2002 to determine elements of the fire regime associated with each management policy. The area that burned in any given year was independent of the management approach and was strongly related to rainfall (and therefore grass fuels) in the preceding 2 years. On the other hand, management did affect the spatial heterogeneity of fires and their seasonal distribution. Heterogeneity was higher at all scales during the era of prescribed burning, compared with the lightning-fire interval. The lightning-fire interval also resulted in a greater proportion (72% vs. 38%) of the area burning in the dry season. Mean fire-return intervals varied between 5.6 and 7.3 years, and variability in fire-return intervals was strongly influenced by the sequencing of annual rainfall rather than by management. The attempt at creating a lightning-dominated fire regime failed because most fires were ignited by humans, and the policy has been replaced by a more pragmatic approach that combines flexible prescribed burning with lightning-ignited fires.     

基于地理探测器的中国陆地生态系统土壤有机碳空间异质性影响因子分析

中国陆地生态系统土壤有机碳库对全球生态系统碳平衡具有显著影响.为揭示土壤碳库空间分布的潜在主控因子并为今后建立碳库空间分布模型提供依据,利用地理探测器对中国陆地生态系统表层土壤(0—20 cm)有机碳密度的影响因子(气温、降水量、DEM、NDVI、陆地生态系统类型、人口密度)进行空间分异性探测和定量归因.结果表明:自然...     

Conservation Threat of Increasing Fire Frequencies in the Western Ghats, India

Abstract:  The acceleration of processes such as forest fragmentation and forest fires in landscapes under intense human pressures makes it imperative to quantify and understand the effects of these processes on the conservation of biodiversity in these landscapes. We combined information from remote-sensing imagery and ground maps of all fires in the Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary (MWLS) in the Western Ghats of India over 14 years (1989–2002). These spatial data on fire occurrence were integrated with maps of vegetation types found in the MWLS to examine fire conditions in each. We calculated the average fire-return interval for each of the vegetation types individually and for the MWLS as a whole. Using vegetation data from the larger Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve and the entire Western Ghats region, we conservatively estimated fire-frequency information for these larger regions. Because the MWLS does not contain tropical evergreen or montane forests, we were unable to estimate fire conditions in these forest types, which represent 31% of all Western Ghats vegetation cover. For the MWLS, all vegetation types had average fire-return intervals of <7 years, and the sanctuary as a whole had a fire-return interval of 3.3 years. Compared with a 13-year MWLS fire data set from 1909–1921, this represents a threefold increase in fire frequency over the last 80 years. We estimated average fire-return intervals of roughly 5 years for both the larger Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve and the entire Western Ghats region. Given other recent reports, the estimated fire frequencies for the Western Ghats forests outside protected reserves are conservative. We conclude that the current fire regime of the Western Ghats poses a severe and persistent conservation threat to forests both within and outside protected reserves.     

Simulating the influences of various fire regimes on caribou winter habitat.

Caribou are an integral component of high-latitude ecosystems and represent a major subsistence food source for many northern people. The availability and quality of winter habitat is critical to sustain these caribou populations. Caribou commonly use older spruce woodlands with adequate terrestrial lichen, a preferred winter forage, in the understory. Changes in climate and fire regime pose a significant threat to the long-term sustainability of this important winter habitat. Computer simulations performed with a spatially explicit vegetation succession model (ALFRESCO) indicate that changes in the frequency and extent of fire in interior Alaska may substantially impact the abundance and quality of winter habitat for caribou. We modeled four different fire scenarios and tracked the frequency, extent, and spatial distribution of the simulated fires and associated changes to vegetation composition and distribution. Our results suggest that shorter fire frequencies (i.e., less time between recurring fires) on the winter range of the Nelchina caribou herd in eastern interior Alaska will result in large decreases of available winter habitat, relative to that currently available, in both the short and long term. A 30% shortening of the fire frequency resulted in a 3.5-fold increase in the area burned annually and an associated 41% decrease in the amount of spruce-lichen forest found on the landscape. More importantly, simulations with more frequent fires produced a relatively immature forest age structure, compared to that which currently exists, with few stands older than 100 years. This age structure is at the lower limits of stand age classes preferred by caribou from the Nelchina herd. Projected changes in fire regime due to climate warming and/or additional prescribed burning could substantially alter the winter habitat of caribou in interior Alaska and lead to changes in winter range use and/or population dynamics.     

Simulating the effects of frequent fire on southern California coastal shrublands.

Fire disturbance is a primary agent of change in the mediterranean-climate chaparral shrublands of southern California, USA. However, fire frequency has been steadily increasing in coastal regions due to ignitions at the growing wildland-urban interface. Although chaparral is resilient to a range of fire frequencies, successively short intervals between fires can threaten the persistence of some species, and the effects may differ according to plant functional type. California shrublands support high levels of biological diversity, including many endangered and endemic species. Therefore, it is important to understand the long-term effects of altered fire regimes on these communities. A spatially explicit simulation model of landscape disturbance and succession (LANDIS) was used to predict the effects of frequent fire on the distribution of dominant plant functional types in a study area administered by the National Park Service. Shrubs dependent on fire-cued seed germination were most sensitive to frequent fire and lost substantial cover to other functional types, including drought-deciduous subshrubs that typify coastal sage scrub and nonnative annual grasses. Shrubs that resprout were favored by higher fire frequencies and gained in extent under these treatments. Due to this potential for vegetation change, caution is advised against the widespread use of prescribed fire in the region.     

The Conflict between Wildlife and Local People Living Adjacent to Protected Areas in Tanzania: Human Density as a Predictor

A questionnaire survey was conducted in Tanzania of 1396 local people living adjacent to Arusha, Kilimanjaro, Tarangire, Lake Manyara, and Mikumi National Parks and the Selous Game Reserve. Over 71% of local people surveyed reported problems with wildlife. The relative frequency of reported conflict with wildlife was significantly and inversely related to human density on lands adjacent to a protected area. Of those local people who reported having problems with wildlife, 86% reported crop damage, while 10% reported the killing of livestock and poultry. The problematic wildlife species also varied significantly with human density. Large animals were more problematic at low human densities, while small animals were more problematic at high human densities. Local people were generally less effective in controlling small-bodied species than large-bodied species. The relative frequency of reported success in controlling wildlife varied significantly with human density and was bimodal: local people were less effective in controlling wildlife at lower and higher human densities. This bimodal relationship suggests that, even if all protected areas in Tanzania were abolished, local people would continue to experience problems with wildlife at high human densities. To minimize the conflict between wildlife and local people, land uses associated with low human density that are non-attractive to wildlife should be encouraged on lands adjacent to protected areas in Tanzania.     

Use of historical and contemporary distribution of mammals in China to inform conservation

A systematic understanding of dynamic animal extinction trajectories for different regions in a nation like China is critically important to developing practical conservation strategies. We explored historical and contemporary changes in terrestrial mammalian diversity to determine how diversity in each of the 5 regions in China has changed over time and to examine the conservation potential of these regions. We used records from databases on Pleistocene mammalian fossils and historical distribution records (1175–2020) for Primates (as a case study) to reconstruct evolutionary and historical distribution trajectories of the 11 orders of terrestrial mammals and to predict their prospective survival based on the national conservation strategy applied. The results indicated that since the Pleistocene, 4–5 mammalian orders have been lost in the northeast, 3 in central China, 2 along the coast, and 1 in the northwest. In the southwest, all 11 orders were maintained. Contemporarily, the coast and southwest had the highest and second-highest species densities. The southwest region and southeastern sections of the northwest region were the most historically and contemporarily diverse areas, which suggests that they should be the first priority for protected area (PA) designation. The central and coastal areas should be secondarily prioritized. In these 2 regions, conservation should focus on human coexistence with nature. Less attention should be paid to the PA in the northeast and western northwest because in these areas ecosystems are depauperate and the climate is harsh. Conservation in these areas should focus principally on avoiding further human encroachment on natural areas. Article impact statement: Historical and contemporary patterns of extinction can be a basis for mammalian conservation strategies.     

Simulating a natural fire regime on an Atlantic coast barrier island complex in Florida, USA

The HFire fire regime model was used to simulate the natural fire regime (prior to European settlement) on Kennedy Space Center, Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, Canaveral National Seashore, and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. Model simulations were run for 500 years and the model was parameterized using information generated from previously published empirical studies on these properties (e.g., lightning fire ignition frequencies and ignition seasonality). A mosaic pattern of frequent small fires dominated this fire regime with rare but extremely large fires occurring during dry La Niña periods. This simulated fire size distribution very closely matched the previously published fire size distribution for lightning ignitions on these properties. A sensitivity analysis was performed to establish which parameters were most influential and the range of variation surrounding empirically parameterized model output. Dead fuel moisture and wind speed had the largest influence on model outcome. A wide range of variance was observed surrounding the composite simulation with the least being 6% in total burn frequency and the greatest being 49% in total area burned. Because simulation modeling is the best option for fire regime reconstruction in many rapidly growing shrub dominated systems, these results will be of interest to scientists and fire managers for delineating the natural fire regime on these properties, the southeastern United States and other fire adapted shrub systems worldwide.     

Fire Mosaics and Reptile Conservation in a Fire‐Prone Region

Fire influences the distribution of fauna in terrestrial biomes throughout the world. Use of fire to achieve a mosaic of vegetation in different stages of succession after burning (i.e., patch‐mosaic burning) is a dominant conservation practice in many regions. Despite this, knowledge of how the spatial attributes of vegetation mosaics created by fire affect fauna is extremely scarce, and it is unclear what kind of mosaic land managers should aim to achieve. We selected 28 landscapes (each 12.6 km²) that varied in the spatial extent and diversity of vegetation succession after fire in a 104,000 km² area in the semiarid region of southeastern Australia. We surveyed for reptiles at 280 sites nested within the 28 landscapes. The landscape‐level occurrence of 9 of the 22 species modeled was associated with the spatial extent of vegetation age classes created by fire. Biogeographic context and the extent of a vegetation type influenced 7 and 4 species, respectively. No species were associated with the diversity of vegetation ages within a landscape. Negative relations between reptile occurrence and both extent of recently burned vegetation (≤10 years postfire, n = 6) and long unburned vegetation (>35 years postfire, n = 4) suggested that a coarse‐grained mosaic of areas (e.g. >1000 ha) of midsuccessional vegetation (11–35 years postfire) may support the fire‐sensitive reptile species we modeled. This age class coincides with a peak in spinifex cover, a keystone structure for reptiles in semiarid and arid Australia. Maintaining over the long term a coarse‐grained mosaic of large areas of midsuccessional vegetation in mallee ecosystems will need to be balanced against the short‐term negative effects of large fires on many reptile species and a documented preference by species from other taxonomic groups, particularly birds, for older vegetation. Mosaicos de Fuego y la Conservación de Reptiles en una Región Propensa al Fuego     

Poverty and corruption compromise tropical forest reserves.

We used the global fire detection record provided by the satellite-based Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) to determine the number of fires detected inside 823 tropical and subtropical moist forest reserves and for contiguous buffer areas 5, 10, and 15 km wide. The ratio of fire detection densities (detections per square kilometer) inside reserves to their contiguous buffer areas provided an index of reserve effectiveness. Fire detection density was significantly lower inside reserves than in paired, contiguous buffer areas but varied by five orders of magnitude among reserves. The buffer: reserve detection ratio varied by up to four orders of magnitude among reserves within a single country, and median values varied by three orders of magnitude among countries. Reserves tended to be least effective at reducing fire frequency in many poorer countries and in countries beset by corruption. Countries with the most successful reserves include Costa Rica, Jamaica, Malaysia, and Taiwan and the Indonesian island of Java. Countries with the most problematic reserves include Cambodia, Guatemala, Paraguay, and Sierra Leone and the Indonesian portion of Borneo. We provide fire detection density for 3964 tropical and subtropical reserves and their buffer areas in the hope that these data will expedite further analyses that might lead to improved management of tropical reserves.     

Simulating the potential for ecological restoration of dryland forests in Mexico under different disturbance regimes

Examining the potential for ecological restoration is important in areas where anthropogenic disturbance has degraded forest landscapes. However, the conditions under which restoration of degraded tropical dry forests (TDF) might be achieved in practice have not been determined in detail. In this study, we used LANDIS-II, a spatially explicit model of forest dynamics, to assess the potential for passive restoration of TDF through natural regeneration. The model was applied to two Mexican landscapes under six different disturbance regimes, focusing on the impact of fire and cattle grazing on forest cover, structure and composition. Model results identified two main findings. First, tropical dry forests are more resilient to anthropogenic disturbance than expected. Results suggested that under both a scenario of small, infrequent fires and a scenario of large, frequent fires, forest area can increase relatively rapidly. However, forest structure and composition differed markedly between these scenarios. After 400 years, the landscape becomes increasingly occupied by relatively shade-tolerant species under small, infrequent fires, but only species with both relatively high shade tolerance and high fire tolerance can thrive under conditions with large, frequent fires. Second, we demonstrated that different forms of disturbance can interact in unexpected ways. Our projections revealed that when grazing acts in combination with fire, forest cover, structure and composition vary dramatically depending on the frequency and extent of the fires. Results indicated that grazing and fire have a synergistic effect causing a reduction in forest cover greater than the sum of their individual effects. This suggests that passive landscape-scale restoration of TDF is achievable in both Mexican study areas only if grazing is reduced, and fires are carefully managed to reduce their frequency and intensity.     

Fire Management,Managed Relocation,and Land Conservation Options for Long‐Lived Obligate Seeding Plants under Global Changes in Climate,Urbanization, and Fire Regime

Most species face multiple anthropogenic disruptions. Few studies have quantified the cumulative influence of multiple threats on species of conservation concern, and far fewer have quantified the potential relative value of multiple conservation interventions in light of these threats. We linked spatial distribution and population viability models to explore conservation interventions under projected climate change, urbanization, and changes in fire regime on a long‐lived obligate seeding plant species sensitive to high fire frequencies, a dominant plant functional type in many fire‐prone ecosystems, including the biodiversity hotspots of Mediterranean‐type ecosystems. First, we investigated the relative risk of population decline for plant populations in landscapes with and without land protection under an existing habitat conservation plan. Second, we modeled the effectiveness of relocating both seedlings and seeds from a large patch with predicted declines in habitat area to 2 unoccupied recipient patches with increasing habitat area under 2 projected climate change scenarios. Finally, we modeled 8 fire return intervals (FRIs) approximating the outcomes of different management strategies that effectively control fire frequency. Invariably, long‐lived obligate seeding populations remained viable only when FRIs were maintained at or above a minimum level. Land conservation and seedling relocation efforts lessened the impact of climate change and land‐use change on obligate seeding populations to differing degrees depending on the climate change scenario, but neither of these efforts was as generally effective as frequent translocation of seeds. While none of the modeled strategies fully compensated for the effects of land‐use and climate change, an integrative approach managing multiple threats may diminish population declines for species in complex landscapes. Conservation plans designed to mitigate the impacts of a single threat are likely to fail if additional threats are ignored. Manejo de Incendios, Reubicación Administrada y Opciones de Conservación de Suelo para Plantas de Vida Larga con Sembrado Obligado bajo los Cambios Globales en el Clima, la Urbanización y el Régimen de Incendios     

Fire-climate history and landscape patterns of high burn severity areas on the California southern and central coast

There is mounting evidence that fire size and severity have been growing on the central and southern California coastal landscape over the past several decades. Landsat satellite data was analyzed for the 20 largest fires on the Central California coast since 1984 to determine the relationships between climate/weather conditions at the time of ignition and the size of high burn severity (HBS) areas. The study also examined the relationship between area burned and landscape patterns of HBS coverage, including patch size, edge complexity, perimeter-to-area ratio, and aggregation metrics. Results showed that climate conditions at the time of ignitions have been significant controllers of the total area of HBS and the complexity of HBS patches on the fire landscape. As maximum air temperatures for the month of ignition approached 40^o C, the percentage of HBS to total area burned frequently exceeded 20%. The percentage of HBS to total area burned also exceed 20% when the precipitation total recorded during the previous 12 months was less than 25% of the annual average precipitation. Landscape analysis results showed that, as the total area burned in fires on the Central California coast grows, the edge lengths and areas of HBS patches also grows at a rapid rate. At the same time, the perimeter-to-area ratio of HBS patches decreases gradually and the HBS patches become more aggregated as total burned area grows.