Alternative characterization of forest fire regimes: incorporating spatial patterns
Autor: | Brandon M. Collins, Jens T. Stevens, Jay D. Miller, Peter M. Brown, Scott L. Stephens, Malcolm P. North |
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Rok vydání: | 2017 |
Předmět: |
0106 biological sciences
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences Ecology Fire regime Seed dispersal Geography Planning and Development Vegetation dynamics 010603 evolutionary biology 01 natural sciences Metric (mathematics) Spatial ecology Environmental science Physical geography Landscape ecology Fire ecology Logistic function 0105 earth and related environmental sciences Nature and Landscape Conservation |
Zdroj: | Landscape Ecology. 32:1543-1552 |
ISSN: | 1572-9761 0921-2973 |
Popis: | The proportion of fire area that experienced stand-replacing fire effects is an important attribute of individual fires and fire regimes in forests, and this metric has been used to group forest types into characteristic fire regimes. However, relying on proportion alone ignores important spatial characteristics of stand-replacing patches, which can have a strong influence on post-fire vegetation dynamics. We propose a new more ecologically relevant approach for characterizing spatial patterns of stand-replacing patches to account for potential limitation of conifer seed dispersal. We applied a simple modified logistic function to describe the relationship between the proportion of total stand-replacing patch area and an interior buffer distance on stand-replacing patches. This approach robustly distinguishes among different spatial configurations of stand-replacing area in both theoretical and actual fires, and does so uniquely from commonly used descriptors of spatial configuration. Our function can be calculated for multiple fires over a given area, allowing for meaningful ecological comparisons of stand-replacing effects among different fires and regions. |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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