Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Unplanned fires (wildfires) are a feature of fire-prone landscapes. In many regions of the world, land use changes, population growth and climate change are contributing to an increase in the frequency and severity of wildfires, which can have adverse impacts on human communities and the environment (biotic and abiotic). This Special Issue of Fire places a focus on the documented effects of wildfires on the biota in the context of the scale, severity and frequency of wildfires. Understanding the impacts of wildfires on the biota is increasingly important in an era of climate change and increasing wildfire activity.

This Special Issue aims to gather key papers from around the world that advance our knowledge and understanding of the effects of wildfires on the biota. With this knowledge, fire and land management agencies will be better placed to develop policies and prescriptions to mitigate the adverse impacts of wildfires.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the effects of wildfire on fauna, flora and fungi. This can include single species, community and population studies. Wildfire is not a binary event, so contextualizing effects on the biota in terms of the size, intensity and frequency of wildfires will provide greater insights.

I/We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Neil Burrows
Guest Editor

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Keywords

effects of wildfire
wildfire and flora
wildfire and fauna
wildfire and fungi
wildfire and biota
wildfire and biodiversity

Published Papers (2 papers)

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16 pages, 2863 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Scaling Landscape Fire History: Wildfires Not Historically Frequent in the Main Population of Threatened Gunnison Sage-Grouse

by William L. Baker

Fire 2024, 7(4), 120; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/fire7040120 - 06 Apr 2024

Viewed by 647

Abstract

The main population of ~5000 threatened Gunnison sage-grouse (GUSG; Centrocercus minimus) in Colorado depends on sagebrush plants that are killed by wildfires, with recovery taking decades, so frequent fire is a threat, but did it occur historically? Early land surveys showed that the historical (preindustrial) fire rotation (FR), the expected period to burn area equal to a focal land area, was 90–143 years in GUSG ranges, which is not classed as frequent fire (≤25 years). However, recent research, based on fire scars on trees at ten sites near sagebrush, suggested some frequent fire historically in the main population. That study was not spatial, essential to estimate FR, so spatial data were created in GIS with land-survey reconstructions, survey dates, fire-scar sites, mapped sagebrush, and Thiessen polygons around sites. The previous study assumed fires that burned 2+ sites likely burned across sagebrush. Historical FRs were calculated several ways over a common period. A recovery estimate of FR was 90–135 years, a land-survey estimate was 82–131 years, and three spatial scar-based estimates were 93–107 years, showing agreement. However, the comparison found that only 8.8% of the land-survey fire area was detected at fire-scar sites. Detailed analysis showed that 10 fire-scar sites were insufficient to detect historical fire sizes and distributions across the large 168,753 ha sagebrush area. Adequate fire reconstruction could require ~45–60 fire-scar sites, making it feasible to study only ~30,000 ha of sagebrush. Using the two remaining methods, which cross-validate, showed frequent fire did not occur historically in the study area, as historical FRs were 82–135 years. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Effects of Wildfire on the Biota)

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19 pages, 4583 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Influence of Fires on Desert Plant Communities at the Chernye Zemli (SW Russia)

by Galya V. Klink, Sergey A. Lednev, Ivan N. Semenkov, Maria V. Konyushkova, Andrey M. Karpachevskiy, Mergen M. Chemidov, Svetlana S. Ulanova, Natal’ya L. Fedorova, Anna V. Sharapova, Sergey A. Bogun and Tatyana V. Koroleva

Fire 2024, 7(3), 96; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/fire7030096 - 17 Mar 2024

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 809

Abstract

Understanding the rate and direction of pyrogenic succession in arid ecosystems, which depends on many factors, including the intensity of grazing and the frequency of pyrogenic expo-sure, will allow for more accurate predictions of the consequences of fire onplant communities, and will assist with better fire management. We studied the vegetation on 55 sites in and near the “Chernye Zemli” Natural Biosphere Reserve that burned at different times or were not affected by fires over the past 35 years and characterized the changes in vegetation cover associated with the impact of wildfire and grazing. The descriptions were grouped into chronological stages according to the time elapsed since the last fire, or into groups according to the frequency of fires. In pairwise comparison of the projective cover of plant species between chronological stages, it correlated most strongly between successive initial stages (for stages 1 and 2, p = 0.003, r = 0.73; for stages 2 and 3, p < 0.001, r = 0.78). Species with an initially higher projective cover were more likely to grow on plots in the first year after the fire: p < 0.03. Plots with rare and frequent fires had similar projective cover of individual species (r = 0.64, p < 0.001). We conclude that in the course of pyrogenic succession, communities are gradually replaced over at least ten years. At the same time, the composition of a plant community at the initial point of succession depends on the prevalence of species in the community before the fire. No fundamental effect of the frequency of fires on the composition of plant communities has been revealed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Effects of Wildfire on the Biota)

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