Abstract
Forest resilience to climate change is a global concern given the potential effects of increased disturbance activity, warming temperatures and increased moisture stress on plants. We used a multi-regional dataset of 1485 sites across 52 wildfires from the US Rocky Mountains to ask if and how changing climate over the last several decades impacted post-fire tree regeneration, a key indicator of forest resilience. Results highlight significant decreases in tree regeneration in the 21st century. Annual moisture deficits were significantly greater from 2000 to 2015 as compared to 1985–1999, suggesting increasingly unfavourable post-fire growing conditions, corresponding to significantly lower seedling densities and increased regeneration failure. Dry forests that already occur at the edge of their climatic tolerance are most prone to conversion to non-forests after wildfires. Major climate-induced reduction in forest density and extent has important consequences for a myriad of ecosystem services now and in the future.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 243-252 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | Ecology Letters |
| Volume | 21 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Feb 2018 |
Funding
We thank A. Durham and C. Droske for data contributions. We thank J. Abatzoglou for climate data. We thank the specific units with each of the following agencies: United States Forest Service, National Park Service, respective state lands, and city property on which field work was conducted in the original studies from which our data were aggregated. Funding was provided by the Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP Project 16-1-01-20) and USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station under agreement 12-JV-11221637-136 with the University of Idaho, as well as all the funders of the original studies including NSF awards 1232997 and 0966472, NSF award DGE-0903479, JFSP projects 06-1-02-03, 12-3-1-13, and 14-1-02-27, NASA award NNX11A024G, the Univ. of Idaho Stillinger Trust Forest Science Fellowship, a JFSP Graduate Research Innovation Award, and a George Melendez Wright Climate Change Fellowship. We thank A. Durham and C. Droske for data contributions. We thank J. Abatzoglou for climate data. We thank the specific units with each of the following agencies: United States Forest Service, National Park Service, respective state lands, and city property on which field work was conducted in the original studies from which our data were aggregated. Funding was provided by the Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP Project 16-1-01-20) and USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station under agreement 12-JV-11221637-136 with the University of Idaho, as well as all the funders of the original studies including NSF awards 1232997 and 0966472, NSF award DGE-0903479, JFSP projects 06-1-02-03, 12-3-1-13, and 14-1-02-27, NASA award NNX11A024G, the Univ. of Idaho Stillinger Trust Forest Science Fellowship, a JFSP Graduate Research Innovation Award, and a George Melen-dez Wright Climate Change Fellowship.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| 16-1-01-20 | |
| 12-3-1-13, 0966472, 06-1-02-03, 14-1-02-27, 1232997, DGE-0903479 | |
| National Aeronautics and Space Administration | NNX11A024G |
| U.S. Forest Service-Retired | 12-JV-11221637-136 |
Keywords
- Climate change
- forest recovery
- forest resilience
- tree regeneration
- wildfire
