Managing forward while looking back: reopening closed forests to open woodlands and savannas

IF 3.6 3区 环境科学与生态学 Q1 ECOLOGY Fire Ecology Pub Date : 2024-08-19 DOI:10.1186/s42408-024-00312-9
Lauren S. Pile Knapp, Daniel C. Dey, Michael C. Stambaugh, Frank R. Thompson, J. Morgan Varner
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Abstract

Ecosystem management, community restoration, and managing for climate resilience have become major priorities of land management in recent decades. For woodlands and savannas (i.e., “open forests”), this transition has meant moving fire-deprived, closed-canopy forests to structures and compositions characteristic of natural communities that are rare today: open-grown, wide-spreading trees, and endemic flora and fauna associated with frequent, low to moderate intensity fires. Open forest restoration is complex; its approach and operational prescriptions are dependent on a multitude of factors. Reopening forests to achieve ecological objectives associated with open forests is hampered by site histories, novel species compositions, and structures that resist fire. Fire histories shed light on fire regimes that promote open forests, informing prescriptions at stand and landscape levels, but due to many social and environmental factors, managers are challenged to recreate those fire regimes. As fire was removed from these ecosystems, successional processes led to changes in species compositions concomitant with changes in woody structure and fuel complexes further inhibiting restoration without active management. As active management aims to transition residing fine fuels from mesophytic hardwood-shrub litter to herbaceous dominant fuels with canopy openness, fire effects, and prescriptions also change. Silvicultural prescriptions have been developed to aid in the process of transition but maintaining mature, continuous canopy open forests through the regeneration and recruitment phase of predominantly shade intolerant of oaks and pines remains speculative. Further, as a legacy of woody densification, contemporary fire practices may result in undesirable increases in sprouting woody species impacting objectives for herbaceous cover and diversity. Invasive plants and depauperate seed banks may further limit successful outcomes. Even with these formidable challenges, transitioning closed forests to open structures and compositions is critically important for wildlife that depend on them, especially at the size, scale, and connectivity necessary to sustain their populations. Many birds and pollinators of conservation concern require open forests and early successional forests may not serve as surrogates for mature, open forest habitat. In this review, we outline the advances, challenges, and importance for reopening closed canopied forests to open forests in the central and midsouth, USA. Further, we set the stage for new approaches and learned outcomes from the papers of the 7th Fire in Eastern Oak Forests Conference in Tyler, TX, included in this special collection of Fire Ecology.
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回顾过去,展望未来:重新开放封闭的森林,开辟林地和热带草原
近几十年来,生态系统管理、群落恢复和气候适应性管理已成为土地管理的主要优先事项。对于林地和稀树草原(即 "疏林")而言,这种转变意味着将缺火、树冠郁闭的森林转变为当今罕见的自然群落的结构和组成特征:生长开阔、广布的树木,以及与频繁、中低强度火灾相关的特有动植物群。疏林恢复是一项复杂的工作;其方法和操作规定取决于多种因素。重新开辟森林以实现与疏林相联系的生态目标,会受到地点历史、新物种组成和抗火结构的阻碍。火灾历史揭示了促进森林开阔的火灾机制,为在林分和景观层面上制定处方提供了信息,但由于许多社会和环境因素,管理者很难重新建立这些火灾机制。由于这些生态系统中没有了火,演替过程导致物种组成发生变化,同时木质结构和燃料复合体也发生变化,这进一步阻碍了在没有积极管理的情况下进行恢复。由于积极管理的目的是将中生硬木-灌木-枯落物中的细粒燃料转变为树冠开阔的草本植物主导燃料,因此火灾影响和处方也会发生变化。已经制定了造林处方来帮助过渡过程,但在橡树和松树主要不耐阴的再生和新陈代谢阶段,如何保持成熟、连续的树冠开阔森林仍然是个问题。此外,作为木质化的遗留问题,当代的防火措施可能会导致萌芽木质物种的增加,从而影响草本植物的覆盖率和多样性目标。入侵植物和枯竭的种子库可能会进一步限制成功的结果。即使面临这些严峻的挑战,将郁闭森林过渡到开放结构和组成对于依赖它们的野生动物来说也是至关重要的,尤其是在维持其种群所需的大小、规模和连接性方面。许多受保护的鸟类和传粉昆虫需要开放的森林,而早期演替森林可能无法替代成熟、开放的森林栖息地。在本综述中,我们概述了在美国中部和中南部将郁闭的树冠林重新开辟为开放林的进展、挑战和重要性。此外,我们还介绍了在德克萨斯州泰勒市举行的第七届东部橡树林火灾会议的新方法和成果,这些论文已收录在《火灾生态学》的这一特辑中。
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来源期刊
Fire Ecology
Fire Ecology ECOLOGY-FORESTRY
CiteScore
6.20
自引率
7.80%
发文量
24
审稿时长
20 weeks
期刊介绍: Fire Ecology is the international scientific journal supported by the Association for Fire Ecology. Fire Ecology publishes peer-reviewed articles on all ecological and management aspects relating to wildland fire. We welcome submissions on topics that include a broad range of research on the ecological relationships of fire to its environment, including, but not limited to: Ecology (physical and biological fire effects, fire regimes, etc.) Social science (geography, sociology, anthropology, etc.) Fuel Fire science and modeling Planning and risk management Law and policy Fire management Inter- or cross-disciplinary fire-related topics Technology transfer products.
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