A new approach for modeling delayed fire‐induced tree mortality

Global change is expanding the ecological niche of mixed-severity fire regimes into ecosystems that have not usually been associated with wildfires, such as temperate forests and rainforests. In contrast to stand-replacing fires, fires may result in delayed tree mortality driven by secondary factors post-fire environmental conditions. Because these effects vary a function time post-fire, their study using commonly applied logistic regression models challenging. Here, we propose overcoming this challenge through application time-explicit survival Kaplan-Meier (KM-) estimator Cox proportional-hazards (PH-) model. We use data on after beech (1) illustrate temporal trends probabilities hazard beech, (2) estimate annual for different burn severities, (3) consider driving possible time-dependent effects. Based our results, argue combination KM-estimator Cox-PH potential substantially improve analysis post-disturbance answering when why occurs. The results provide more specific information implementing management measures.