Global increases in fire frequency driven by anthropogenic greenhouse emissions and land use change could threaten unique and ancient species by creeping into long-term fire refugia. The perhumid and mountainous western half of Tasmania is a globally important refugium for palaeo-endemic, fire intolerant lineages, especially conifers. Reproductive strategy will be crucial to the resilience of t...

Variation in the structure of ground fuels, i.e. the moss and litter (M/L) layer, may be an important control on fire severity in heather moorlands and thus influence vegetation regeneration and soil carbon dynamics. We completed experimental fires in a Calluna vulgaris-dominated heathland to study the role of the M/L layer in determining (i) fire-induced temperature pulses into the soil and (i...

Fire is a process that shaped and maintained most terrestrial ecosystems worldwide. Changes in land use and patterns of human settlement have altered fire regimes and led to fire suppression resulting in numerous undesirable consequences spanning individual species and entire ecosystems. Many obvious and direct consequences of fire suppression have been well studied, but several, albeit less ob...

Carbon finance offers the potential to change land management and conservation planning priorities. We develop a novel approach to planning for improved land management to conserve biodiversity while utilizing potential revenue from carbon biosequestration. We apply our approach in northern Australia's tropical savanna, a region of global significance for biodiversity and carbon storage, both o...

BACKGROUND Land use and land cover change occurring in tropical forest landscapes contributes substantially to carbon emissions. Better insights into the spatial variation of aboveground biomass is therefore needed. By means of multiple statistical tests, including geographically weighted regression, we analysed the effects of eight variables on the regional spatial variation of aboveground bio...

The mountainous areas of the northwestern Iberian Peninsula have undergone intense land abandonment. In this work, we wanted to determine if the abandonment of the rural areas was the main driver of landscape dynamics in Gerês–Xurés Transboundary Biosphere Reserve (NW Iberian Peninsula), or if other factors, such as wildfires and the land management were also directly affecting these spatio-tem...

BACKGROUND Carbon storage potential has become an important consideration for land management and planning in the United States. The ability to assess ecosystem carbon balance can help land managers understand the benefits and tradeoffs between different management strategies. This paper demonstrates an application of the Land Use and Carbon Scenario Simulator (LUCAS) model developed for local-...

The southern region of the U.S. uses prescribed fire as a management tool on more of its burnable land than anywhere in the U.S., with ecosystem restoration, wildlife habitat enhancement, and reduction of hazardous fuel loads as typical goals. Although the region performs more than 50,000 prescribed fire treatments each year, evaluation of their effects on wildfire suppression resources or beha...

Fire history of a ponderosa pine-mixed conifer forest was investigated in the Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, southeastern Klamath Mountains, California. Fire return intervals were found to be frequent and similar to other comparable forests in California. Median fire interval for the six sample plots (1.4–1.7 ha) ranged from 2 to 4 years (mean range, 4.8–7.4 years). Most fires (93%) occu...

Fire management addressing post-fire erosion and aquatic ecosystems tends to focus on shortterm effects persisting up to about a decade after fire. A longer perspective is important in understanding natural variability in post-fire erosion and sedimentation, the role of these processes in structuring habitat, and future expectations in light of a warming climate and environmental change. In coo...