Publications
Fire Severity Filters Regeneration Traits to Shape Community Assembly in Alaska’s Boreal Forest: A recent paper by Hollingsworth et al. (2013) proposes that fire severity and a plant’s intrinsic regeneration strategy are key determinants in post-fire community recovery. The authors identify species that may fare better or worse with predicted changes in Alaska’s fire regime. Hollingsworth–who is based at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks–bases her findings on a large (n = 87) and geographically diverse set of post-fire plots in interior Alaska boreal forest.
Hokkaido University (HU) is one of the world leaders in developing new earth-observing space technology. Dr. Koji Nakau leads their wildfire remote sensing applications team. He’s working with various partners—including UAF—on new satellite-derived products delivered to wildland fire managers in Alaska and around the world. They are especially excited about the May 24th (2014) launch of a rocket carrying ALOS-2 (Advanced Land Observing Satellite) which is also carrying a couple microsatellites with sensors specifically designed by his team to detect wildfire signatures. In addition to improving real-time operational support, satellite data is analyzed in support of wildfire propagation modeling, smoke transport, fuels estimates, and post-fire ecology.
Dr. Matt Nolan shared results from his recent airborne photogrammetry campaigns in Alaska, and related them to possible fire and forest management applications in a webinar on February 25, 2014. There is now a 2-page Webinar Summary about the topic and you can also watch the recorded webinar (https://vimeo.com/87797023) on AFSC’s website. Dr. Nolan is a Research Associate Professor at UAF’s Institute of Northern Engineering with degrees in geophysics and arctic and mechanical engineering. He’s been pioneering new high-tech uses of an old tool—the aerial photo. With new advances in computer processing and display technologies, airborne Digital SLR Photogrammetry is an even more powerful tool for field sciences, especially in remote areas like Alaska. Compared to LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging, or aerial 3D laser scanning), the low cost of DSLR photogrammetry makes it more affordable to make time-series of high-resolution maps, opening up new possibilities for analyzing and understanding changes in the environment. Forest inventory, fire fuels assessments (like canopy height), snow depth, and post-burn vegetation recovery and monitoring are just a few examples of applications that could benefit from time-series of topographic measurements on an annual, monthly, or other repeating basis.
The Joint Fire Science Program is doing a nation-wide survey this spring (2014) to ask managers whether sponsored research in their respective regions has improved management decisions or is useful to fire management practices. We started thinking about this for Alaska and prepared a 2-page review of a sample of four projects dating back to 2002 to see whether they have had any impact on management in Alaska, and what their outcomes appear to be today. Principal investigators included Scott Rupp (UAF), Phil Higuera (University of Idaho), Dan Mann (UAF), and Teresa Hollingsworth (USFS-Fairbanks). Read our review and see if you think these projects were indeed worthwhile!
Wildfires are a natural part of the boreal forest ecosystem. Fires are necessary for maintaining vegetation diversity and provide a diverse habitat for wildlife, but fires can also present a threat to human values. Alaska has seen a recent increase in the frequency of large fire years, with three of the top ten largest years (since 1940) occurring in the last decade. Over the past 50 years, Alaska has warmed at more than twice the rate of the rest of the United States. Warmer temperatures have lead to longer snow-free seasons, changes in vegetation, and loss of ice and permafrost, all of which can contribute to longer and more active fire seasons. It is likely that the Alaskan boreal forest will experience some dramatic changes over the next century. Learning about these changes and their potential impacts can help guide us in planning for the future.
Climate, Fire, Frost and the Carbon Bank: This 2-page research brief summarizes several years of field studies–citing recently published articles–by USGS soil scientists Jennifer Harden and Kristen Manies. Their studies shed new light on the impact of fires on permafrost in Alaska boreal forest, and interactions of fire effects and freezing effects on the forest floor. The insulating moss/duff layer plays a critical role in protecting permafrost and conditions suitable for the rapid regrowth of permafrost are keys to determining whether boreal forest will retain its ability to store large amounts of biomass carbon.
Global wildland fire season severity in the 21st century: A 1-page research brief summarizes a recently published article by Canadian fire scientist Mike Flannigan of the University of Alberta. Dr. Flannigan is well-known in Alaska fire management circles due to his contributions to boreal forest wildfire studies and the Canadian large fire database. This 2013 article describes the use of component indices of the Canadian Fuels Danger Rating System to forecast future changes in fire season severity world-wide.
Is Alaska’s Boreal Forest Now Crossing a Major Ecological Threshold?: Read up on what Alaskan forest and climate research has found out about the influence of warming climate on boreal forests in the Interior! Here’s a new 2-page Research Brief that digests one of the more significant papers on forest and climate change. The authors– Dan Mann, Scott Rupp, Mark Olson and Paul Duffy– are well-known to Alaska fire managers. This is a good basis to our upcoming focus on multi-faceted influences of dynamic climate on fire regime, forests, and fire management in Alaska in 2014!
For his MS Thesis, Winslow Hansen explored the social and ecological implications of changing boreal forest natural disturbance regimes. He analyzed how the occurrence of spruce bark beetle outbreak has altered the probability of subsequent wildfire activity between 2001 and 2009 on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska as well as the economic impact of fire and insect disturbances to private property values.
In late April 2013, scientists from universities in Alaska, Florida, and Saskatchewan met with fire managers and resource specialists to share early results from a study called Identifying Indicators of State Change and Forecasting Future Vulnerability in Alaskan Boreal Ecosystems. This project, funded by the Department of Defense Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP), looks at military training lands in interior boreal forest ecosystems and surroundings. The objectives are to 1) determine linkages among climate, fire, soils, permafrost, and vegetation succession; 2) test field-based measurements indicating boreal ecosystem vulnerability to state change; and 3) forecast landscape change in response to projected changes in climate, fire regime, and fire management.