Skip to main content

FRAMES logo
Resource Catalog

Document

Type: Journal Article
Author(s): Jon E. Keeley; Juli G. Pausas
Publication Date: 2019

Fire is a necessary ecosystem process in many biomes and is best viewed as a natural disturbance that is beneficial to ecosystem functioning. However, increasingly, we are seeing human interference in fire regimes that alters the historical range of variability for most fire parameters and results in vegetation shifts. Such perturbations can affect all fire regime parameters. Here, we provide a brief overview of examples where anthropogenically driven changes in fire frequency, fire pattern, fuels consumed and fire intensity constitute perturbations that greatly disrupt natural disturbance cycles and put ecosystems on a different trajectory resulting in type conversion. These changes are not due to fire per se but rather anthropogenic perturbations in the natural disturbance regime.

Online Links
Citation: Keeley, Jon E.; Pausas, Juli G. 2019. Distinguishing disturbance from perturbations in fire-prone ecosystems. International Journal of Wildland Fire 28(4):282-287.

Cataloging Information

Topics:
Regions:
Alaska    California    Eastern    Great Basin    Hawaii    Northern Rockies    Northwest    Rocky Mountain    Southern    Southwest    National
Keywords:
  • fire frequency
  • fire intensity
  • fire patterns
  • human impacts
  • invasive species
  • patch dynamics
  • type conversion
  • vegetation shifts
Record Last Modified:
Record Maintained By: FRAMES Staff (https://www.frames.gov/contact)
FRAMES Record Number: 57755