Jesse MillerFeb 24, 2023

Can increasingly severe wildfires cause homogenization of the plant community?

Yes! But the pattern may appear >5 years after fire

New paper led by Jonah Weeks out today: post-fire floristic trends over the first 10 years following the Angora Fire

https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecs2.4409

Show threadJesse Miller

Scene from the Angora Fire--example of a homogenous plant community stretching across a 1,000 acre high-severity burn patch.

Historically, this landscape was probably an open conifer forest with a heterogeneous understory

Lots of this fire-driven homogenization happening in CA

Feb 24, 2023 at 11:01pmWeb
Show threadJesse MillerFeb 28, 2023
So many post-fire studies focus on only a single time point, so it is nice to document changes over time here. Seems to support our longstanding practice of waiting 5+ years to sample after fires--when things have "settled out" and the community trajectory becomes clearer