Although mixed-severity fires are among the most widespread disturbances influencing western North American forests, they remain the least understood. A major question is the degree to which mixed-severity fire regimes are simply an ecological intermediate between lowand high-severity fire regimes, versus a unique disturbance regime with distinct properties. The Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains of so...

Landscape managers increasingly draw on indigenous practices of controlled burning to develop vegetation heterogeneity and reduce fuel loads, thereby avoiding extensive and destructive fires. However, anthropogenic fire is also commonly represented as a primary driver of environmental change, which in some places has led to an emphasis on heavy-handed fire suppression rather than fire managemen...

Fire and insects are natural disturbance agents in many forest ecosystems, often interacting to affect succession, nutrient cycling, and forest species composition. We review literature pertaining to effects of fire-insect interactions on ecological succession, use of prescribed fire for insect pest control, and effects of fire on insect diversity from northern and boreal forests in North Ameri...

Natural disturbance is one of the major topics in forest ecology. However, most paleoecological studies have only considered the influence of wildfire as an agent of disturbance, with fire history based primarily on the use of charcoal as a proxy for fire events. The frequency and intensity of insect outbreaks and their effect on the forest landscape have been neglected due to the absence of an...

Early climate change ideas warned of widespread species extinctions. As scientists have probed more deeply into species responses, a more nuanced perspective emerged indicating that some species may persist in microrefugia (refugia), including in mountainous terrain. Refugia are habitats that buffer climate changes and allow species to persist in—and to potentially expand under—changing environ...

A. Introduction: General Concepts of Disturbance Disturbance has been defined as "any relatively discrete event that disrupts ecosystem, community, or population structure and changes resources, substrate availability, or the physical environment" (P ickett and W hite 1985). The size, intensity, frequency, and timing of a d isturbance all influence ecosystem structure and function. Generally, n...

A collaboration between simulationists and scientists working on fire spread and ecology led to the design of a 3D visualization tool. This tool is a post-processor which can be linked to existing discrete event fire spread models. An object-oriented analysis and design has been retained to produce flexible open source software. The tool developed can produce realistic 3D landscape rendering of...

Wildfire in California annual grasslands is an important ecological disturbance and ecosystem control. Regional and global climate changes that affect aboveground biomass will alter fire-related nutrient loading and promote increased frequency and severity of fire in these systems. This can have longterm impacts on soil microbial dynamics and nutrient cycling, particularly in N-limited systems ...