These spatially extensive reconstructions of forest structure and fire severity show, for the first time, the substantial spatial heterogeneity in historical dry-forest landscapes that were commonly thought to have been rather uniform.
Variable-severity fires, including substantial high-severity fire, interacted with the variation in environmental setting over long time periods (e.g. Hessburg et al., 2007), to produce these structurally diverse dry-forest landscapes. Common management practices today include extensive, rather uniform reduction in tree density, removal of understorey shrubs and small trees, and other fuel modifications to lower fire severity. Our reconstructions show that these common practices, if widespread, will move most dry forests outside their historical range of variability, rather than restore them, probably with negative consequences for biological diversity (Keane et al., 2009).
Read or download the Global Ecology and Biogeography paper here.
And/or view its synopsis "Text, Lies and Photographs" in poster form here.
