Distinguishing disturbance from perturbations in fire-prone ecosystems
Jon E. Keeley A B D and Juli G. Pausas C
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A US Geological Survey, Western Ecological Research Center, Sequoia–Kings Canyon Field Station, Three Rivers, CA 93271, USA.
B Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.
C Centro de Investigaciones sobre Desertificación, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientíticas (CIDE-CSIC), Carretera CV-315, km 10.7, Montcada, Valencia, Spain.
D Corresponding author. Email: jon_keeley@usgs.gov
International Journal of Wildland Fire 28(4) 282-287 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF18203
Submitted: 23 November 2018 Accepted: 21 March 2019 Published: 18 April 2019
Abstract
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.
Additional keywords: human impacts, invasive species, patch dynamics, type conversion.
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