Climate Change Refugia, Fire Ecology and Management
Abstract
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 environmental conditions. While climate and species interactions in refugia have been noted as sources of uncertainty, land management practices and disturbances, such as wildland fire, should also be considered when assessing any given refugium. Our landscape scale study suggests that cold-air pools, an important type of small-scale refugia, have unique fire occurrence, frequency, and severity patterns in frequent-fire mixed conifer forests of California's Sierra Nevada: Cold-air pool refugia have less fire and if it occurs, it is lower severity. Therefore, individuals and small populations are less likely to be extirpated by fire. Active management, such as restoration and fuels treatments for climate change adaptation, may be required to maintain these distinctive and potentially important refugia.
- Authors:
-
- Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1579921
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Forests
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 7; Journal Issue: 12; Journal ID: ISSN 1999-4907
- Publisher:
- MDPI
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; mixed conifer forest; arid forest; fire ecology; fire management; refugia; climate change; vulnerability
Citation Formats
Wilkin, Kate, Ackerly, David, and Stephens, Scott. Climate Change Refugia, Fire Ecology and Management. United States: N. p., 2016.
Web. doi:10.3390/f7040077.
Wilkin, Kate, Ackerly, David, & Stephens, Scott. Climate Change Refugia, Fire Ecology and Management. United States. https://doi.org/10.3390/f7040077
Wilkin, Kate, Ackerly, David, and Stephens, Scott. Wed .
"Climate Change Refugia, Fire Ecology and Management". United States. https://doi.org/10.3390/f7040077. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1579921.
@article{osti_1579921,
title = {Climate Change Refugia, Fire Ecology and Management},
author = {Wilkin, Kate and Ackerly, David and Stephens, Scott},
abstractNote = {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 environmental conditions. While climate and species interactions in refugia have been noted as sources of uncertainty, land management practices and disturbances, such as wildland fire, should also be considered when assessing any given refugium. Our landscape scale study suggests that cold-air pools, an important type of small-scale refugia, have unique fire occurrence, frequency, and severity patterns in frequent-fire mixed conifer forests of California's Sierra Nevada: Cold-air pool refugia have less fire and if it occurs, it is lower severity. Therefore, individuals and small populations are less likely to be extirpated by fire. Active management, such as restoration and fuels treatments for climate change adaptation, may be required to maintain these distinctive and potentially important refugia.},
doi = {10.3390/f7040077},
journal = {Forests},
number = 12,
volume = 7,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Mar 30 00:00:00 EDT 2016},
month = {Wed Mar 30 00:00:00 EDT 2016}
}
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
Other availability
Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal
Cited by: 31 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science
Web of Science
Save to My Library
You must Sign In or Create an Account in order to save documents to your library.
Works referenced in this record:
Canopy microclimate response to pattern and density of thinning in a Sierra Nevada forest
journal, January 2009
- Rambo, T. R.; North, M. P.
- Forest Ecology and Management, Vol. 257, Issue 2
Fire weather and large fire potential in the northern Sierra Nevada
journal, June 2014
- Collins, Brandon M.
- Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, Vol. 189-190
Operational approaches to managing forests of the future in Mediterranean regions within a context of changing climates
journal, April 2010
- Stephens, Scott L.; Millar, Constance I.; Collins, Brandon M.
- Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 5, Issue 2
Effects of prescribed fire on a Sierra Nevada (California, USA) stream and its riparian zone
journal, October 2005
- Bêche, Leah A.; Stephens, Scott L.; Resh, Vincent H.
- Forest Ecology and Management, Vol. 218, Issue 1-3
Interactive Effects of fire and Microhabitat on Plants of Florida Scrub
journal, November 1998
- Menges, Eric S.; Hawkes, Christine V.
- Ecological Applications, Vol. 8, Issue 4
Calibration and validation of the relative differenced Normalized Burn Ratio (RdNBR) to three measures of fire severity in the Sierra Nevada and Klamath Mountains, California, USA
journal, March 2009
- Miller, Jay D.; Knapp, Eric E.; Key, Carl H.
- Remote Sensing of Environment, Vol. 113, Issue 3
Climate change and wildfire in California
journal, December 2007
- Westerling, A. L.; Bryant, B. P.
- Climatic Change, Vol. 87, Issue S1
Basic principles of forest fuel reduction treatments
journal, June 2005
- Agee, James K.; Skinner, Carl N.
- Forest Ecology and Management, Vol. 211, Issue 1-2
Prefire heterogeneity, fire severity, and early postfire plant reestablishment in subalpine forests of Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
journal, January 1999
- Turner, Monica G.; Romme, William H.; Gardner, Robert H.
- International Journal of Wildland Fire, Vol. 9, Issue 1
Climate and Wildfire in the Western United States
journal, May 2003
- Westerling, A. L.; Gershunov, A.; Brown, T. J.
- Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 84, Issue 5
Fire-climate interactions in the American West since 1400 CE: FIRE-CLIMATE INTERACTIONS
journal, February 2010
- Trouet, Valerie; Taylor, Alan H.; Wahl, Eugene R.
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 37, Issue 4
Wildfire and Native Fish: Issues of Forest Health and Conservation of Sensitive Species
journal, November 1997
- Rieman, Bruce; Clayton, Jim
- Fisheries, Vol. 22, Issue 11
Fingerprints of global warming on wild animals and plants
journal, January 2003
- Root, Terry L.; Price, Jeff T.; Hall, Kimberly R.
- Nature, Vol. 421, Issue 6918
Extinction risk from climate change
journal, January 2004
- Thomas, Chris D.; Cameron, Alison; Green, Rhys E.
- Nature, Vol. 427, Issue 6970
Early forest dynamics in stand-replacing fire patches in the northern Sierra Nevada, California, USA
journal, August 2013
- Collins, Brandon M.; Roller, Gary B.
- Landscape Ecology, Vol. 28, Issue 9
Comparative phylogeography and postglacial colonization routes in Europe
journal, April 1998
- Taberlet, Pierre; Fumagalli, Luca; Wust‐Saucy, Anne‐Gabrielle
- Molecular Ecology, Vol. 7, Issue 4
Interactions Among Wildland Fires in a Long-Established Sierra Nevada Natural Fire Area
journal, November 2008
- Collins, Brandon M.; Miller, Jay D.; Thode, Andrea E.
- Ecosystems, Vol. 12, Issue 1
Managing natural wildfires in Sierra Nevada wilderness areas
journal, December 2007
- Collins, Brandon M.; Stephens, Scott L.
- Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, Vol. 5, Issue 10
Floristic composition and variability of subalpine grasslands in the Mt Hotham region, north-eastern Victoria
journal, January 2001
- Wearne, L. J.; Morgan, J. W.
- Australian Journal of Botany, Vol. 49, Issue 6
Temperate and boreal forest mega-fires: characteristics and challenges
journal, March 2014
- Stephens, Scott L.; Burrows, Neil; Buyantuyev, Alexander
- Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, Vol. 12, Issue 2
Fire regimes, forest change, and self-organization in an old-growth mixed-conifer forest, Yosemite National Park, USA
journal, March 2010
- Scholl, Andrew E.; Taylor, Alan H.
- Ecological Applications, Vol. 20, Issue 2
Refugia: identifying and understanding safe havens for biodiversity under climate change: Identifying and understanding refugia
journal, June 2011
- Keppel, Gunnar; Van Niel, Kimberly P.; Wardell-Johnson, Grant W.
- Global Ecology and Biogeography, Vol. 21, Issue 4
Automated algorithm for mapping regions of cold-air pooling in complex terrain
journal, January 2008
- Lundquist, Jessica D.; Pepin, Nicholas; Rochford, Caitlin
- Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 113, Issue D22
Chloroplast DNA variation in European white oaks
journal, February 2002
- Petit, Rémy J.; Csaikl, Ulrike M.; Bordács, Sándor
- Forest Ecology and Management, Vol. 156, Issue 1-3
Fire as a global ‘herbivore’: the ecology and evolution of flammable ecosystems
journal, July 2005
- Bond, W.; Keeley, J.
- Trends in Ecology & Evolution, Vol. 20, Issue 7
Incorporating climate change into systematic conservation planning
journal, March 2012
- Groves, Craig R.; Game, Edward T.; Anderson, Mark G.
- Biodiversity and Conservation, Vol. 21, Issue 7
Recruitment patterns and growth of high-elevation pines in response to climatic variability (1883–2013), in the western Great Basin, USA
journal, October 2015
- Millar, Constance I.; Westfall, Robert D.; Delany, Diane L.
- Canadian Journal of Forest Research, Vol. 45, Issue 10
Local atmospheric decoupling in complex topography alters climate change impacts
journal, January 2009
- Daly, Christopher; Conklin, David R.; Unsworth, Michael H.
- International Journal of Climatology
The influence of surface versus free-air decoupling on temperature trend patterns in the western United States
journal, January 2011
- Pepin, N. C.; Daly, C.; Lundquist, J.
- Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 116, Issue D10
How much influence does landscape-scale physiography have on air temperature in a mountain environment?
journal, October 2009
- Dobrowski, Solomon Z.; Abatzoglou, John T.; Greenberg, Jonathan A.
- Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, Vol. 149, Issue 10
Long-term dynamics of fire refuges in boreal mixedwood forests: LONG-TERM DYNAMICS OF FIRE REFUGES
journal, January 2014
- Ouarmim, Samira; Asselin, Hugo; HÉLy, Christelle
- Journal of Quaternary Science, Vol. 29, Issue 2
A climatic basis for microrefugia: the influence of terrain on climate: A CLIMATIC BASIS FOR MICROREFUGIA
journal, January 2011
- Dobrowski, Solomon Z.
- Global Change Biology, Vol. 17, Issue 2
A decision framework for considering climate change adaptation in biodiversity conservation planning
journal, November 2012
- Oliver, Tom H.; Smithers, Richard J.; Bailey, Sallie
- Journal of Applied Ecology, Vol. 49, Issue 6
Quantifying burn severity in a heterogeneous landscape with a relative version of the delta Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR)
journal, July 2007
- Miller, Jay D.; Thode, Andrea E.
- Remote Sensing of Environment, Vol. 109, Issue 1
Effects of ecological continuity on species richness and composition in forests and woodlands: A review
journal, March 2014
- Nordén, Björn; Dahlberg, Anders; Brandrud, Tor Erik
- Écoscience, Vol. 21, Issue 1
Refugia: keys to climate change management
journal, July 2012
- Keppel, Gunnar; Wardell-Johnson, Grant W.
- Global Change Biology, Vol. 18, Issue 8
Climate change and the migration capacity of species
journal, March 2006
- Pearson, R.
- Trends in Ecology & Evolution, Vol. 21, Issue 3
Distribution of residual vegetation associated with large fires in Alberta
journal, October 1987
- Eberhart, Kevin E.; Woodard, Paul M.
- Canadian Journal of Forest Research, Vol. 17, Issue 10
Spatial Controls of Historical fire Regimes: a Multiscale Example from the Interior West, usa
journal, March 2001
- Heyerdahl, Emily K.; Brubaker, Linda B.; Agee, James K.
- Ecology, Vol. 82, Issue 3
The climate velocity of the contiguous United States during the 20th century
journal, October 2012
- Dobrowski, Solomon Z.; Abatzoglou, John; Swanson, Alan K.
- Global Change Biology, Vol. 19, Issue 1
ECOLOGY: Enhanced: Quaternary Refugia and Persistence of Biodiversity
journal, September 2002
- Taberlet, P.
- Science, Vol. 297, Issue 5589
Multi-scale controls of historical forest-fire regimes: new insights from fire-scar networks
journal, October 2011
- Falk, Donald A.; Heyerdahl, Emily K.; Brown, Peter M.
- Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, Vol. 9, Issue 8
Climate change and disruptions to global fire activity
journal, June 2012
- Moritz, Max A.; Parisien, Marc-André; Batllori, Enric
- Ecosphere, Vol. 3, Issue 6
Climate change-induced shifts in fire for Mediterranean ecosystems: Fire shifts in Mediterranean ecosystems
journal, June 2013
- Batllori, Enric; Parisien, Marc-André; Krawchuk, Meg A.
- Global Ecology and Biogeography, Vol. 22, Issue 10
Frost hollows of the boreal forest as extreme environments for black spruce tree growth
journal, February 2007
- Dy, Goulwen; Payette, Serge
- Canadian Journal of Forest Research, Vol. 37, Issue 2
Fire history of coniferous riparian forests in the Sierra Nevada
journal, June 2010
- Van de Water, Kip; North, Malcolm
- Forest Ecology and Management, Vol. 260, Issue 3
Severity of an uncharacteristically large wildfire, the Rim Fire, in forests with relatively restored frequent fire regimes
journal, September 2014
- Lydersen, Jamie M.; North, Malcolm P.; Collins, Brandon M.
- Forest Ecology and Management, Vol. 328
Differences in wildfires among ecoregions and land management agencies in the Sierra Nevada region, California, USA
journal, September 2012
- Miller, Jay D.; Collins, Brandon M.; Lutz, James A.
- Ecosphere, Vol. 3, Issue 9
Climate Change and Forests of the Future: Managing in the face of Uncertainty
journal, December 2007
- Millar, Constance I.; Stephenson, Nathan L.; Stephens, Scott L.
- Ecological Applications, Vol. 17, Issue 8
Spatial Heterogeneity in Ecologically Important Climate Variables at Coarse and Fine Scales in a High-Snow Mountain Landscape
journal, June 2013
- Ford, Kevin R.; Ettinger, Ailene K.; Lundquist, Jessica D.
- PLoS ONE, Vol. 8, Issue 6
The velocity of climate change
journal, December 2009
- Loarie, Scott R.; Duffy, Philip B.; Hamilton, Healy
- Nature, Vol. 462, Issue 7276
Immediate Effects of Wildfire on Stream Temperature
journal, March 2003
- Hitt, Nathaniel P.
- Journal of Freshwater Ecology, Vol. 18, Issue 1
Managing Forests and Fire in Changing Climates
journal, October 2013
- Stephens, S. L.; Agee, J. K.; Fulé, P. Z.
- Science, Vol. 342, Issue 6154
Stand structure, fuel loads, and fire behavior in riparian and upland forests, Sierra Nevada Mountains, USA; a comparison of current and reconstructed conditions
journal, July 2011
- Van de Water, Kip; North, Malcolm
- Forest Ecology and Management, Vol. 262, Issue 2
Fire History and Climate Change in Giant Sequoia Groves
journal, November 1993
- Swetnam, T. W.
- Science, Vol. 262, Issue 5135
Glacial Refugia: Hotspots But Not Melting Pots of Genetic Diversity
journal, June 2003
- Petit, R. J.
- Science, Vol. 300, Issue 5625
Surface temperature patterns in complex terrain: Daily variations and long-term change in the central Sierra Nevada, California
journal, January 2007
- Lundquist, Jessica D.; Cayan, Daniel R.
- Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 112, Issue D11
The national Fire and Fire Surrogate study: effects of fuel reduction methods on forest vegetation structure and fuels
journal, March 2009
- Schwilk, Dylan W.; Keeley, Jon E.; Knapp, Eric E.
- Ecological Applications, Vol. 19, Issue 2
Exploring the onset of high-impact mega-fires through a forest land management prism
journal, April 2013
- Williams, Jerry
- Forest Ecology and Management, Vol. 294
Predicting late-successional fire refugia pre-dating European settlement in the Wenatchee Mountains
journal, July 1997
- Camp, Ann; Oliver, Chad; Hessburg, Paul
- Forest Ecology and Management, Vol. 95, Issue 1
Ecological responses to recent climate change
journal, March 2002
- Walther, Gian-Reto; Post, Eric; Convey, Peter
- Nature, Vol. 416, Issue 6879
Works referencing / citing this record:
Wildfire impacts on California spotted owl nesting habitat in the Sierra Nevada
journal, November 2016
- Stephens, Scott L.; Miller, Jay D.; Collins, Brandon M.
- Ecosphere, Vol. 7, Issue 11
Topographic and fire weather controls of fire refugia in forested ecosystems of northwestern North America
journal, December 2016
- Krawchuk, Meg A.; Haire, Sandra L.; Coop, Jonathan
- Ecosphere, Vol. 7, Issue 12
Contributions of fire refugia to resilient ponderosa pine and dry mixed‐conifer forest landscapes
journal, July 2019
- Coop, Jonathan D.; DeLory, Timothy J.; Downing, William M.
- Ecosphere, Vol. 10, Issue 7
Fire Refugia: What Are They, and Why Do They Matter for Global Change?
journal, October 2018
- Meddens, Arjan J. H.; Kolden, Crystal A.; Lutz, James A.
- BioScience
Climatic microrefugia under anthropogenic climate change: implications for species redistribution
journal, December 2016
- Lenoir, Jonathan; Hattab, Tarek; Pierre, Guillaume
- Ecography, Vol. 40, Issue 2
Alternative stable equilibria and critical thresholds created by fire regimes and plant responses in a fire‐prone community
journal, August 2018
- Miller, Adam D.; Thompson, Jonathan R.; Tepley, Alan J.
- Ecography, Vol. 42, Issue 1
Hydrologic refugia, plants, and climate change
journal, March 2017
- McLaughlin, Blair C.; Ackerly, David D.; Klos, P. Zion
- Global Change Biology, Vol. 23, Issue 8
Vulnerability to forest loss through altered postfire recovery dynamics in a warming climate in the Klamath Mountains
journal, April 2017
- Tepley, Alan J.; Thompson, Jonathan R.; Epstein, Howard E.
- Global Change Biology, Vol. 23, Issue 10
Still standing: Recent patterns of post-fire conifer refugia in ponderosa pine-dominated forests of the Colorado Front Range
journal, January 2020
- Chapman, Teresa B.; Schoennagel, Tania; Veblen, Thomas T.
- PLOS ONE, Vol. 15, Issue 1
Cybaeus (Araneae: Cybaeidae): the aspenicolens species group of the Californian clade
journal, February 2021
- Bennett, Robb; Copley, Claudia; Copley, Darren
- Zootaxa, Vol. 4926, Issue 2
Still standing: Recent patterns of post-fire conifer refugia in ponderosa pine-dominated forests of the Colorado Front Range
journal, January 2020
- Chapman, Teresa B.; Schoennagel, Tania; Veblen, Thomas T.
- PLOS ONE, Vol. 15, Issue 1