| Title: |
Mapping and exploring variation in post‐fire vegetation recovery following mixed severity wildfire using airborne Li DAR |
| Authors: |
Gordon, Christopher E.; Price, Owen F.; Tasker, Elizabeth M. |
| Contributors: |
NSW Office of Environment and Heritage |
| Source: |
Ecological Applications ; volume 27, issue 5, page 1618-1632 ; ISSN 1051-0761 1939-5582 |
| Publisher Information: |
Wiley |
| Publication Year: |
2017 |
| Collection: |
Wiley Online Library (Open Access Articles via Crossref) |
| Description: |
There is a public perception that large high‐severity wildfires decrease biodiversity and increase fire hazard by homogenizing vegetation composition and increasing the cover of mid‐story vegetation. But a growing literature suggests that vegetation responses are nuanced. Li DAR technology provides a promising remote sensing tool to test hypotheses about post‐fire vegetation regrowth because vegetation cover can be quantified within different height strata at fine scales over large areas. We assess the usefulness of airborne Li DAR data for measuring post‐fire mid‐story vegetation regrowth over a range of spatial resolutions (10 × 10 m, 30 × 30 m, 50 × 50 m, 100 × 100 m cell size) and investigate the effect of fire severity on regrowth amount and spatial pattern following a mixed severity wildfire in Warrumbungle National Park, Australia. We predicted that recovery would be more vigorous in areas of high fire severity, because park managers observed dense post‐fire regrowth in these areas. Moderate to strong positive associations were observed between Li DAR and field surveys of mid‐story vegetation cover between 0.5–3.0 m. Thus our Li DAR survey was an apt representation of on‐ground vegetation cover. Li DAR ‐derived mid‐story vegetation cover was 22–40% lower in areas of low and moderate than high fire severity. Linear mixed‐effects models showed that fire severity was among the strongest biophysical predictors of mid‐story vegetation cover irrespective of spatial resolution. However much of the variance associated with these models was unexplained, presumably because soil seed banks varied at finer scales than our Li DAR maps. Dense patches of mid‐story vegetation regrowth were small (median size 0.01 ha) and evenly distributed between areas of low, moderate and high fire severity, demonstrating that high‐severity fires do not homogenize vegetation cover. Our results are relevant for ecosystem conservation and fire management because they: indicate that native vegetation are responsive and resilient ... |
| Document Type: |
article in journal/newspaper |
| Language: |
English |
| DOI: |
10.1002/eap.1555 |
| Availability: |
https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.1555; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1002%2Feap.1555; https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/eap.1555 |
| Rights: |
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/termsAndConditions#vor |
| Accession Number: |
edsbas.1007E73B |
| Database: |
BASE |