Webinar: Forest Changes Near and Far and "Restoration" in the Context of Changing Climate
Channel: Conservation and Adaptation Resources Toolbox
Date: 01/07/2015

Desert LCC Webinar: Forest Changes Near and Far and “Restoration” in the Context of Changing Climate

DATE: Wednesday, May 13, 2015
TIME: 10 AM Pacific Daylight Time (Arizona) / 11 AM Mountain Daylight Time / 12 PM Central Daylight Time (Mexico City) / 1 PM Eastern Daylight Time

Presenter: Craig D. Allen, Research Ecologist, U.S. Geological Survey

Abstract:
Extensive high-severity wildfires and drought-induced tree mortality have intensified over the last two decades in southwestern US forests and woodlands, on a scale unseen regionally since at least pre-1900. Abundant and diverse paleo-ecological and historical sources indicate substantial variability in Southwest fire regimes and forest patterns over the past ~10,000 years, providing context for recent fire trends. In particular, over the past ~150 years regional forest landscapes and fire regimes have responded sensitively, strongly, and in understandable ways to changes in human land management, as well as to interactions with climate variability and trends. Woody plant establishment and growth surged markedly during favorable periods in the 1900s, fostered by several wet climate windows in concert with effective fire suppression, such that by the early 1990s many Southwest forests likely had “fluffed up” to near maximum potential levels of tree density, leaf area, and biomass/carbon storage – levels that are proving to be unsustainable with the return of decadal-scale drought since ca. 2000. New research demonstrates the increasing role of hotter temperatures in amplifying widespread drought-induced tree mortality, insect outbreaks, and greater fire sizes and severities regionally in the Southwest, as well as globally. Disturbance drivers and cascading ecological effects of these landscape changes are presented, along with adaptation approaches to enhance ecosystem resilience in the context of Southwest climate trends and projected future conditions.

About the Presenter: 
Craig D. Allen is a research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, and is Station Leader of the Jemez Mountains Field Station, based at Bandelier National Monument in northern New Mexico. He has worked as a place-based ecologist with the U.S. Dept. of Interior in the Jemez Mts. since 1986. Craig conducts research on the ecology and environmental history of Southwestern landscapes, and the responses of Western mountain ecosystems to climate change, and provides technical support in the areas of ecosystem management and restoration to land management agencies in the region. He is one of the core principal investigators of the USGS Western Mountain Initiative, an integration of research programs that study global change in mountain ecosystems of the western United States (see http://westernmountains.org), with extensive international collaborations. Recent and ongoing research activities, involving a variety of colleagues and collaborators, include: integrated understanding of climate-induced tree mortality and forest die-off, including determination of global patterns and trends; ecological and fire histories in the Southwest US; ecological and hydrological effects of recent fires on Southwestern landscapes; and ecological perspectives on management of Southwestern forests and woodlands. For more info see: https://www.fort.usgs.gov/science-feature/223 and for publications see Craig’s Google Scholar page.