Wildfire - The Nature Of Wildfire, Post-fire Succession, Management Of Fires
communities ecological climax affecting
Wildfire is a periodic ecological disturbance, associated with the rapid combustion of much of the biomass of an ecosystem. Once ignited by lightning or by humans, the biomass oxidizes as an uncontrolled blaze, until the fire either runs out of fuel or is quenched. Wildfire is best known as a force affecting forests, although savanna, chaparral, prairie, and tundra also burn. A large wildfire can kill mature trees over an extensive area, after which a process of ecological recovery ensures, called secondary succession. Fire can be an important factor affecting the nature of ecological communities. In the absence of wildfire or other catastrophic disturbances, relatively stable, climax communities tend to develop on the landscape, the nature of which is determined by climate, soil, and the participating biota. However, intervening wildfires can arrest this process, so that the climax or other late-successional communities are not reached.
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Wildfire is especially frequent in ecosystems that experience seasonal drought, for example, boreal forests, temperate pine forests, tall-grass prairie, chaparral, and savannah. Wildfires can be very extensive, and in aggregate they affect tremendous areas of landscape each year. For example, an average of about 8 million acres (3 million ha) of forest burns each year in Canada, and in some years …
When an ecosystem is disrupted by a wildfire, it can quickly suffer an intensive mortality of its dominant species, along with disruptions of its physical ecological structure and other damages. However, except in the case of rare, extremely intense fires, some plants survive the disturbance, and these can contribute to the post-fire regeneration that immediately begins. Plant species vary greatly…
Sometimes, to achieve particular ecological objectives, fire may be used as a tool in ecosystem management. The use of prescribed burns to maintain prairie was previously described, but similar practices have also been used to manage other ecological communities, and even some species. For example, prescribed burning is an essential component of the management strategy used to maintain an appropri…
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