Fire Webinar | Effects of Fire on Biodiversity
Welcome from the Chair
2nd Fire Webinar
Effects of Fire on Biodiversity
Join us for a journey through the effects of fire on ecology and diversity in the Arizona Sky Islands, the South American savanna, and north-central Appalachia. Fire is an important driver of community and landscape change and contributes to changes in biological diversity. Historical fire regimes vary across ecosystems, and it has been suggested that consideration of historical fire regimes improves our ability to anticipate effects of disturbance on ecological communities. Fire may occur frequently as an important contributor to ecosystem health while in other systems, fires were historically rare or even absent. In recent decades we have seen an increase in fire occurrence globally because of a warming climate where more areas become available to burn. Increased human population pressure, altering ecology and igniting or suppressing fires, and invasive species are other drivers of changing fire regimes. In this webinar we discuss effects of fire on diversity and address ecological concepts developed to generalize relationships between fire effects and biodiversity, including several diversity measures, the pyro-diversity concept, and the Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis (IDH). At the end of the webinar we invite questions from the audience and discuss future research directions related to effects of fire on biodiversity.
Date: 30 August 2022
Time: 9:00pm CEST | 3:00pm EDT | 3:00am CST Asia | 12:00pm PDT
Webinar ID: 836 4255 4869
Webinar Secretariat: fire.webinar@mdpi.com
Chair
Dr. Eva Strand is an Associate Professor of Landscape Ecology at the Department of Forest, Rangeland, and Fire Sciences at the University of Idaho. She has a PhD in Natural Resources from the University of Idaho. She teaches landscape ecology and rangeland ecology. Eva’s research documents effects of fire on plant communities, habitat, and landscapes in western US rangelands and forests with a focus on landscape-scale dynamics in sagebrush steppe, juniper woodlands, and aspen woodlands. She uses field reconnaissance, GIS, remote sensing, and spatial analysis to document landscape change and changing fire regimes.
Invited Speakers
Dr. Poulos is a plant ecologist who examines the influences of natural and anthropogenic disturbances on local-, landscape-, and regional-scale plant distribution patterns. Helen's work explores the mechanisms underscoring such patterns through the lenses of plant ecophysiology, biogeochemistry, and community ecology. The overarching goal of Professor Poulos' research is to understand spatiotemporal patterns of plant diversity and community organization as well as examining the relationships between humans and ecosystem function. She has worked in diverse ecosystems including forests, deserts, rivers, and estuaries across North America and has field expertise in fire ecology, rapid assessments, restoration ecology, coastal marine carbon sequestration, and aquatic community dynamics.
Raised in the southern Appalachians, Andrew Barton is a forest and fire ecologist, science writer, and professor of biology. His research focuses on forest response to changing climate and wildfire in the mountains of the Southwest. His current projects focus on an endangered plant, fire management in national parks, and the use of the new ECOSTRESS instrument on the International Space Station to predict vegetation recovery after wildfires. Drew is the author of the award-winning book, The Changing Nature of the Maine Woods, and Ecology and Recovery of Old-growth Forests in Eastern North America. He co-founded the Michigan National Forest Watch and the UMF Sustainable Campus Coalition and was a board member of the Mt. Blue-Tumbledown Conservation Alliance, which protected 30,000 acres of forestland in western Maine. He teaches courses on ecology, conservation, and forests, as well as a travel course on the ecology of Costa Rica.
Landscape ecology is my work passion, together with fire ecology, spatial analysis and modelling for biodiversity conservation. I will keep contributing to the understanding of ecological processes across multiple organizational levels and scales. My research interests focus mostly on tropical landscapes that are hotspots of deforestation and fragmentation. # fire ecology, deforestation, LULC, fragmentation, ecosystem assessments, ES, conservation biology, biodiversity, spatial ecology, policy.
Dr. Roger A. Williams is Associate Professor of Forest Management & Wildland Fire Science. His research focused on use of fire to manage oak forest systems, wildland fire behavior, forest carbon management for climate change mitigation, modeling of forest growth and yield and forest ecosystem processes, quantitative silviculture and forest ecology, forest density management and control, forest stand dynamics and their manipulation, and silvicultural systems.
Webinar Content
Program
|
Speaker/Presentation |
Time in PDT |
Time in CEST |
|
Chair Dr. Eva Strand Welcome to the Effects of Fire on Biodiversity Webinar |
12:00 - 12:10 pm |
9:00 - 9:10 pm |
|
Dr. Helen Poulus and Dr. Andrew Barton Fire Effects on Madrean Sky Island Forest Community Composition and Diversity |
12:10 - 12:40 pm |
9:10 - 9:40 pm |
|
Dr. Dolors Armenteras Fire Reduces Neotropical Forest Diversity in Northernmost South American Savannas |
12:40 – 1:00 pm |
9:40 - 10:00 pm |
|
Dr. Roger Williams Effects of Wildfire and the Presence of the Invasive Paulownia tomentosa on the Regeneration of Native Tree Species in North-Central Appalachia |
1:00 – 1:20 pm |
10:00 - 10:20 pm |
|
Q&A |
1:20 - 1:40 pm |
10:20 - 10:40 pm |
|
Closing of Webinar Chair Dr. Eva Strand |
1:40 - 1:45 pm |
10:40 - 10:45 pm |
Relevant SI
Guest Editors: Dr. Eva K. Strand and Dr. Darcy H. Hammond
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 October 2022
Sponsors and Partners
Organizers
