Fire and Invasive Plants Special FeatureResistance to Invasion and Resilience to Fire in Desert Shrublands of North America
Section snippets
INTRODUCTION
Plant invasions and their interactions with fire regimes are recognized as threats to biodiversity and other natural resources worldwide (Brooks et al. 2004). In the desert regions of North America, invasive plants have altered fire regimes, which, in many cases, have resulted in large-scale conversions of native plant communities to invasive plant dominance (D’Antonio and Vitousek 1992; Brooks et al. 2004). These changes are affecting ecological processes including water cycles (Wilcox and
RESISTANCE TO PLANT INVASIONS AND RESILIENCE TO FIRE
We define ecological resistance to plant invasion as a function of the biotic and abiotic factors and ecological processes in an ecosystem that limit the establishment and population growth of an invading species (D’Antonio and Thomsen 2004). We define ecological resilience to fire as the amount of disturbance that an ecosystem can withstand before changes in processes and structures occur that are of sufficient magnitude to result in new alternative states (Holling 1973; Gunderson 2000).
PRESETTLEMENT AND CURRENT FIRE REGIMES
The productivity and dominant life forms of the North American deserts affect fuels and fire behavior and, thus, the characteristics of both presettlement and current fire regimes. Desert ecosystems with relatively high productivity, like many middle to high elevation ecological types in cold desert shrublands, have relatively high fuel abundance and continuity, exhibited more frequent presettlement fires (Miller et al. 2011), and typically have many fire-tolerant species (Wright and Bailey 1982
MANAGEMENT TOOLS TO PREVENT THE INVASIVE PLANT/FIRE REGIME CYCLE
A core objective for managing invasive plants and fire regimes in desert ecosystems is maintaining or increasing ecological resistance to plant invasions and resilience to fire prior to threshold crossings and the initiation of an invasive plant/fire regime cycle (D’Antonio and Chambers 2006; D’Antonio et al. 2009). Once a threshold has been crossed it is often ecologically and economically difficult, if not impossible, to return the system to its original state.
Managing for resistance to
MANAGEMENT IMPLICATIONS
Land managers often have limited financial and human resources and are faced with managing a wide range of natural, recreational, and economic resources that can be negatively affected by multiple threats. The effectiveness of land management can be improved by using ecological concepts that transcend individual resources and threats, distill interacting factors into a subset of manageable parts, and can be applied at a variety of scales. The concepts of ecological resistance to invasion and
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Helpful reviews were provided by K. Phillips, K. Pregitzer, E. Schupp, and three anonymous reviewers.
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2021, HeliyonCitation Excerpt :Tucson's rapid growth in recent decades has encroached on these highly valued desert ecosystems. The simultaneous introduction of non-native grasses, especially buffelgrass (Cenchrus ciliaris), has introduced wildfire to a previously fire-free landscape (Brooks and Chambers 2011; McDonald and McPherson 2011) and today poses a new threat to both desert ecosystems and the new inhabitants of the WUI. Buffelgrass, which originates from the African Savannah, was introduced into the United States as a forage grass for livestock but has since become an invasive species that threatens to displace native plant communities in the Sonoran Desert and other parts of Arizona and New Mexico (USDA Forest Service 2014).
This manuscript was supported by funding from the US Geological Survey, Great Basin Integrated Landscape Monitoring project, the US Geological Survey, Invasive Species Program, and the US Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. Much of the information that contributed to this paper was compiled and synthesized as part of project 00-1-2-04 funded by the Joint Fire Science Program.