Webinar: Re-imagining Foothills Forests: Young, Complex and in Flux

/

Learn the final research findings and next steps of the Fire Regime Team in this presentation from the Landscapes in Motion Online Workshop.

Re-imagining Foothills Forests: Young, Complex and in Flux

Cameron E. Naficy (presenter) and Lori E. Daniels

Recorded on Oct. 22, 2020 at the Landscapes in Motion Online Workshop

In this presentation for the Landscapes in Motion Online Workshop, Cameron Naficy and Lori Daniels present the reconstructed fire histories of sites within two main study zones within the LIM study area: the Douglas-fir zone and the lodgepole pine zone. They found widespread evidence of mixed-severity fire regimes that varied over time and across the landscape, and high fire frequencies that contrasted with the typical expectation of longer-interval, stand-replacing fires. They discussed the implications of these findings for landscape and ecosystem resilience of Alberta’s Foothills.

Findings covered include:

  • Patch-level forest cover types that they observed in the study sites

  • Evidence of very frequent fire across the landscape

  • Variable severity fire across all forest types in the Alberta Foothills

  • Contrasting mixed-severity fire regimes for the Douglas-fir zone and the lodgepole pine zone

  • Landscape dynamics of the lodgepole pine and Douglas-fir zones

  • Evidence of the importance of Indigenous fire use in shaping fire regimes and landscape resilience