Plant-Fire Interactions

This book provides a unique exploration of the inter-relationships between the science of plant environmental responses and the understanding and management of forest fires. It bridges the gap between plant ecologists, interested in the functional and evolutionary consequences of fire in ecosystems, with foresters and fire managers, interested in effectively reducing fire hazard and damage. This innovation in this study lies in its focus on the physiological responses of plants that are of relevance for predicting forest fire risk, behaviour and management. It covers the evolutionary trade-offs in the resistance of plants to fire and drought, and its implications for predicting fuel moisture and fire risk; the importance of floristics and plant traits, in interaction with landform and atmospheric conditions, to successfully predict fire behaviour, and provides recommendations for pre- and post- fire management, in relation with the functional composition of the community. The book will be particularly focused on examples from Mediterranean environments, but the underlying principles will be of broader utility.

Autorentext

The author works as a Professor at the School of Life Sciences and Engineering at Southwest University for Science and Technology and a Research Scientist at the Joint Research Unit CTFC-Agrotecnio and University of Lleida.

Inhalt
Section 1: Introduction This first section will provide an introduction. 

Chapter 1: Forest Fires as a Global Phenomenon

This chapter will start with the basics of combustion and will go on to explain the importance of fire at a global scale and, with more emphasis, on the Mediterranean Basin. It will provide also an introduction to all the aspects covered in this book. 

Chapter 2: Fire as an Earth System Process

I will use an Earth Systems approach to present how fire interacts with and shapes atmospheric chemistry and biogeochemical cycling. I will briefly describe the effects of fire on the geological history of the Earth, starting with the occurrence of the first vascular plants in the Silurian-Devonian, and ending with its current role as a major source of CO2 emissions.

Chapter 3: Evolution of the Mediterranean Flora in a Flammable Planet

Forest fires have been present on the evolutionary history of land plants since they first appeared. Other processes such as drought have a much more recent origin. This chapter will briefly cover the role of fire, in relation to other stresses and disturbances, as drivers of the evolution of the Mediterranean flora. 

Chapter 4: Fire Regimes across Space

This chapter will describe what the fire regime is, and the spatial distribution of fire regimes globally. It will also cover how fire regimes interact with the functional ecology of plants to determine realized plant trait abundances and distributions at biogeographical scales. 

Section 2: Organismal and Ecosystem Responses to Forests Fires

This second section discusses the effects of forest fires on soils, plants and communities 

Chapter 5: Effects of Forest Fires on Soil Processes and Organisms

Fire plays a major role in affecting soils. It alters erosion rates, nutrient availability and the distribution and availability of soil microorganisms and biota. These will be the aspects covered in this chapter. Particular attention will be paid to microbes, as this is probably the aspect covered the least by the literature so far. 

Chapter 6: Plant Traits and Forest Fires

This chapter will cover the different traits present in plant species in relation to forest fires. This will cover both, how plant traits affect the flammability of ecosystems and landscapes, and the traits necessary for post-fire survival. 

Chapter 7: Forest Succession, Alternative States and Fire-Vegetation Feedbacks

This chapter will present an account of forest dynamics in the face of disturbance: a brief description of the different hypotheses on forest succession and the different models to predict post- fire vegetation dynamics. Particular attention will be given to the occurrence of alternative states after fire and on fire-vegetation stabilizing/de-stabilising feedbacks

Section 3: The Physiology of Forest Fuels

This section is the first of the more applied sections, as it describes fuels and their dynamic nature. However, a novel treatment of the issue is intended by linking physiological and functional ecology with seasonal and annual changes in fuel load and in fuel dryness, amongst others.

Chapter 8: Plant Carbon Economies and the Dynamics of Forest Fuels

This chapter begins by describing the different fuel types and their leaf-to-stand scale flammability, based upon the different traits and carbon economies of the different ecosystem components (building from chapter 6). This will also provide the basis for understanding the interactions between water and carbon balances in plants, and the different growth strategies of Mediterranean species (building from chapter 6) 

Chapter 9: Environmental Plant Responses and Forest Fire Risk

This chapter will: explain the nature of plant water relations, and how they relate to live fuel moisture dynamics; discuss the nature of water adsorption/desorption from hygroscopic surfaces, and how they relate to dead fuel moisture; present the different indices available of forest fire risk and test them or present improvements upon the basis of our understanding of the processes affecting live and dead fuel moisture.

Chapter 10: Plant Survival after FireThis section covers the mechanisms o...