Talk:Fire ecology
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Just as a notice, I am currently working on a full-scale revision of this page that will include an overview of peer-reviewed scientific research in fire ecology, case studies on the role that fire and fire suppression play in ecological communities, and current policies concerning fire. I expect to have a draft of the page ready by the end of January, and I look forward to members of the national and international community filling in the gaps I leave because of my western US bias. --Melpomene107 20:35, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
- Looking forward to it. --Allen 21:37, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Just as an update, what I have written for this page is currently undergoing peer review to ensure accuracy and readability. I expect it to be up soon. --Melpomene107 19:11, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I just put the first version up. I will be toying with the formatting for the next hour or so. If everyone is okay with this after a week, I will delete the old stub, the contents of which I included in my text.--Melpomene107 03:03, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I can't look at it anymore. Tweak away, and if you have pictures, that would be awesome! I don't want to deal with all of the copyright stuff. --Melpomene107 04:27, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
- Great job. Thanks for all your work. This was definitely a hole in Wikipedia's scope. --Allen 05:17, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
G'day Mel. thanks for picking up my stub and taking it on to the next stage. I got caught up with other things, like travelling to Laos. You have done a good job but I think it is too narrowly based. You acknowledge that you are coming from a Nth California perspective and have made brief reference to Fynbos of South Africa for instance but there are many more fire dependent ecosystems around the world which you could/should list. These can have very different responses to fire than Chapparal or conifer forests.) For example the Eucalypt forest of eastern Australia can show a quite different pattern of fire responses, such as greater predominance of serotiny, fire stimulated flowering, increased diversity after fire, seed hardness, ant/seed commensalism to mention a few.
I would strongly dispute your statement that "Fire-intolerant species tend to be highly flammable and completely destroyed by fire". Studies in leaf flammability with australian species (sorry I don't have the reference at hand) do not support this. Rainforest is the most important group that are often killed by fire but certainly do not have "highly flammable" leaves.
I also have a problem with you listing "Fire Severity" as a component of fire regime. I have not read Bond and Keeley but measurement of "severity" is so subjective that I question its value.
I would be happy to work with you to "broaden" the ambit of the entry but unfortunately I do not have any of my references here with me - Ironbark
I think there may be opportunity alter the plant responses from purely 'tolerant' and 'intolerant' as some species while being killed are highly adapted to fire (ie fire weeds or as Ironbark pointed out, the serotinous shrubs). I think tolerance to fire in a successional sense (ie fire intolerant communities such as rainforest) could be separated from response to fire in a reproductive sense (Ie how each species responds to fire, such as resprouting or reseeding). I've a few references, so will have a think about it. - Clovis Sangrail
I would like to broaden this a bit with what we are doing to restore forests to a more historical composition and structure in the Lake Tahoe Basin. Maybe another page would be more appropriate? Also someone needs to look at the statement that suggests mechanical treatments increase fire severity. Yes that was true when we were prescribing over story removal with lop and scatter of slash, but that is old school. Now we thin from below and either mechanically treat the slash or pile and burn the slash. Whole tree skidding and using stroke delimbers is really nice because we can use the logs for products and the slash for the cogeneration plant at the Nevada State Penitentiary. I can put fire back into a forest that has been properly treated and we only get negligible torching and scorching. I definitely have a northern California bias, maybe that should be a page so we can dive deeply into the science and controversies? 24.182.26.138 21:17, 3 February 2007 (UTC)John Pickett.
