Research Database
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Small-scale fire refugia increase soil bacterial and fungal richness and increase community cohesion nine years after fire
Year: 2025
Small-scale variation in wildfire behavior may cause large differences in belowground bacterial and fungal communities with consequences for belowground microbial diversity, community assembly, and function. Here we combine pre-fire, active-fire, and post-wildfire measurements in a mixed-conifer forest to identify how fine-scale wildfire behavior, unburned refugia, and aboveground forest structure are associated with belowground bacterial and fungal communities nine years after wildfire. We used fine-scale mapping of small (0.9–172.6 m2) refugia to sample soil-associated burned and…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Trailing edge contractions common in interior western US trees under varying disturbances
Year: 2025
As climate warms, trees are expected to track their ideal climate, referred to as ‘range shifts’; however, lags in tree range shifts are currently common. Disturbance events that kill trees may help catalyse tree migrations by removing biotic competition, but can also limit regeneration by eliminating seed sources, and it is unknown whether disturbance will facilitate or inhibit tree migrations in the face of climate change. Here we use national forest inventory data to show that seedlings of 15 dominant tree species in the interior western United States occupy historically cooler areas than…
Publication Type: Journal Article