 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
||
|
|
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||||
|
Fire Ecology Like most Mediterranean areas of the world, fire is a dominant element of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area due to extremely flammable shrubland vegetation and the annual occurrence of extreme fire weather. Urbanization within this fire-prone ecosystem has increased the frequency with which large fires occur and affects both public safety and native biodiversity. Through the California Mediterranean Research Learning Center (CMRLC), scientists and researchers have outstanding opportunities to study high-intensity crown fires occurring at the wildland urban interface and provide critically needed information about fire effects on diversity, ecological processes, ecosystem threats, resource management, and hazard mitigation strategies.
Current Research
• Plant physiological ecology studies of water relations, rooting patterns, and drought tolerance in native shrubs with different post-fire reproductive strategies
• The effect of short inter-fire intervals resulting from increased fire frequencies on native shrub persistence
• The use of prescribed fire to control exotic grasses and facilitate restoration of native grasses, shrubs, and oaks
• Relationship between firebreaks and patterns of exotic species invasions
• Analysis of existing vegetation patterns, terrain, and development patterns to determine where the greatest wildfire hazards are and where the best opportunities exist to improve fire safety and preserve natural resources
Research Opportunities
• Ongoing work with historic vegetation survey data and historic aerial photography combined with results of a new vegetation map
• Documenting of the effects of historic land use and fire regimes on modern vegetation patterns and vegetation dynamics
• Resampling historic vegetation plots of the 1930 US Forest Service Vegetation Type Map survey
• Documenting how past disturbance regimes influenced current vegetation patterns
• Improving the quality of our GIS-based fire history and natural history databases for use by academic and professional colleagues
• Using our new vegetation map and derived products of our fire history database as inputs to predictive models (the Vegetation Dynamics Development Tool and FlamMap) to forecast future states of our landscape, prioritize future management actions, and identify opportunities to mitigate the worst hazards in an efficient, cost effective, and ecologically sensitive manner
|
|
|
|||||||||||
|
Brush Fire
