Submitted By:: Mam Nausheen Fire As Ecological Factors Ecology

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Submitted By: Muhammad Zeeshan (07)

Rabia Hussain (01)

Fahmida Iqbal (06)

Alia Tehreem (42)

Sobia Akhtar (14)

Submitted To: Mam Nausheen


Topic: Fire as ecological factors

Course: Ecology

Semester: 1

Institute of pure and applied biology

Bahauddin Zakariya University (BZU) Multan


Fire as ecological factors

Fire ecology  is a scientific discipline


concerned with natural processes involving fire in an ecosystem and
the ecological effects, the interactions
between fire and the abiotic and biotic
components of an ecosystem, and the
role as an ecosystem process. Many
Ecosystems. particularly  prairie,
savanna, chaparral and coniferous
forests, have evolved with fire as an
essential contributor to habitat vitality
and renewal. Many plant species in fire-
affected environments require fire to germinate, establish, or to reproduce. Wildfire
suppression not only eliminates these species, but also the animals that depend
upon them .
Campaigns in the United States have historically molded public opinion to believe
that wildfires are always harmful to nature. This view is based on the outdated
beliefs that ecosystems progress toward an equilibrium and that any disturbance,
such as fire, disrupts the harmony of nature. More recent ecological research has
shown, however, that fire is an integral component in the function
and biodiversity of many natural habitats, and that the organisms within these
communities have adapted to withstand, and even to exploit, natural wildfire. More
generally, fire is now regarded as a 'natural disturbance', similar to flooding, wind-
storms, and landslides, that has driven the evolution of species and controls the
characteristics of ecosystems.
Fire suppression, in combination with other human-
caused environmental changes, may have resulted in unforeseen consequences for
natural ecosystems. Some large wildfires in the United States have been blamed on
years of fire suppression and the continuing expansion of people into fire-adapted
ecosystems, but climate change is more likely responsible. Land managers are
faced with tough questions regarding how to restore a natural fire regime, but
allowing wildfires to burn is the least expensive and likely most effective method.

Fire components:

A fire regime describes the characteristics of fire and how it


interacts with a particular ecosystem. Its "severity" is a term that ecologists use to
refer to the impact that a fire has on an ecosystem. Ecologists can define this in
many ways, but one way is through an estimate of plant mortality. Fire can burn at
three levels. Ground fires will burn through soil that is rich in organic matter.
Surface fires will burn through dead plant material that is lying on the ground.
Crown fires will burn in the tops of shrubs and trees. Ecosystems generally
experience a mix of all three.

Fires will often break out during a dry season, but in some
areas wildfires may also commonly occur during a time of year when lightning is
prevalent. The frequency over a span of years at which fire will occur at a
particular location is a measure of how common wildfires are in a given
ecosystem. It is either defined as the average interval between fires at a given site,
or the average interval between fires in an equivalent specified area.
Defined as the energy released per unit length of fireline (kW m −1), wildfire
intensity can be estimated either as
 the product of
o the linear spread rate (m s−1),
o the low heat of combustion (kJ kg−1),
o and the combusted fuel mass per unit area,
 or it can be estimated from the flame length

Radiata pine plantation burnt during the 2003 Eastern 

Abiotic response:
Fires can affect soils through heating and combustion
processes. Depending on the temperatures of the soils caused by the combustion
processes, different effects will happen- from evaporation of water at the lower
temperature ranges, to the combustion of soil organic matter and formation of
pyrogenic organic matter, otherwise known as charcoal. Fires can cause changes in
soil nutrients through a variety of mechanisms, which include oxidation,
volatilization, erosion, and leaching by water, but the event must usually be of high
temperatures in order of significant loss of nutrients to occur. However, quantity of
nutrients available in soils are usually increased due to the ash that is generated,
and this is made quickly available, as opposed to the slow release of nutrients by
decomposition. Rock spalling (or thermal exfoliation) accelerates weathering of
rock and potentially the release of some nutrients.

Biotic Response and adaptations:

Plants have evolved many adaptations to cope with fire. Of


these adaptations, one of the best-known is likely pyriscence, where maturation
and release of seeds is triggered, in whole or in part, by fire or smoke; this
behaviour is often erroneously called serotiny, although this term truly denotes the
much broader category of seed release activated by any stimulus. All pyriscent
plants are serotinous, but not all serotinous plants are pyriscent (some are
necriscent, hygriscent, xeriscent, soliscent, or some combination thereof). On the
other hand, germination of seed activated by trigger is not to be confused with
pyriscence; it is known as physiological dormancy.
In  chaparral communities in Southern California, for
example, some plants have leaves coated in flammable oils that encourage an
intense fire.  This heat causes their fire-activated seeds to germinate (an example of
dormancy) and the young plants can then capitalize on the lack of competition in a
burnt landscape.

Fire and ecological succession:


Fire behavior is different in every ecosystem and the
organisms in those ecosystems have adapted accordingly. One sweeping generality
is that in all ecosystems, fire creates a mosaic of different habitat patches, with
areas ranging from those having just been burned to those that have been
untouched by fire for many years. This is a form of ecological succession in which
a freshly burned site will progress through continuous and directional phases of
colonization following the destruction caused by the fire.  Ecologists usually
characterize succession through the changes in vegetation that successively arise.
After a fire, the first species to re-colonize will be those with seeds are already
present in the soil, or those with seeds are able to travel into the burned area
quickly. These are generally fast-growing.
Examples of fire in different ecosystems
Forests:
Mild to moderate fires burn in the forest understory, removing small trees and
herbaceous groundcover. High-severity fires will burn into the crowns of the trees
and kill most of the dominant vegetation. Crown fires may require support from
ground fuels to maintain the fire in the forest canopy (passive crown fires), or the
fire may burn in the canopy independently of any ground fuel support (an active
crown fire). High-severity fire creates.

Forests in British Columbia:


In Canada, forests cover about 10% of the land area and yet harbor 70% of the
country’s bird and terrestrial mammal species. Natural fire regimes are important
in maintaining a diverse assemblage of vertebrate species in up to twelve
different forest types in British Columbia. Different species have adapted to exploit
the different stages of succession,
Shrubland
Grasslands:
Grasslands burn more readily than forest and shrub ecosystems, with the fire
moving through the stems and leaves of herbaceous plants and only lightly heating
the underlying soil, even in cases of high intensity. In most grassland ecosystems,
fire is the primary mode of decomposition, making it crucial in the recycling of
nutrients. In some grassland systems, fire only became the primary mode of
decomposition after the disappearance of large migratory herds of browsing or
grazing

Fire in wetlands:
Although it may seem strange, many kinds of wetlands are also influenced by fire.
This usually occurs during periods of drought. In landscapes with peat soils, such
as bogs, the peat substrate itself may burn, leaving holes that refill with water as
new ponds. Fires that are less intense will remove accumulated litter and allow
other wetland plants to regenerate from buried seeds, or from rhizomes. Wetlands
that are influenced by fire include coastal marshes, wet prairies, peat
bogs, floodplains, prairie marshes and flatwoods. 

Fire suppression

Fire serves many important functions within fire-adapted ecosystems. Fire plays an
important role in nutrient cycling, diversity maintenance and habitat structure. The
suppression of fire can lead to unforeseen changes in ecosystems that often
adversely affect the plants, animals and humans that depend upon that habitat.
Wildfires that deviate from a historical fire regime because of fire suppression are
called "uncharacteristic fires".

Chaparral communities
In 2003, southern California witnessed powerful chaparral wildfires. Hundreds of
homes and hundreds of thousands of acres of land went up in flames. Extreme fire
weather (low humidity, low fuel moisture and high winds) and the accumulation of
dead plant material from 8 years of drought, contributed to a catastrophic outcome.
Although some have maintained that fire suppression contributed to an unnatural
buildup of fuel loads, a detailed analysis of historical fire data has showed that this
may not have been the case.
Fish impacts
The Boise National Forest is a US national forest located north and east of the city
of Boise, Idaho. Following several uncharacteristically large wildfires, an
immediately negative impact on fish populations was observed, posing particular
danger to small and isolated fish populations. In the long term, however, fire
appears to rejuvenate fish habitats by causing hydraulic changes that increase
flooding and lead to silt removal and the deposition of a favorable habitat
substrate. This leads to larger post-fire populations of the fish that are able to
recolonize these improved areas. But although fire generally appears favorable for
fish populations in these ecosystems, the more intense effects of uncharacteristic
wildfires, in combination with the fragmentation of populations by human barriers
to dispersal such as weirs and dams, will pose a threat to fish populations.

Fire as a management tool:

Prescribed Burn in Oak Savannah in Iowa

Restoration ecology is the name given to an attempt to reverse or mitigate some of


the changes that humans have caused to an ecosystem. Controlled burning is one
tool that is currently receiving considerable attention as a means of restoration and
management. Applying fire to an ecosystem may create habitats for species that
have been negatively impacted by fire suppression, or fire may be used as a way of
controlling invasive species without resorting to herbicides or pesticides. However,
there is debate as to what state managers should aim to restore their ecosystems to,
especially as to whether "natural" means pre-human or pre-European. Native
American use of fire, not natural fires, historically maintained the diversity of
the savannas of North America. When, how, and where managers should use fire
as a management tool is a subject of debate.
The Great Plains shortgrass prairie

A combination of heavy livestock grazing and fire-suppression has drastically


altered the structure, composition, and diversity of the shortgrass prairie ecosystem
on the Great Plains, allowing woody species to dominate many areas and
promoting fire-intolerant invasive species. In semi-arid ecosystems where the
decomposition of woody material is slow, fire is crucial for returning nutrients to
the soil and allowing the grasslands to maintain their high productivity.

Although fire can occur during the growing or the dormant seasons, managed fire
during the dormant season is most effective at increasing the grass
and forb cover, biodiversity and plant nutrient uptake in shortgrass
prairies. Managers must also take into account, however, how invasive and non-
native species respond to fire if they want to restore the integrity of a native
ecosystem. For example, fire can only control the invasive spotted
knapweed (Centaurea maculosa) on the Michigan tallgrass prairie in the summer,
because this is the time in the knapweed's life cycle that is most important to its
reproductive growth.

Mixed conifer forests in the US Sierra Nevada:

Mixed conifer forests in the United States Sierra Nevada used to have fire return


intervals that ranged from 5 years up to 300 years, depending on the local climate.
Lower elevations had more frequent fire return intervals, whilst higher and wetter
elevations saw much longer intervals between fires. Native Americans tended to
set fires during fall and winter, and land at a higher elevation was generally
occupied by Native Americans only during the summer.
Finnish boreal forests
The decline of habitat area and quality has caused many species populations to be
red-listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. According to a
study on forest management of Finnish boreal forests, improving the habitat
quality of areas outside reserves can help in conservation efforts of endangered
deadwood-dependent beetles. These beetles and various types of fungi both need
dead trees in order to survive. Old growth forests can provide this particular
habitat. However, most Fennoscandian boreal forested areas are used for timber
and therefore are unprotected. The use of controlled burning and tree retention of a
forested area with deadwood was studied and its effect on the endangered beetles.
The study found that after the first year of management the number of species
increased in abundance and richness compared to pre-fire treatment. The
abundance of beetles continued to increase the following year in sites where tree
retention was high and deadwood was abundant. The correlation between forest
fire management and increased beetle populations shows a key to conserving these
red-listed species.

Australian eucalypt forests:

Much of the old growth eucalypt forest in Australia is designated for conservation.


Management of these forests is important because species like Eucalyptus
grandis rely on fire to survive. There are a few eucalypt species that do not have
a lignotuber, a root upswelling structure that contains buds where new shoots can
then sprout. During a fire a lignotuber is helpful in the reestablishment of the plant.
Because some eucalypts do not have this particular mechanism, forest fire
management can be helpful by creating rich soil, killing competitors, and allowing
seeds to be released

United States
Fire policy in the United States involves the federal government, individual state
governments, tribal governments, interest groups, and the general public. The new
federal outlook on fire policy parallels advances in ecology and is moving towards
the view that many ecosystems depend on disturbance for their diversity and for
the proper maintenance of their natural processes. Although human safety is still
the number one priority in fire management, new US government objectives
include a long-term view of ecosystems. The newest policy allows managers to
gauge the relative values of private property and resources in particular situations
and to set their priorities accordingly.
Sediment yields:
Sediment yield is highly variable over space. In some cases, even a small part of the
landscape unit contributes a disproportionate amount of the total sediment yield. For
instance, intensive local logging leads to a substantial increase in sediment yield.
Sometimes, the yield ratio between a logging zone and a ‘normal’ one can reach
several hundreds. Hence, knowledge of the spatial variation in yield is required to
focus yield reduction efforts on the landscape units that deliver the maximum amount
of sediments to the reservoir.
Fire effect:
Creating realistic simulated fire in After Effects is one of the most challenging tasks for any
VFX artist. There are a lot of areas in which After Effects soars — motion graphics, tracking,
2D animation — but physics simulations is not one of them.The best option for creating

realistic fire effects is using expensive software like Houdini or Fume FX for Maya. The other
option is to use pre-rendered fire footage which works in some cases, but it isn’t very versatile
and can also be quite expensive.You’ve probably been looking around for good fire tutorials
online, but honestly, other than a few tutorials from Andrew Kramer, there aren’t a lot of native-
effects tutorials for creating good fire effects. In this RocketStock exclusive, we’ll show
you how to create realistic fire effects in AE using native plugins and a free After
Effects Fire as a destructive force can rapidly consume large amount of biomass
and cause negative impacts such as post-fire soil erosion and water runoff, and air
pollution; however, as a constructive force fire is also responsible for maintaining
the health and perpetuity of certain fire-dependent ecosystems.
effect preset. Here’s what the end result will look like:
Prescribe burning

Prescribed fire , also called prescribed


burning or controlled burning, form of land management in which fire is
intentionally applied to vegetation. Prescribed fires are conducted under desired
conditions to meet specific objectives, such as to restore fire regimes in
adapted ecosystems or to limit the amount of dry brush in an area prone
to wildfires. Two primary types of prescribed fire are used: broadcast burning, in
which fire is applied across an area that can range in size from less than one
hectare (2.5 acres) to tens of thousands of hectares, and pile burning, in which
discrete piles of fuels are burned with limited or no spread between the piles. For
either type, managers usually compose a detailed prescribed burn plan that clearly
defines the suitable weather and fuel conditions, the desired fire behaviour, and the
effects needed to meet predetermined objectives.

Fire dependence:
In the 1930’s, researchers in the southern United States argued against the negative
perspective that has surrounded fire, with the belief that all fire is bad. It was
realized that the devastating picture painted by huge-scale fires produced fear in
the minds of the public (and in politicians and scientists alike), and that this
generated detrimental results in response to any wildland fires. These researchers
recognized that there are species of plants that rely upon the effects of fire to make
the environment more hospitable for regeneration and growth. Fire in these
environments prepares the soil for seeding by creating an open seedbed, making
nutrients more available for uptake and often killing plants that are invading into
the habitat and competing with native species.

Fire history:
Fire history deals with how often fires have occurred in a given geographical area.
Through recorded history, we can see into the recent past, but trees are our source
of information on fires in the distant past. Trees record their history through a
system of growth rings that develop on the trees each year. When a fire goes
through an area, the growth rings of that particular tree may be scarred. On live
trees this is called a fire scar. Fire scars can also be seen on dead trees. Tree origin
dates (calculated from the total number of rings) can also tell when fires occurred,
in that fires gave way for these new trees to develop. The study of growth rings is
called dendrochronology. Utilizing dendrochronology, we can determine when
fires have occurred in the past, and sometimes determine their intensity and
direction as well as other information about the weather patterns in that era.
Causes of fire:

Approximately 90% of fires in the last decade have been


human-caused, either through negligence, accident or intentional arson. Some of
the fires caused by accidents and negligent acts are through unattended campfires,
sparks, irresponsibly discarded cigarettes and burning debris. The remaining 10%
of fires are caused by lightning strikes, which are especially prevalent in the
Western United States and Alaska.

Benefits of Wildland Fire:


The ecological benefits of wildland fires often outweigh
their negative effects. A regular occurrence of fires can reduce the amount of fuel
build-up thereby lowering the likelihood of a potentially large wildland fire. Fires
often remove alien plants that compete with native species for nutrients and space,
and remove undergrowth, which allows sunlight to reach the forest floor, thereby
supporting the growth of native species. The ashes that remain after a fire add
nutrients often locked in older vegetation to the soil for trees and other vegetation.
Fires can also provide a way for controlling insect pests by killing off the older or
diseased trees and leaving the younger, healthier trees. In addition to all of the
above-mentioned benefits, burned trees provide habitat for nesting birds, homes for
mammals and a nutrient base for new plants. When these trees decay, they return
even more nutrients to the soil. Overall, fire is a catalyst for promoting biological
diversity and healthy ecosystems. It fosters new plant growth and wildlife
populations often expand as a result.

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