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Fire exclusion effects on riparian forest dynamics in southwestern Oregon

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https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/articles/3x816n07t

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Abstract
  • Euro-American settlement and organized fire suppression have been associated with structural and compositional changes in many upland forests of the western United States, but little is known about the impacts on riparian forests, portions of the landscape protected for habitat and water quality. In this study, we used dendro-ecological methods to characterize the pre-settlement disturbance and tree recruitment processes of riparian forests in the Rogue River basin of southwestern Oregon and to identify changes to the forest structure and composition post-settlement. Our results suggest riparian forests in our study area developed with frequent disturbance by fire and that Euro-American land management shifted these forests onto a new successional trajectory. Our findings indicate the current hands-off management regime for riparian forests under the Northwest Forest Plan will continue along this altered trajectory and have ecologically undesirable consequences. We suggest that the restoration of pre-settlement forest dynamics in fire-prone forests of southwestern Oregon will be most effective where it includes density reductions in overstory trees and prescribed fire in both upland and riparian forests.
  • This is the authors' peer-reviewed final manuscript. The published version is copyrighted by Elsevier and can be found here: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/forest-ecology-and-management/#description
  • Keywords: Riparian, Fire suppression, Douglas-fir, Fire ecology, Stand structure
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  • Messier, M. S., Shatford, J. P., & Hibbs, D. E. (2012, January). Fire exclusion effects on riparian forest dynamics in southwestern Oregon. Forest Ecology and Management, 264, 60-71. doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2011.10.003
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  • 264
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  • Funding for this research was provided by: the Cooperative Forest Ecosystem Research (CFER) Program, a cooperative among the USGS Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center (FRESC), Oregon State University (OSU), and the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF); as well as OSU College of Forestry fellowships provided by the Richardson and Tarrant families. None of the funding sources were involved in development of the study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; or in the decision to submit the paper for publication.
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