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High Sierra Forests: Plant Diversity a Casualty of High-Severity Wildfires
HIGH SIERRA FOREST SUCCESSION
Researcher in Sierra Nevada Forest
UC Davis' Clark Richter investigates plant diversity within a transect line of a Sierra Nevada forest affected by drought and wildfire, Courtesy Clark Richter.
High Sierra Forest Decline
Plant Diversity a Casualty of High-Severity Wildfires,
University of California - Davis, October 3, 2019.
MAIN POINTS
"Sierra Nevada forests are losing plant diversity due to high-severity fires."
Forest Succession
"These fires are turning patches of forest into shrub fields -- indefinitely, in some cases."
Legacy of Suppression
"...scientists analyzed plant diversity across a spectrum of fire severity -- from low to moderate to high. They found the sweet spot for plant diversity exists where tree stands burned with low-to-moderate severity, as mixed conifer forests did in this region for millennia...
Blames Suppression
What about our Radically Changed Climate & Seasons?
"...before the imposition of fire suppression policies in the early 20th century. Such policies have greatly increased forest density and the amount of woody fuels in many California forests and led to more severe, stand-replacing fires."
Outside Limits
"This system is experiencing a different kind of fire. The species are outside of their limits. More high-severity fires greatly change a diverse and highly varied forest to one where all the trees are dead and what's left is often just a few species of shrub, not the herbs and wildflowers you may be used to seeing."
Dry Future
"Five to 10 years or more after experiencing high-severity burns, many forest stands were replaced by shrub fields that supported few plant species."
Feedback Loop of Death
"...there is a real possibility that large portions of the Sierra Nevada landscape could be caught in a feedback-loop that prevents recovery of former forest."
BOTTOM LINE
Destructive Convergence
It appears we have three converging trend lines contributing to the forest succession reported on above. The first being fire suppression, the second being land use, and the third being radical warming changing the composition and character of the seasons.
Compounding
I'd say the latter third policy is additive to the first two, creating unprecedented fire dangers represented by the unprecedented sizes of, and lengths of the fires and fire seasons we are experiencing today.
Disrupted System
From whichever point you measure the cause of our dysfunctional forests, be it forest management or forest warming, we can clearly see our Sierra Forests are representing disrupted system that needs much better management across all three areas of influence, meaning we've got to directly confront and modify our policies driving long term forest and fire management, of our long term land use, and especially curb our own domestic growth while shutting down the filthy offshore manufacturing centers our domestic growth is driving forward.
Our current system of endless growth is seriously damaging our planet.
Near & Far Reforms
We've got to travel far-afield to address, and stop the degradation of our High Sierra Forests.
Break Time
Essentially, we need to force our never-ending Corporate Growth Machine of Death, "to take a break," to stop growing for long enough to allow both Man and Nature to have a little rest and recovery time...
Time to "Bury the Hachets"
Of Irresponsible Growth & Globalism
We've got to put aside, "endless growth," both domestically and internationally, and seize balance at this very late point in time, if we desire any chance of preserving any of our ancient and traditional ecologies and ecosystems around the world, let alone in that temple of forest and stone, The High Sierra...
High Sierra Forest & Tree
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tree, research, news, High Sierra, Sierra Nevada, severe fires, reducing, forest, regeneration, plant diversity, fire, suppression, land use, global warming, climate change
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