Benefits Of Boreal Forests And Species

The Appalachians span over a distance of 1,600 miles, ranging across 14 states, from Newfoundland in the North, to Alabama in the South. The Appalachians are the oldest chain of mountains on the North American continent. With forest, comes forest fires, some natural and some prescribed by humans. In order to reduce the calamitous damage caused by natural wildfires, the technique of prescribed fires is used. This is done by diminishing the amounts of trees, shrubs, and brush in the intended area. By doing this, new native plant growth is encouraged and it helps maintain some plant and animal species that depend on the periodic fires. With this man made force comes numerous effects on vegetation, wildlife, and the human impact.

This was attributed to the ranges of vegetation type with elevation and slope, with mixed conifer tree species growing at higher elevations with increased tree cover. Similar patterns can be identified with the Rim Fire in the Stanislaus National Forest. The Pinus ponderosa (ponderosa pine) or Calocedrus decurrens (incense cedar) tree species tend to favor higher elevations, slopes between 0 - 45 degrees, and aspects between 0 - 33 degrees from North (Myers).

The rising number of high severity wildfires in California has significant ecological, economic, and health impacts. Many western American forests are adapted to frequent low severity fires. However, the majority of these forests, and particularly the mixed conifer forests of California, are not adapted to high intensity fires and do not possess fire resistance adaptations such as serotinous cones to protect seeds. Consequently, high severity fires have significant negative impacts on California forests, and the absence of low severity fires has considerably altered many fundamental ecosystem processes (Miller et al. 2008). Prior to 1900, low severity fires would burn every 6-15 years. Low severity fires are generally non-lethal, have minimal change to the overstory, and kill mainly small trees. In the past, these fires were started naturally by lightning, or by Native Americans who used low severity fires to manage the forests.

Today I will be explaining the Boreal Forest Taiga. So let’s have fun and get into this information and learning. If you don’t know what a Boreal Forest Taiga is you are going to learn today. The Boreal Forest Taiga is a forest that has extremely cold winters and warm summers. Also all trees in this area are evergreen trees and has shallow roots. The Forest contains animals that have thick skins and can stand extreme whether. This forest has the same characteristics as some other forest. This place mainly contains real evergreen trees we use as Christmas trees. Trees here can grow up to 40-80 feet tall. Winters here are very cold and the temperature can get up -50 degrees fahrenheit.

Looking further into the impacts of the Rodeo-Chediski fire the trees saw the greatest impact of the fire. Almost 90% of the trees suffered complete crown kill (Ffolliott, 2008). Either some trees had survived with low severity, were harmed, or dead because of the drought and the fire combined. Even though some of the trees that had faced high severity apparently after having seen what trees had survived the fire yet by 2004 two years after the fire they had died (Ffolliott, 2008). The wildfire also impacted the standardization structure, post-fire mortality of trees, and stocking of tree reproduction on the Steamer Ridge Watershed (Ffolliott, 2008). After the fire had finally been contained the density of the forest had been forever changed.

Most of the planet's other forests have been lost to industrial progress. Where as Canada's Boreal is still home to millions of migratory songbirds, caribou herds, a diversity of fragile plants and large predators like lynx and wolverine.

The Acadian forest in Canada takes up 12.1 million hectares, and can be distinguished from other parts of Canadian forests by its location in the lowlands and deep valleys and by its mixed hardwood and softwood composition. The position of these trees in deep valleys isolates them from other forests, and limits their ability to further naturally spread their population geographically, and causes them to be more significantly impacted by disturbances. The Acadian forest region covers the Canadian provinces of Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, with a rich diversity of plant and animal species consisting of many shade-tolerant trees and lichens. Yet these shade-tolerant trees are slowly transitioning into small seedlings as logging practices abolish old trees. The old-growth hardwood population in specific provides critical habitats for animal species though these trees are declining in numbers due to extensive logging. With the declining old-growth trees, the number of critical habitats will also decline and animal species will most likely die out. These regions are affected by climate change at the same time, which increases the vulnerability of Acadian biodiversity.

This region is “heavily influenced by natural disturbances”. Species here have adapted to large wildfires; some, including the jack pine and black spruce, require these fires to reproduce. Heat is needed to release their seeds, and seed germination only occurs in favourable conditions produced by the fires.

Humans maintain the park and influence mandatory controlled fires as well as control the wildfires. Wildfires are required to burn in order to keep the ecosystem in check. In Banff National Park, these fires burn in old growth areas. Once the fire is burned out it leaves nutrients in the soil to aid in regrowth for future plants. After the fire Grizzly Bears rummage through the now loose and nutrient rich soil for certain roots that are apart of their diets. These roots are only accessible to the Grizzly Bear after a fire has cleared out the forest. Once regeneration starts, the nutrients in the soil allow other food sources to begin growth and bears start to forage for them. The cycle continues once the forest has regrown.

Ecosystems, ever heard of what word? Ever wonder what it is or ever wondered how we are living in one? Ecosystems are a living community of organisms along with their physical environment, functioning as a unit, and for this unit to function there is a need for biodiversity of wildlife including plants and animals. Biodiversity means a variety of living organisms. These ecosystems may be like forests, prairies and oceans as well as many others. Even though they function as a unit, they may be interrupted by disaster, such as tornadoes, floods, wildfires and pollution. For this topic though, it is going to be mainly about forest wildfires, especially in California. Wildfires in California forests can affect animals and plant life. This change

The Pinus palustris, or more commonly referred to as longleaf pine trees, were once the dominant tree type in the Southeastern United States and has been further exterminated at about 97% of its original range (Frost 1995). When you think of fire, you typically will think of destruction, but with the right fire regime in certain ecosystems it can actually help the area become more successful. Due to the degradation of the longleaf pine forests, prescribed burning has become a necessary factor to keep the forests successful (Lavoie et al., 2014). The biodiversity of the longleaf pin ecosystem depends on a lot of rainfall, porous, sandy soils, and a cycle of fires (Greenberg, 2002). Longleaf pine trees have a tolerance of and ability to regenerate in a high frequency fire regime (Loudermilk et al., 2011). Once longleaf pines grow above the height most fires tend to be, they have a high survival chance where as if they were in the shrub state, then they would be burned from being exposed and lack of structure maturity. Most longleaf pines will grow in an area where there are also hardwoods growing

According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, Wildfire means “a sweeping and destructive conflagration esp. in a wilderness or a rural area.” Also according to the same dictionary, wilderness means “a tract or region uncultivated and uninhabited by human beings.” Forest Fires happen when there is a drought because branches and twigs die and dry out creating plenty of fuel for a fire. According to the NIFC (National Interagency Fire Center) there are about 105,534 wildfires that occur each year.

The reduction of those fires brought on a decline in various species and an increase in other species that are adapted to fire suppressed ecosystems (Smith, 2000). Fire regimens alters habitats and behaviors of many different animals including mammals (Southgate and Masters, 1996; Hobbs and Spotwart, 1984), birds (Russell et al., 2009) reptiles (Russell et al., 1999) and amphibians (Pilliod, 2003; Russell et al., 1999). This study will focus mainly on the mammal and bird effects unless the herpetofauna are opportunistically surveyed in large enough quantities that allow for inferences. By itself, the effects of fire on mammals have been well studied whether is it small (Leahy et al., 2016; Southgate and Masters, 1996), medium-large (Shaw and Carter, 1990; Hobbs and Spotwart, 1984), a prey species (Newsome et al., 1983; Vernes, 2000), or predators (Dees et al., 2001). This study will hypothesize fire effects on mammals in using a mammalian fire and timber harvest review (Fisher and Wilkinson, 2005), although it should be noted that they do identify a lack of data for the Canids, Felids and Ursids. In accordance with the review, we hypothesize that rodents, insectivores, ungulates, canids, felids, and ursids will have an increased response to fire while arboreal

Humans have been changing the Western forests' fire system since the settlement by the Europeans and now we are experiencing the consequences of those changes. During the summer of 2002, 6.9 million acres of forests was burnt up in the West (Wildland Fires, 1). This figure is two times the ten year annual average, and it does not look like next summer will be any better (Wildfire Season, 1).

Forests have covered the earth for millions of years, providing habitat and food for animals and humans. These forests have stabilized different ecosystems and have continued the natural cycle that keeps plants and animals in check. The discovery of fire changed all of this. It was the beginning of deforestation, a process that has continued and increased over the last 200,000 years. Humans are the responsible party for the deforestation that has occurred. Humans discovered that animals could be driven with fire. This led to accelerated forest loss due to uncontrolled burning for hunting use (Miller & Tangley 1991: 28). Agriculture was the next problem