[Interaction between pest and fire disturbances in Huzhong area of Great Xing' an Mountains: long-term simulation].

Forest pest and forest fire are the two major disturbances of forest ecosystem, and there exists definite interaction between the disturbances at large spatial and temporal scales. In this paper, the spatially intuitional landscape model (LANDIS) was adopted to simulate the long-term (300 years) interaction between forest pest and forest fire in Huzhong area of Great Xing' an Mountains. The results showed that pest disturbance decreased the fine fuel load, increased the coarse fuel load at the early (0-100 a) and middle (100-200 a) stages of simulation course, and decreased the fire frequency at the early and middle stages. The fire frequency under different forest pest disturbance scenarios was similar at the later stage (200-300 a) of simulation course. Pest disturbance decreased the fire intensity and fire risk class at the early and later stages, but increased the fire intensity and fire risk class at the middle stage. Fire suppression could increase the occurrence area of forest pest, and thus, it was suggested that forest managers should take appropriate measures to prevent insect pest, not solely with the focus on fire suppression but also adopting the forest fire management measures such as taking off coarse fuel and implementing prescribed fire to ensure the sustainable development of forest ecosystem.