AI Article Synopsis

  • - The text discusses the ecological impacts of wildland fires, particularly focusing on how they affect tree mortality, which is important because trees support various biological services.
  • - Researchers created the Fire and Tree Mortality (FTM) database that includes detailed records from over 164,000 individual trees affected by prescribed fires and wildfires in the U.S. between 1981 and 2016.
  • - This database serves as a tool for assessing fire mortality models, improving pre- and post-fire decision-making, and identifying areas where further research is needed regarding fire-induced tree death.

Article Abstract

Wildland fires have a multitude of ecological effects in forests, woodlands, and savannas across the globe. A major focus of past research has been on tree mortality from fire, as trees provide a vast range of biological services. We assembled a database of individual-tree records from prescribed fires and wildfires in the United States. The Fire and Tree Mortality (FTM) database includes records from 164,293 individual trees with records of fire injury (crown scorch, bole char, etc.), tree diameter, and either mortality or top-kill up to ten years post-fire. Data span 142 species and 62 genera, from 409 fires occurring from 1981-2016. Additional variables such as insect attack are included when available. The FTM database can be used to evaluate individual fire-caused mortality models for pre-fire planning and post-fire decision support, to develop improved models, and to explore general patterns of individual fire-induced tree death. The database can also be used to identify knowledge gaps that could be addressed in future research.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7308274PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41597-020-0522-7DOI Listing

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