HR: 15:45h
AN: B33A-08    [Abstracts]
TI: Quantifying the multiscale environmental controls on wildfire from species distribution models
AU: Parisien, M
EM: parisien@nature.berkeley.edu
AF: Environmental Science, Policy, and Management Department, 137 Mulford Hall MC#3114 University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States
AU: Parisien, M
EM: parisien@nature.berkeley.edu
AF: Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service, Northern Forestry Centre 5320 - 122 St., Edmonton, AB T5H3S5, Canada
AU: * Moritz, M
EM: mmoritz@nature.berkeley.edu
AF: Environmental Science, Policy, and Management Department, 137 Mulford Hall MC#3114 University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States
AB: Despite its widespread occurrence globally, wildfire preferentially occupies an environmental middle-ground and is significantly less prevalent in biomes characterized by environmental extremes (e.g., tundra, rainforests, deserts). We evaluated the biophysical "environmental space" of wildfire from regional to continental extents, using methods developed for modeling species distributions ("niche models"). This approach is particularly suitable for the biogeographical study of wildfire, because it simultaneously considers patterns in multiple factors controlling wildfire suitability over large areas. We used the Maxent algorithm to asses relationships between wildfire and environmental predictors for three levels of complexity in variable inclusion at three spatial scales, the conterminous United States, the state of California, and five wildfire-prone ecoregions of California. The resulting models were projected geographically to obtain spatial predictions of wildfire suitability and also projected to other regions to assess their generality and spatial "transferability." The models identified several important variables that were previously unsuspected in the large-scale control of wildfires and successfully predicted the potential range of wildfire among study areas. Models projected to different areas were useful only when they overlapped appreciably with the target area's environmental space, which has implications for creating future models. Application of this approach should allow us to explore the global range of wildfire in a changing climate, the potential for wildfire restoration where it has been "extirpated," and, conversely, the "invasiveness" of wildfire following changes in plant species composition. To our knowledge, it is also the first application of niche models to characterize environmental controls on a process.
DE: 0466 Modeling
DE: 0468 Natural hazards
DE: 0476 Plant ecology (1851)
SC: Biogeosciences [B]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly