Fire ecology research priorities across space and time: support for the Future of Fire workshop; Colorado Chautauqua National Historic Landmark; November, 2017

Kansas State University, Manhattan KS

Investigators

Abstract

Fires play an important role in shaping and managing ecosystems. The importance of fire in altering ecosystems is gaining renewed scientific attention of ecologists with the increased pace of large, destructive, and seemingly novel fires occurring across a large swath of North America and beyond. Understanding fires occurring in the past decade raise a set of urgent questions for both ecologists and society. Despite the large number of researchers working on fire, there is an ongoing need to unify the approach of researchers working on mechanisms of ecological change and fire. Funding for this workshop to bring together researchers with complementary approaches to reconstructing ecosystems during the Future of Fire workshop. The specific goals of the workshop are: (1) To assess scientific priorities regarding the interactions of fire with ecological processes from population to ecosystem levels, (2) To explore fire science as a central research area within basic science research, and (3) To find areas of synergy among previously separate areas of fire science based within the discipline of ecology but interacting with many other disciplines such as meteorology, climatology, Earth science, geography, and hydrology. The four focal areas are: fire at large spatial scales, fire experiments, modeling fire, and past fire regimes and baselines. The Future of Fire workshop will have several impacts on society and the larger scientific community. Publications and reports from the workshop will be disseminated broadly through scientific society newsletters, publications, and websites. The workshop will engage a diverse intellectual set of participants across career stage, with many initial participants holding the rank of postdoc, assistant professor, or the equivalent. Participants will engage government agencies and NGOs to provide information about the effects of fire on ecosystem processes.