RAPID: Collaborative Research: In-situ forest ecosystem response to wildfire

Oregon State University, Corvallis OR

Investigators

Abstract

Wildfire is increasing in frequency and duration in Western US forests because of longer fire seasons, greater fuel load, prolonged drought, and intense heat waves. In 2020, wildfires burned existing research forests in Oregon, USA, creating the opportunity to study how and why fire kills some trees but not others. This research will investigate and track the fate of forest trees that suffered varying degrees of burn severity, determine reasons for tree death and survival, and use the knowledge to determine the impact of wildfire on forest recovery in similar systems across the western US. Knowing how trees survive fire and drought is important for land owners and policy makers in developing management plans for alleviating forest stress and for reducing the risk and impact of wildfire. This project will provide training for a postdoctoral researcher, and contribute to a broader understanding of how fire and forest structure affect carbon and water cycling. This research will provide critical knowledge about sensitivity of trees to varying fire severity, how traits of trees interacts with burn severity to impact survival, and how variability in tree mortality at the individual scale affects larger ecosystem processes, primarily net carbon balance. This research will quantify ecosystem response and recovery across a gradient of fire severity to answer this important research question: What are the immediate (weeks) and short-term (<1 year) impacts of wildfire on forest ecosystem carbon stocks and fluxes, resilience, and mortality at tree, stand, and ecosystem levels? Post-fire data will be compared with the existing 20 years of continuous pre-fire data from the site, including eddy covariance, meteorology, subcanopy fluxes, automated soil respiration and sap flow on mature trees. Being able to characterize mechanisms for tree death and ecosystem recovery following fire is important for making predictions with process-based models of the impacts of fire at larger scales now and in the future. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.