9529655 Veblen This project proposes an international workshop on "A comparison of Fire Regimes in Terrestrial Ecosystems of Western North and South America" to be held in southern Chile in September of 1996. Within the context of fire and global change research, the goals of this workshop are to: assess current knowledge of potential influences of global change on fire regimes; devise a research agenda on the potential effects of global change on fire regimes; evaluate methodologies for analyzing the influences of climate and land-use changes on fire regimes; form a network of researcher and research institutions interested in developing an interdisciplinary research agenda that focuses on inter-hemispheric comparisons of fire regimes and global change; and to develop research proposals for Phase II. The temperate ecosystems of western North and South America are chosen for this research program because of the comparable climates and ecosystems of these regions. They are broadly similar in climate and vegetation physiognomy but differ importantly in terms of climatic history, phylogenetic origins of the biota, and human history. Broad similarities in present day climate and vegetation of these two regions provide the potential for comparative studies of the effects of climate variation and human activities on fire regimes and the responses of these ecosystems to altered fire regimes. Comparative studies can effectively exploit the important differences in settlement history, land use, and resource technologies between temperate North and South America to disentangle the influences of climatic variation and human activities on fire regimes. The specific goals of the proposed workshop are to assess and synthesize the existing knowledge of fire and global change, to define a research agenda, to evaluate methodologies appropriate to the study of fire history in different ecosystems, to develop research proposal to be submitted to Phase II , and to develop a network of researchers and institutions capable of carrying out the research agenda on fire and global change. %%% This project proposes an international workshop on "A comparison of Fire Regimes in Terrestrial Ecosystems of Western North and South America" to be held in southern Chile in September of 1996. Within the context of fire and global change research, the goals of this workshop are to: assess current knowledge of potential influences of global change on fire regimes; devise a research agenda on the potential effects of global change on fire regimes; evaluate methodologies for analyzing the influences of climate and land-use changes on fire regimes; form a network of researcher and research institutions interested in developing an interdisciplinary research agenda that focuses on inter-hemispheric comparisons of fire regimes and global change; and to develop research proposals for Phase II. One of the major research challenges in ecology is to identify and quantify the ecological mechanisms and processes that control ecosystem responses to altered climatic conditions. Such studies are required to understand how present landscape patterns have been influenced by climatic variation and to predict future landscape patterns that may develop in response to climatic change. Fire frequency in any ecosystems is a consequence of interactions among fuel accumulation, fuel moisture content, and ignition sources. Climatic variation influences fire regimes across a broad range of temporal scales. Analysis of fire regime responses to climatic variation across a range of time scales is important for separating the effects of seasonal and annual variations on fuel desiccation and ignition from longer-term climatic influences on fuel types and loads. Additionally, it has been recognized that understanding climatic influences on fire regimes is critical to predicting the effects of climatic variation on vegetation change. The f ollowing countries are participating in this proposal: Argentina; Canada; Chile; and the United States. These countries are Members Statesof the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI), a U.S. initiative to stimulate cooperative research on global change issues among the scientific institutions of the Americas. The U.S. National Science Foundation is the U.S. Government agency designated to carry out U.S. responsibilities within the IAI. *** --========================_13392216==_--
