PI: Beckage, Brian. Institution: University of Vermont DEB-0606801
Global warming may result in the rapid transformation of landscapes through feedbacks between fire frequency and ecosystem characteristics. The frequency of fire affects the composition of vegetation on the landscape. These changes, in turn, affect the frequency of fire, because vegetation varies greatly in flammability. This project will investigate how fire-adapted plant communities facilitate the initiation and spread of fire, while fire-intolerant communities inhibit fire except under extreme meteorological conditions. This work will model the behavior of the Everglades ecosystem in response to climatic forcing using a coupled landscape model of vegetation and fire that incorporates external climatic drivers, fire-vegetation feedbacks, and hydrology. The model will be parameterized using data recorded over the last half century, including ENSO conditions, precipitation, hydrology, vegetation, and fire. This project will broaden our theoretical understanding of the potential for climate change to move ecosystems across ecological thresholds that cause rapid shifts in the state of the ecosystem. Identification of these thresholds and their mechanisms will inform land managers of ecological changes that are likely to result from global warming, enabling them to better protect valuable natural resources such as the Florida Everglades. This project will support the training of a postdoctoral scholar in theoretical ecology.
