Unexpected redwood mortality from synergies between wildfire and an emerging infectious disease.
Ecology
; 94(10): 2152-9, 2013 Oct.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-24358700
ABSTRACT
An under-examined component of global change is the alteration of disturbance regimes due to warming climates, continued species invasions, and accelerated land-use change. These drivers of global change are themselves novel ecosystem disturbances that may interact with historically occurring disturbances in complex ways. Here we use the natural experiment presented by wildfires in redwood forests impacted by an emerging infectious disease to demonstrate unexpected synergies of novel disturbance interactions. The dominant tree, coast redwood (fire resistant without negative disease impacts), experienced unexpected synergistic increases in mortality when fire and disease co-occurred. The increased mortality risk, more than fourfold at the peak of the effect, was not predictable from impacts of either disturbance alone. Changes in fire behavior associated with changes to forest fuels that occurred through disease progression overwhelmed redwood's usual resilience to wildfire. Our results demonstrate the potential for interacting disturbances to initiate novel successional trajectories and compromise ecosystem resilience.
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Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Phytophthora
/
Doenças das Plantas
/
Incêndios
Tipo de estudo:
Prognostic_studies
País/Região como assunto:
America do norte
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Ecology
Ano de publicação:
2013
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Estados Unidos