Sponsor
R.F., S.J.D., M.J., M.M., F.S. and C.T. acknowledge funding from the Natural Environment Research Council for the project that led to this paper, project NE/V021443/1. A.H. acknowledges partial support from National Science Foundation awards GSS #1832483 and LTER8 DEB #2025755. K.B.M. acknowledges partial support from the US National Science Foundation under Grant No. EAR-1738228.
Published In
Global Ecology and Biogeography
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-23-2022
Subjects
Wildfires -- research, Wildfire risk -- United States
Abstract
Background
Historically, wildfire regimes produced important landscape-scale disturbances in many regions globally. The “pyrodiversity begets biodiversity” hypothesis suggests that wildfires that generate temporally and spatially heterogeneous mosaics of wildfire severity and post-burn recovery enhance biodiversity at landscape scales. However, river management has often led to channel incision that disconnects rivers from their floodplains, desiccating floodplain habitats and depleting groundwater. In conjunction with predicted increases in frequency, intensity and extent of wildfires under climate change, this increases the likelihood of deep, uniform burns that reduce biodiversity.
Predicted synergy of river restoration and biodiversity increase
Recent focus on floodplain re-wetting and restoration of successional floodplain habitat mosaics, developed for river management and flood prevention, could reduce wildfire intensity in restored floodplains and make the burns less uniform, increasing climate-change resilience; an important synergy. According to theory, this would also enhance biodiversity. However, this possibility is yet to be tested empirically. We suggest potential research avenues.
Illustration and future directions
We illustrate the interaction between wildfire and river restoration using a restoration project in Oregon, USA. A project to reconnect the South Fork McKenzie River and its floodplain suffered a major burn (“Holiday Farm” wildfire, 2020), offering a rare opportunity to study the interaction between this type of river restoration and wildfire; specifically, the predicted increases in pyrodiversity and biodiversity. Given the importance of river and wetland ecosystems for biodiversity globally, a research priority should be to increase our understanding of potential mechanisms for a “triple win” of flood reduction, wildfire alleviation and biodiversity promotion.
Rights
Copyright (c) 2022 The Authors
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Locate the Document
DOI
10.1111/geb.13555
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/38038
Citation Details
Pugh, B. E., Colley, M., Dugdale, S. J., Edwards, P., Flitcroft, R., Holz, A., ... & Field, R. (2022). A possible role for river restoration enhancing biodiversity through interaction with wildfire. Global Ecology and Biogeography.