Find research datasets worth reusing

opencc-by-4.0Dec 2020View details →

Dataset: Pyrogenic carbon decomposition is critical to resolving fire's role in the Earth system

These data, deposited as an Excel (.xlsx) file, tabulate the data used to construct the figures in the proposed Nature Geoscience paper "Pyrogenic carbon decomposition rates are critical to resolving fire's role in the Earth system" (NGS-2020-12-02852C).  The spreadsheets are titled after their respective Figures.  Additional sheets correspond to Extended Data for global pyrogenic carbon production for different vegetation types, the rate of source vegetation-specific erosion of pyrogenic carbon to the inland water network, and the rate of tree mortality in the tropics following post-drought fires. The data are aggregated global outputs from the global land surface model ORCHIDEE-MICT (Biochar version), and are denominated in units of carbon mass, often as a rate quantity.  'PFTs' refer to plant functional types, a common rubric for discerning the differing types and roles of vegetation in functional ecology and their relation to the carbon cycle.  Interested parties are requested to contact the corresponding author for raw data files (model output), which are too large to deposit online.

opencc-by-4.0Dec 2021View details →

Metagenome-assembled genomes for "Impacts of beaver ponds on biogeochemical cycling of organic nitrogen within a fire-impacted watershed"

This dataset includes all of the metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) used in Roth et al.: "Impacts of beaver ponds on biogeochemical cycling of organic nitrogen within a fire-impacted watershed" (in prep.). The metagenomic sequencing was completed on a suite of sediment samples collected from the sediment-water interface of beaver ponds within wildfire burn scars.

opencc-by-3.0-usJan 2022View details →

Goal-Directed-Sensitive Firing Rate Maps of Hippocampal Pyramidal Cell

The Video #1 shows a pyramidal cell that exhibited the goal-directed-sensitive firing rate map while leaving and moving toward the reward location (water plate).

opencc-zeroFeb 2022View details →

Marginal imprint of human land use upon fire history in a mire-dominated boreal landscape of the Veps Highland, North-West Russia

Spatially explicit reconstructions of fire activity in European boreal forests are rare, limiting our understanding of factors driving vegetation dynamics in this part of the boreal domain. We have developed a spatially explicit dendrochronological reconstruction of a fire regime in a mire-dominated landscape of the Veps Nature Park (North-West Russia) over the 1580-2000 CE period. We dated 74 fire years using 164 fire-scarred living and dead Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) trees collected on 31 sites. The historical fire cycle was 91.4 years (90% confidence intervals, CI 66.2–137.6 years) over the 1580–1720 period, decreasing to 35.9 (CI 28.1–47.6 years) between 1730 and 1770, and then increasing again to 122.7 years (CI 91.0–178.0 years) over the 1780–2000 period. The reconstructed forest fire history featured a number of patterns clearly deviating from the trends documented in previous Northern European reconstructions. The most striking feature was the absence of a period with increased fire activity during the 1600s, a pattern widely observed in Fennoscandia and in Russian Karelia. We noted, however, a higher fire activity period between 1730 and 1780, resulting from the increase in early season fires. Land-use history of the area did not appear to have an effect on historical fire dynamics. The current FC in the Veps Highland is close to the estimates reported for the pre-industrial colonisation period in Fennoscandia, which suggests that the area's forests currently maintain their close-to-natural fire regime.

opencc-zeroFeb 2022View details →

Human-mediated trophic mismatch between fire, plants, and herbivores

Trophic mismatches are commonly reported across a wide array of taxa and can have important implications for species participating in the interaction. However, to date, examples of trophic mismatch have centrally focused on those induced by shifts in climate. Here we report on the potential for humans to induce trophic mismatch by shifting the phenology of fire. Globally, anthropogenic fire ignitions are phenologically mismatched to that of historic lightning ignitions but the effects of this phenological mismatch on trophic interactions are poorly understood. Using fire records from 1980-2016 from the southeastern USA, a hotspot of anthropogenic fire, we demonstrate that there is a temporal mismatch between anthropogenic and lightning lit fires in this region. The peak of anthropogenic ignitions (i.e., 45% during March and April) occurred 3 months earlier than the peak in lightning-ignited fires (i.e., 44% occurred during June and July), a pattern consistent with reports from several other regions and continents. We demonstrate with a field experiment conducted at a nutrient-poor site in the southeastern U.S., that anthropogenic fire phenology shifts nutrient pulses in resprouting plants so that they mismatch herbivore reproductive demands. Consequently, plant nutrient quality in four commonly consumed forages was below the threshold to meet lactation requirements. Neonates subsequently were more likely to starve when born far from areas burned during the peak month of lightning fire phenology. Our data indicate that human activities may be an additional causative agent of trophic mismatch.

opencc-by-4.0Oct 2021View details →

Impact of rapid thermal processing on bulk and surface recombination mechanisms in FZ silicon with fired passivating contacts

Data underlying the article

opencc-zeroMar 2022View details →

Short term grass bud response to high and low energy fires

Increasingly, land managers have attempted to use extreme prescribed fire as a method to address woody plant encroachment in savanna ecosystems. The effect that these fires have on herbaceous vegetation is poorly understood. We experimentally examined immediate (<24hr) bud response of two dominant graminoids, a C3 caespitose grass, Nassella leucotricha, and a C4 stoloniferous grass, Hilaria belangeri, following fires of varying energy (J/m2) in a semi-arid savanna in the Edwards Plateau ecoregion of Texas. Treatments included high- and low-energy fires determined by contrasting fuel loading and a no burn (control) treatment. Belowground axillary buds were counted and their activities classified to determine immediate effects of fire energy on bud activity, dormancy, and mortality. High-energy burns resulted in immediate mortality of N. leucotricha and H. belangeri buds (P < 0.05). Active buds decreased following high-energy and low-energy burns for both species (P < 0.05). In contrast, bud activity, dormancy, and mortality remained constant in the control. In the high-energy treatment, 100% (n=24) of N. leucotricha individuals resprouted while only 25% (n=24) of H. belangeri individuals resprouted (P < 0.0001) three weeks following treatment application. Bud depths differed between species and may account for this divergence, with average bud depths for N. leucotricha 1.3 cm deeper than H. belangeri (P < 0.0001). Synthesis and applications: Our results suggest that fire energy directly affects bud activity and mortality through soil heating for these two species. It is imperative to understand how fire energy impacts the bud banks of grasses to better predict grass response to increased use of extreme prescribed fire in land management.

Restoration and fuel hazard reduction result in equivalent reductions in Crown fire behavior in dry conifer forests

Over the past several decades, the management of historically frequent-fire forests in the western U.S. has received significant attention due to the linked ecological and social risks posed by the increased occurrence of large, contiguous patches of high-severity fire. As a result, efforts are underway to simultaneously reduce potential fire and fuel hazards and restore characteristics indicative of historical forest structures and ecological processes that enhance the diversity and quality of wildlife habitat across landscapes. Despite widespread agreement on the need for action, there is a perceived tension among scientists concerning silvicultural treatments that modify stands to optimally reduce potential fire behavior (fuel hazard reduction) versus those that aim to emulate historical forest structures and create structurally complex stands (restoration). In this work, we evaluated thinning treatments in the Black Hills National Forest that exemplify the extremes of a treatment continuum that ranges from fuel hazard reduction to restoration. The goal of this work was to understand how the differing 3-dimensional stand structures created by these treatment approaches altered potential fire behavior. Our results indicate that restoration treatments created higher levels of vertical and horizontal structural complexity than the fuel hazard reduction treatments but resulted in similar reductions to potential crown fire behavior. There were some tradeoffs identified as the restoration treatments created larger openings which generated faster mean rates of fire spread; however, these increased spread rates did not translate to higher levels of canopy consumption. Overall, our results suggest that treatments can create vertical and horizontal complexity desired for restoration and wildlife habitat management while reducing fire hazard and that they can be used in concert with traditional fuel hazard reduction treatments to reduce landscape scale fire risk. We also provide some suggestions to land managers seeking to design and implement prescriptions that emulate historical structures and enhance forest complexity.

opencc-by-4.0Dec 2021View details →

Pyroconvection Classification based on Atmospheric Vertical Profiling Correlation with Extreme Fire Spread Observations

1. Isochrones for Martorell, Santa Coloma Queralt, Torroella, Pobla Massaluca and Sierra Bermeja fires, in shapefile format. Each file has associated an attribute table identifying the hour (in UTC), the affected area, the rate of spread, and direction. Source: Catalan Fire and Rescue Service (Bombers de la Generalitat de Catalunya) 2. ERA5 reanalysis data obtained for each fire, hourly and at different pressure levels (37) from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Climate Data Store (CDS). The files are in netCDF format, and the variables requested were temperature, relative humidity, U-component of wind, V-component of wind. Source: Hersbach, H., Bell, B., Berrisford, P., Biavati, G., Horányi, A., Muñoz Sabater, J., Nicolas, J., Peubey, C., Radu, R., Rozum, I., Schepers, D., Simmons, A., Soci, C., Dee, D., Thépaut, J-N. (2018): ERA5 hourly data on pressure levels from 1979 to present. Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Climate Data Store (CDS). 10.24381/cds.bd0915c6 3. Data from sondes launched in fires during the 2021 Spain wildfire campaign. The files are in CSV format, and there are two per fire: the sounding data corrected and the raw flight history. The information provided is Hour (UTC), Wind speed (m/s), Wind direction (true deg), Dew point (C), Latitude, Longitude, Altitude (in m MSL and m AGL), Pressure (Pascal), Speed (m/s), Heading (degrees), Temperature (C), Relative humidity (%), Internal temperature (C), Latitude, Longitude, Rise speed (m/s). Source: Catalan Fire and Rescue Service (Bombers de la Generalitat de Catalunya) 4. Data from the closest weather station to each fire. The file is an Excel file. The table fields are: fire name, weather station name, day, hour, average temperature (°C), maximum temperature(°C), minimum temperature (°C), average relative humidity (%), precipitation (mm), wind speed (10 m, km/h), wind direction (10 m, degrees), wind gusts (10 m, km/h), pressure (hPa), radiation (W/m). Source: Meteo.cat, Servei Meteorològic de Catalunya 5. Fire behavior resume for Martorell, Santa Coloma Queralt, Torroella, Pobla Massaluca, Llançà, Alfarràs and Sierra Bermeja fires (Spain). The differences in the data shown respond to the possibility of launching sondes, recreating isochrones, and observing the plume column during each fire. In those cases where the information was obtained through these three ways, the variables available are: column type, ABL and LCL height (m), sonde ID, rate of spread (km/h), ROS observed / ROS expected ratio, fireline intensity expected and observed (kW/m), and affected area (ha). 6. Photographic registry of the fire plume evolution and a brief description of the pyroconvective moments in the Alfarràs, Martorell, Llançà, Torroella, Santa Coloma de Queralt, Pobla Massaluca, and Sierra Bermeja fires (Spain). Pictures sources: Catalan Fire and Rescue Service (Bombers de la Generalitat de Catalunya)

Fire decreases soil enzyme activities and reorganizes microbially-mediated nutrient cycles: a meta-analysis

The biogeochemical signature of fire shapes the functioning of many ecosystems. Fire changes nutrient cycles not only by volatilizing plant material, but also by altering organic matter decomposition—a process regulated by soil extracellular enzyme activities (EEAs). However, our understanding of fire effects on EEAs and their feedbacks to nutrient cycles is incomplete. We conducted a meta-analysis with 301 field studies and found that fire significantly decreased EEAs by ~20-40%. Fire decreased EEAs by decreasing soil microbial biomass and organic matter substrates. Soil nitrogen-acquiring EEA decreased alongside decreasing available nitrogen, likely from fire-driven volatilization of nitrogen and decreased microbial activity. Fire decreased soil phosphorus-acquiring EEA but increased available phosphorus, likely from pyro-mineralization of organic phosphorus. These findings suggest that fire suppresses soil microbes and consumes their substrates, thereby slowing microbially-mediated nutrient cycles (especially phosphorus) via decreased EEAs. These changes can become increasingly important as fire regimes in many ecosystems continue to shift in response to global change.

Data from: Size, species, and fire behavior predict tree and liana mortality from experimental burns in the Brazilian Amazon

Anthropogenic understory fires have affected large areas of tropical forest in recent decades, particularly during severe droughts. Yet, the mechanisms that control fire-induced mortality of tropical trees and lianas remain ambiguous due to the challenges associated with documenting mortality given variation in fire behavior and forest heterogeneity. In a seasonally dry Amazon forest, we conducted a burn experiment to quantify how increasing understory fires alter patterns of stem mortality. From 2004 to 2007, tree and liana mortality was measured in adjacent 50-ha plots that were intact (B0 – control), burned once (B1), and burned annually for 3 years (B3). After 3 years, cumulative tree and liana mortality (≥1 cm dbh) in the B1 (5.8% yr−1) and B3 (7.0% yr−1) plots significantly exceeded mortality in the control (3.2% yr−1). However, these fire-induced mortality rates are substantially lower than those reported from more humid Amazonian forests. Small stems were highly vulnerable to fire-induced death, contrasting with drought-induced mortality (measured in other studies) that increases with tree size. For example, one low-intensity burn killed >50% of stems <10 cm within a year. Independent of stem size, species-specific mortality rates varied substantially from 0% to 17% yr−1 in the control, 0% to 26% yr−1 in B1, and 1% to 23% yr−1 in B3, with several species displaying high variation in their vulnerability to fire-induced mortality. Protium guianense (Burseraceae) exhibited the highest fire-induced mortality rates in B1 and B3, which were 10- and 9-fold greater than the baseline rate. In contrast, Aspidosperma excelsum (Apocynaceae), appeared relatively unaffected by fire (0.3% to 1.0% mortality yr−1 across plots), which may be explained by fenestration that protects the inner concave trunk portions from fire. For stems ≥10 cm, both char height (approximating fire intensity) and number of successive burns were significant predictors of fire-induced mortality, whereas only the number of consecutive annual burns was a strong predictor for stems <10 cm. Three years after the initial burn, 62 ± 26 Mg ha−1 (s.e.) of live biomass, predominantly stems <30 cm, was transferred to the dead biomass pool, compared with 8 ± 3 Mg ha−1 in the control. This biomass loss from fire represents ∼30% of this forest's aboveground live biomass (192 (±3) Mg ha−1; >1 cm DBH). Although forest transition to savanna has been predicted based on future climate scenarios, our results indicate that wildfires from agricultural expansion pose a more immediate threat to the current carbon stocks in Amazonian forests.

opencc-by-4.0Apr 2022View details →

Fire exclusion changes belowground bud bank and bud-bearing organ composition jeopardizing open savanna resilience

Dataset from the article: Bombo, A.B.; Appezzato-da-Glória, B.; Fidelis, A. (2022) Fire exclusion changes belowground bud bank and bud-bearing organ composition jeopardizing open savanna resilience. Oecologia DOI 10.1007/s00442-022-05172-1, Article type: Community ecology – original research.

Data from: Irregular forest structures originating after fire: an opportunity to promote alternatives to even-aged management in boreal forests

1. Even-aged silviculture based on short-rotation clearcuts had severely altered boreal forests. Silvicultural alternatives (e.g., continuous cover or retention forestry) has the potential to restore and protect the habitats and functions of boreal forests. These alternatives are however often restricted to structurally complex old-growth forest, which are particularly threatened by anthropogenic disturbances. Increasing the use of alternatives to even-aged silviculture in early-successional stands could help recruit more structurally complex forests, with characteristics closer to the old-growth. In this article, we therefore evaluate the potential for silvicultural alternatives to even-aged management in boreal forests that burned less than a century ago. 2. We analyzed 1085 field plots in a 243000 km2 area situated in the boreal forest of eastern Canada. These plots burned 30 to 100 years before the survey and had not been subjected to previous or subsequent anthropogenic disturbance; they hence represent young primary forests. The main patterns of tree diameter distribution variation within the plots were identified using k-means clustering. Stand structure, tree species composition, and environmental variables that most explained the differences among the clusters were identified with a random forest model, and then compared using Kruskal-Wallis and Fisher's exact tests. 3. The majority (>75 %) of the plots presented an irregular structure of stem diameters (i.e., non-normally distributed, with many small diameter trees). The understorey was generally dominated by black spruce (Picea mariana [Mill.] BSP), a shade-tolerant species. Irregular structures were observed in both forests of high and low productivity, implying that different processes (e.g., early regeneration, variable tree growth) can lead to observed early irregular structure. Regular structures were generally characterized by a higher productivity and abundance in hardwood species compared to the irregular structures. 4. Synthesis and application: Many boreal forests of eastern Canada progress towards an irregular structure in the decades following the last stand-replacing fire. A substantial part of these early-successional forests may be suitable for alternatives to even-aged silviculture that better maintains habitats and functions of preindustrial boreal forests.

opencc-zeroMay 2022View details →

Watershed and fire severity are stronger determinants of soil chemistry and microbiomes than within-watershed woody encroachment in a tallgrass prairie system

Fire can impact terrestrial ecosystems by changing abiotic and biotic conditions. Short fire intervals maintain grasslands and communities adapted to frequent, low-severity fires. Shrub encroachment that follows longer fire intervals accumulates fuel and can increase fire severity. This patchily distributed biomass creates mosaics of burn severities in the landscape—pyrodiversity. Afforded by a scheduled burn of a watershed protected from fires for 27 years, we investigated effects of woody encroachment and burn severity on soil chemistry and soil-inhabiting bacteria and fungi. We compared soils before and after fire within the fire-protected, shrub-encroached watershed and soils in an adjacent, annually burned and non-encroached watershed. Organic matter and nutrients accumulated in the fire-protected watershed but responded less to woody encroachment within the encroached watershed. Bioavailable nitrogen and phosphorus and fungal and bacterial communities responded to high-severity burn regardless of encroachment. Low-severity fire effects on soil nutrients differed, increased bacterial but decreased fungal diversity and effects of woody encroachment within the encroached watershed were minimal. High-severity burns in the fire-protected watershed led to a novel soil system state distinct from non-encroached and encroached soil systems. We conclude that severe fires may open grassland restoration opportunities to manipulate soil chemistry and microbial communities in shrub-encroached habitats.

opencc-zeroMay 2022View details →

Wildfire extends the shelf-life of elk nutritional resources regardless of fire severity

Large-scale, high severity wildfires are increasingly frequent across the western United States. Fire severity affects the amount of vegetation removed and helps dictate what, where, and how many plants regenerate postfire, potentially altering the available habitat and nutritional landscape for wildlife. To evaluate the effects of fire severity on summer nutritional resources for elk (Cervus canadensis), we collected field data and remotely sensed information in years two and three after a large-scale wildfire to compare forage quality and quantity across forest types and fire severities within the summer range of one elk population in west-central Montana. To understand the landscape level effects of fire severity on nutritional resources, we developed predictive forage quality and quantity models. We used these models to predict nutritional resources across the landscape for four scenarios representing different fire severity patterns (i.e., an unburned landscape, a landscape burned only at low severity, a landscape burned only at high severity, and the observed landscape burned at a mixed severity). Shortly after the wildfire, summer forage quality and herbaceous forage quantity increased in both mesic and dry mixed conifer forests regardless of fire severity. Summer shrub forage quantity was greater in unburned mesic and dry forests, and there was no difference between fire severities in dry forests. Low severity burned mesic forests had significantly greater shrub forage quantity compared to high severity burned mesic forests. The three predicted fire scenarios had the highest percentage of the summer range with adequate forage quality which increased throughout the summer. In contrast, the predicted unburned landscape had the lowest percentage of adequate forage quality which decreased throughout the summer. Wildfire extended the duration in which elk can access high quality forage in the summer in years two and three postfire. Therefore, shortly after a large-scale wildfire, elk may be better able to meet their nutritional requirements which may positively impact elk body condition, reproductive performance, and survival.

opencc-by-4.0May 2022View details →

PM2.5 data for "Contribution of fire emissions to PM2.5 and its transport mechanism over the Yungui Plateau, China during 2015–2019"

PM2.5 data for "Contribution of fire emissions to PM2.5 and its transport mechanism over the Yungui Plateau, China during 2015–2019"

opencc-zeroDec 2015View details →

Data from: Evolution of long centromeres in fire ants

Background: Centromeres are essential for accurate chromosome segregation, yet sequence conservation is low even among closely related species. Centromere drive predicts rapid turnover because some centromeric sequences may compete better than others during female meiosis. In addition to sequence composition, longer centromeres may have a transmission advantage. Results: We report the first observations of extremely long centromeres, covering on average 34 % of the chromosomes, in the red imported fire ant Solenopsis invicta. By comparison, cytological examination of Solenopsis geminata revealed typical small centromeric constrictions. Bioinformatics and molecular analyses identified CenSol, the major centromeric satellite DNA repeat. We found that CenSol sequences are very similar between the two species but the CenSol copy number in S. invicta is much greater than that in S. geminata. In addition, centromere expansion in S. invicta is not correlated with the duplication of CenH3. Comparative analyses revealed that several closely related fire ant species also possess long centromeres. Conclusions: Our results are consistent with a model of simple runaway centromere expansion due to centromere drive. We suggest expanded centromeres may be more prevalent in hymenopteran insects, which use haplodiploid sex determination, than previously considered.

opencc-zeroJul 2022View details →

Effects of spatial distance and woody plant cover on beta diversity point to dispersal limitation as a driver of community assembly during post-fire succession in a Mediterranean shrubland

Beta diversity, and its components of turnover and nestedness, reflect the processes governing community assembly, such as dispersal limitation or biotic interactions, but it is unclear how they operate at the local scale and how their role changes along post-fire succession. Here, we analyzed the patterns of beta diversity and its components in a herbaceous plant community after fire, and in relation to dispersal ability, in Central Spain. We calculated multiple site beta diversity (βSOR) and its components of turnover (βSIM) and nestedness (βSNE) of all herbaceous plants, or grouped by dispersal syndrome (autochory, anemochory, zoochory), during the first three years after wildfire. We evaluated the relationship between pairwise beta diversity (βsor), and its components (βsim, βsne), and spatial distance or differences in woody plant cover, a proxy of biotic interactions. We found high multiple-site beta diversity dominated by the turnover component. Community dissimilarity increased with spatial distance, driven mostly by the turnover component. Species with less dispersal ability (i. e. autochory) showed a stronger spatial pattern of dissimilarity. Biotic interactions with woody plants contributed less to community dissimilarity, which tended to occur through the nestedness component. These results suggest that dispersal limitation prevails over biotic interactions with woody plants as a driver of local community assembly, even for species with high dispersal ability. These results contribute to our understanding of post-fire community assembly and vegetation dynamics.

opennotspecifiedJul 2016View details →

On following pages: 265. Small Sun Squirrel (Heliosciurus punctatus); 266. Ruwenzori Sun Squirrel (Heliosciurus 269. Forest Giant Squirrel (Protoxerus stangeri); 270. Slender-tailed Squirrel (Protoxerus aubinnii); 271. Western Palm (Funisciurus substriatus); 274. Red-cheeked Rope Squirrel (Funisciurus leucogenys); 275. Thomas's Rope Squirrel ruwenzoril); 267. Zanj Sun Squirrel (Heliosciurus undulatus); 268. Mutable Sun Squirrel (Heliosciurus mutabilis), Squirrel (Epixerus ebii); 272. Fire-footed Rope Squirrel (Funisciurus pyrropus); 273. Kintampo Rope Squirrel (Funisciurus anerythrus); 276. Lady Burton's Rope Squirrel (Funisciurus isabella). in Sciuridae

On following pages: 265. Small Sun Squirrel (Heliosciurus punctatus); 266. Ruwenzori Sun Squirrel (Heliosciurus 269. Forest Giant Squirrel (Protoxerus stangeri); 270. Slender-tailed Squirrel (Protoxerus aubinnii); 271. Western Palm (Funisciurus substriatus); 274. Red-cheeked Rope Squirrel (Funisciurus leucogenys); 275. Thomas's Rope Squirrel ruwenzoril); 267. Zanj Sun Squirrel (Heliosciurus undulatus); 268. Mutable Sun Squirrel (Heliosciurus mutabilis), Squirrel (Epixerus ebii); 272. Fire-footed Rope Squirrel (Funisciurus pyrropus); 273. Kintampo Rope Squirrel (Funisciurus anerythrus); 276. Lady Burton's Rope Squirrel (Funisciurus isabella).