Sept 29th Field Trip Make-Up Assignment
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University of California, Berkeley *
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185
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Geography
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Dec 6, 2023
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Name________________________________
ESPM 185: Sept 29
th
Field Trip Make-Up Assignment
PART 1: FIRES AND OLD GROWTH FORESTS
Section 1.1.
Read the paper “Defining old growth for fire-adapted forests of the western United States”
(available at
http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol12/iss2/art15/
) and answer the following questions.
Question 1a.
Why is it impossible (and not recommended) to develop one standard definition of old
growth for all forest types? (5 pts possible)
Question 1b.
How do old growth characteristics vary between forests that historically experienced
infrequent, high-severity fires versus forests that historically experienced frequent, low- to mixed-
severity fires? (5 pts possible)
Question 1c.
What are the three spatial scales of old-growth in frequent-fire forests as described by the
authors? Be sure to use your own words (i.e., do not plagiarize). (2.5 pts possible)
Question 1d.
What are key differences in the historical fire regime for ponderosa pine forests of the
Southwest and ponderosa pine forests of the Colorado Front Range? How do these difference influence
characteristics of old-growth in ponderosa pine forests in these regions? (hint—the information you
need to answer this question is in table 2B and the narratives on pages 11-13) (5 pts possible)
Section 1.2.
Dr. Bill Romme mapped the year when stands of lodgepole pine originated across a large
portion of Yellowstone National Park. Lodgepole pine forests typically experience infrequent (every 200-
400 years), high-severity fires. The image below shows stand ages for the year 1778. Numbers refer to
community types (see legend below), and numbers in parentheses are stand ages (i.e., years since stand-
replace fire). Use this image to answer questions 2a and 2b.
Question 2a.
Describe three factors that might account for the shape of stand boundaries. (5 pts)
Question 2b.
Does it look like any areas burned from 1770-1778? How do you know? (2 points)
Section 1.3.
Dr. Bill Romme used information on stand ages and distributions (like in the image for part
2) to calculate the occurrence of fire at different times and the abundance of old growth in Yellowstone
National Park (table 1). Use this table to answer questions 3b, 3d, and 3e.
Question 3a.
Does the traditional definition of old-growth (undisturbed forests with many old trees,
abundant dead woody material, and multiple canopy layers) make sense for lodgepole pine forests? Why
or why not? (5 points)
Question 3b.
Use table 1 to calculate the percentage of
area burned each century (hint: sum all values), and then
calculate the natural fire rotation (NFR)
1
for that century
using the equation below (5 pts):
NFR = time period / (% burned / 100)
1
Nat
u
ral
fire
rotation
= the number of years expected between fires
occurring on the exact same location in an area, or the
number of years expected for the entire area to burn at
least once
Question 3c.
What are three reasons that natural fire
rotation might vary from century to century? (2.5 points)
Question 3d.
How unusual do you think the 1988 Yellowstone Fire was in light of data in table 1? Why?
(3 pts)
Table 1.
Percentage of area burned and
percentage of area in old growth (> 300
years old for dry sites and >400 years
old for mesic sites).
Period
% of area
burned
% of area in
old growth
1700-1720
20
70
1721-1740
5
45
1741-1760
14
40
1761-1780
1
40
1781-1800
2
40
1800-1820
5
23
1821-1840
1
24
1841-1860
3
25
1861-1880
8
28
1881-1900
5
30
1900-1920
5
32
1921-1940
0
35
1941-1960
2
37
1961-1980
0
40
1981-1990
27
40
Century
Total % area
burned
Natural fire
rotation (years)
1700-1800
1800-1900
1900-1990
Average
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PART 2: REDWOOD FORESTRY
For this section, you are asked to answer several questions surrounding recent restoration efforts in
Redwood forests.
To do this, you will want to search for information on Redwoods Rising (a google
search will up multiple helpful resources). In addition, it will be helpful to look up the life history
strategies of Redwoods (usings the Silvics of North America book that we have used previously) and
please look up one peer-reviewed paper on redwood silviculture using google scholar
(scholar.google.com) or Web of Science.
1.
What are some major management challenges in redwood forests? (5 pts)
2.
What efforts are currently being done by Redwood Rising to restore redwood forests and why?
(5 pts)
3.
What additional information did you learn on Redwood forestry from your peer-reviewed paper?
Please also list the citation of the paper you selected. (5 pts)