Assessing the potential fire tolerance of conifer saplings in cold and wet environments using a pyro-ecophysiology approach.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Climate change is expected to alter fire return intervals in cold and wet forests in the northwestern United States. This coupled with an expected rise in prescribed fires to restore healthy forests, disproportionately increases risk to saplings of tree species adapted to colder and wetter environments that have low fire resistance. To assess this potential impact, we evaluated the impacts of increasing fire intensity on Picea engelmannii and Thuja plicata sapling physiology, morphology, and mortality. This was achieved using established pyro-ecophysiology experiments where saplings were subjected to controlled surface fires across a range of fire intensities and post-fire growth, physiology and mortality were assessed up to 7 months post-fire.

Results</

SUBMITTER: Blanco AS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12894159 | biostudies-literature | 2026

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature