Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Spatial patterns of tree cover change at a dry forest margin are driven by initial conditions, water balance and wildfire

  • Research Article
  • Published:
Landscape Ecology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Context

Increases in tree cover at dry forest margins are a global phenomenon. Yet, how pre-existing tree cover interacts with terrain and water balance to influence tree cover change is not well-understood, nor whether subsequent disturbances restore prior tree cover patterns or create novel patterns.

Objectives

To assess how terrain, water balance and pre-existing patterns of tree cover influenced late twentieth century tree cover change, and how subsequent wildfires altered tree cover patterns.

Methods

We analyzed tree canopy cover at four sites at the forest-steppe ecotone on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada, California, U.S.A., using aerial photographs from 1953/1955, 1999/2002 and 2016. Influences on tree cover change were assessed using statistical modeling, and tree cover in 1953/1955 was compared with post-wildfire tree cover in 2016.

Results

From 1953 to 2002, area with > 25% canopy cover increased by 1.5 to 5-fold and treeless area decreased by 17–111%. Mesic areas and areas of sparse tree cover close to existing forest tended to gain more canopy cover. Subsequent wildfires caused a mix of net tree cover loss, little change and gain relative to 1953/1955, but at all sites areas with > 25% cover and < 10% cover in 1953/55 experienced net losses and gains respectively by 2016.

Conclusions

Accounting for initial tree cover and its configuration are crucial to assessing water balance and terrain effects on tree cover change. Our work highlights how wildfires can generate novel patterns of tree cover relative to historical baselines, especially following decades of fire exclusion.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Abatzoglou JT, Williams AP (2016) Impact of anthropogenic climate change on wildfire across western US forests. Proc Natl Acad Sci 113:11770–11775

    CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Addington RN, Aplet GH, Battaglia MA, Briggs JS, Brown PJ, Cheng AS, Dickinson Y, Feinstein JA, Pelz KA, Regan CM, Thinnes J, Truex R, Fornwalt PJ, Gannon B, Julian CW, Underhill JL, Wolk B (2018) Principles and practices for the restoration of ponderosa pine and dry mixed-conifer forests of the Colorado Front Range. RMRS-GTR-373, USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fort Collins, CO

  • Agee JK (1998) The landscape ecology of western forest fire regimes. Northwest Sci 72:24–34

    Google Scholar 

  • Allen C, Savage M, Falk D (2002) Ecological restoration of southwestern ponderosa pine ecosystems: a broad perspective. Ecol Appl 12:1418–1433

    Google Scholar 

  • Archer S, Schimel DS, Holland EA (1995) Mechanisms of shrubland expansion: land use, climate or CO2? Clim Change 29:91–99

    Google Scholar 

  • Baker WL (2006) Fire and restoration of sagebrush ecosystems. Wildl Soc Bull 34:177–185

    Google Scholar 

  • Baker W, Shinneman D (2004) Fire and restoration of pinon–juniper woodlands in the western United States: a review. For Ecol Manag 189:1–21

    Google Scholar 

  • Barger NN, Archer SR, Campbell JL, Huang C, Morton JA, Knapp AK (2011) Woody plant proliferation in North American drylands: a synthesis of impacts on ecosystem carbon balance. J Geophys Res 116:1–17

    Google Scholar 

  • Bauer JM, Weisberg PJ (2009) Fire history of a central Nevada pinyon-juniper woodland. Can J For Res 39:1589–1599

    Google Scholar 

  • Beers TW, Dress PE, Wensel LC (1966) Aspect transformation in site productivity research. J For 64:691–692

    Google Scholar 

  • Beven KJ, Kirkby MJ (1979) A physically based, variable contributing area model of basin hydrology. Hydrol Sci Bull 24:43–69

    Google Scholar 

  • Boisramé GFS, Thompson SE, Kelly M, Cavalli J, Wilkin KM, Stephens SL (2017) Vegetation change during 40 years of repeated managed wildfires in the Sierra Nevada, California. For Ecol Manag 402:241–252

    Google Scholar 

  • Bolsinger CL (1989) California’s western juniper and pinyon-juniper woodlands: area, stand characteristics, wood volume and fenceposts. PNW-RB-166, USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, Portland, OR, USA

  • Bradley BA, Fleishman E (2008) Relationships between expanding pinyon-juniper cover and topography in the central Great Basin, Nevada. J Biogeogr 35:951–964

    Google Scholar 

  • Breiman L (2001) Random forests. Mach Learn 45:5–32

    Google Scholar 

  • Breshears DD, Cobb NS, Rich PM, Price KP, Allen CD, Balice RG, Romme WH, Kastens JH, Floyd ML, Belnap J, Anderson JJ, Myers OB, Meyer CW (2005) Regional vegetation die-off in response to global-change-type drought. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 102:15144–15148

    CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Burwell T (1998) Successional patterns of the lower montane treeline, eastern California. Madroño 45:12–16

    Google Scholar 

  • Chalfant WA (1933) The Story of Inyo. Community Printing and Publishing, Bishop, CA, USA

    Google Scholar 

  • Chen J, Saunders SC, Crow TR, Naiman RJ, Kimberley D, Mroz GD, Brookshire BL, Franklin JF, Chen J, Saunders SC, Crow TR, Naiman RJ, Brosofske KD, Mroz GD, Brookshire BL, Franklin JF (1999) Microclimate in forest ecosystem and landscape ecology. Bioscience 49:288–297

    Google Scholar 

  • Clark JS, Silman M, Kern R, Eric M, HilleRisLambers J (1999) Seed dispersal near and far: patterns across temperate and tropical forests. Ecology 80:1475–1494

    Google Scholar 

  • Clifford MJ, Cobb NS, Buenemann M (2011) Long-term tree cover dynamics in a pinyon-juniper woodland: climate-change-type drought resets successional clock. Ecosystems 14:949–962

    Google Scholar 

  • Cooper CF (1960) Changes in vegetation, structure, and growth of Southwestern pine forests since white settlement. Ecol Monogr 30:129–164

    Google Scholar 

  • Cutler DR, Edwards TC, Beard KH, Cutler A, Hess KT, Gibson J, Lawler JJ (2007) Random forests for classification in ecology. Ecology 88:2783–2792

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Daly C, Neilson RP, Phillips DL (1994) A statistical-topographic model for mapping climatological precipitation over mountainous terrain. J Appl Meteorol 33:140–158

    Google Scholar 

  • Davies KW, Boyd CS, Beck JL, Bates JD, Svejcar TJ, Gregg MA (2011) Saving the sagebrush sea: an ecosystem conservation plan for big sagebrush plant communities. Biol Conserv 144:2573–2584

    Google Scholar 

  • Davis KT, Dobrowski SZ, Higuera PE, Holden ZA, Veblen TT, Rother MT, Parks SA, Sala A, Maneta M (2019a) Wildfires and climate change push low-elevation forests across a critical climate threshold for tree regeneration. Proc Natl Acad Sci. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1815107116

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Davis KT, Dobrowski SZ, Holden ZA, Higuera PE, Abatzoglou JT (2019b) Microclimatic buffering in forests of the future: the role of local water balance. Ecography 42:1–11

    Google Scholar 

  • Dimitri LA, Longland WS (2017) Distribution of western juniper seeds across an ecotone and implications for dispersal. West N Am Nat 77:212–222

    Google Scholar 

  • Eidenshink J, Schwind B, Brewer K, Zhu Z, Quayle B, Howard S (2007) A project for monitoring trends in burn severity. Fire Ecol 3:3–21

    Google Scholar 

  • Filippelli SK, Falkowski MJ, Hudak AT, Fekety PA, Vogeler JC, Khalyani AH, Rau BM, Strand EK (2020) Monitoring pinyon-juniper cover and aboveground biomass across the Great Basin. Environ Res Lett. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab6785

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Flint LE, Flint AL, Thorne JH, Boynton R (2013) Fine-scale hydrologic modeling for regional landscape applications: the California Basin Characterization Model development and performance. Ecol Process 2:25

    Google Scholar 

  • Franklin SE, Hall RJ, Moskal LM, Maudie AJ, Lavigne MB (2000) Incorporating texture into classification of forest species composition from airborne multispectral images. Int J Remote Sens 21:61–79

    Google Scholar 

  • Genuer R, Poggi JM, Tuleau-Malot C (2010) Variable selection using random forests. Pattern Recognit Lett 31:2225–2236

    Google Scholar 

  • Genuer R, Poggi J-M, Tuleau-Malot C (2015) VSURF: an R Package for Variable Selection Using VSURF: an R Package for Variable Selection Using Random Forests. R J 7:19–33

    Google Scholar 

  • Gill L, Taylor AH (2009) Top-down and bottom-up controls on fire regimes along an elevational gradient on the east slope of the Sierra Nevada, California, USA. Fire Ecol 5:57–75

    Google Scholar 

  • Gray S, Betancourt J, Jackson S, Eddy R (2006) Role of multidecadal climate variability in a range extension of pinyon pine. Ecology 87:1124–1130

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Greene DF, Zasada JC, Sirois L, Kneeshaw D, Morin H, Charron I, Simard M-J (1999) A review of the regeneration dynamics of North American boreal forest tree species. Can J For Res 29:824–839

    Google Scholar 

  • Greenwell BM (2017) pdp: an R package for constructing partial dependence plots. R J XX:1–16

    Google Scholar 

  • Greenwood DL, Weisberg PJ (2008) Density-dependent tree mortality in pinyon-juniper woodlands. For Ecol Manag 255:2129–2137

    Google Scholar 

  • Gruell GE (1983) Fire and vegetative trends in the northern Rockies: Interpretations from 1871-1982 photographs. GTR-INT-158, USDA Forest Service, Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, Ogden, UT, USA

  • Gruell GE, Bunting S, Neuenschwander L (1985) Influence of fire on curlleaf mountain-mahogany on the Intermountain West. In: Lotan JE, Brown JK (eds) Fire’s effects on wildlife habitat—symposium proceedings. GTR-INT-186, USDA Forest Service, Intermountain Research Station, Ogden, UT, USA, pp 58–72

  • Gustafson KB, Coates PS, Roth CL, Chenaille MP, Ricca MA, Sanchez-Chopitea E, Casazza ML (2018) Using object-based image analysis to conduct high-resolution conifer extraction at regional spatial scales. Int J Appl Earth Obs Geoinf 73:148–155

    Google Scholar 

  • Hampe A, Petit RJ (2005) Conserving biodiversity under climate change: the rear edge matters. Ecol Lett 8:461–467

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Haralick RM, Shanmugam K, Dinstein I (1973) Textural features for image classification. IEEE Trans Syst Man Cybern 3:610–621

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris LB, Taylor AH (2020) Rain-shadow forest margins resilient to low-severity fire and climate change but not high-severity fire. Ecosphere 11:e03258

    Google Scholar 

  • Harvey BJ, Andrus RA, Anderson SC (2019) Incorporating biophysical gradients and uncertainty into burn severity maps in a temperate fire-prone forested region. Ecosphere 10:1–20

    Google Scholar 

  • Hesselbarth MHK, Sciaini M, With KA, Wiegand K, Nowosad J (2019) landscapemetrics: an open-source R tool to calculate landscape metrics. Ecography 42:1648–1657

    Google Scholar 

  • Hollander JL, Vander Wall SB (2004) Effectiveness of six species of rodents as dispersers of singleleaf piñon pine (Pinus monophylla). Oecologia 138:57–65

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson DD, Miller RF (2006) Structure and development of expanding western juniper woodlands as influenced by two topographic variables. For Ecol Manag 229:7–15

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnson DW, Miller WW, Susfalk RB, Murphy JD, Dahlgren RA, Glass DW (2009) Biogeochemical cycling in forest soils of the eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains, USA. For Ecol Manag 258:2249–2260

    Google Scholar 

  • Kadmon R, Harari-Kremer R (1999) Studying long-term vegetation dynamics using digital processing of historical aerial photographs. Remote Sens Environ 68:164–176

    Google Scholar 

  • Kerns BK, Tortorelli C, Day MA, Nietupski T, Barros AMG, Kim JB, Krawchuk MA (2020) Invasive grasses: a new perfect storm for forested ecosystems? For Ecol Manag 463:117985

    Google Scholar 

  • Kersten EWJ (1964) The early settlement of Aurora, Nevada, and nearby mining camps. Ann Assoc Am Geogr 54:490–507

    Google Scholar 

  • Keyser AR, Westerling AL (2019) Predicting increasing high severity area burned for three forested regions in the western United States using extreme value theory. For Ecol Manag 432:694–706

    Google Scholar 

  • Kitzberger T, Veblen TT (1999) Fire-induced changes in northern Patagonian landscapes. Landsc Ecol 14:1–15

    Google Scholar 

  • League K, Veblen TT (2006) Climatic variability and episodic Pinus ponderosa establishment along the forest-grassland ecotones of Colorado. For Ecol Manag 228:98–107

    Google Scholar 

  • Liaw A, Wiener M (2002) Classification and regression by randomForest. R News 2(3):18–22

    Google Scholar 

  • Lutz JA, van Wagtendonk JW, Franklin JF (2010) Climatic water deficit, tree species ranges, and climate change in Yosemite National Park. J Biogeogr 37:936–950

    Google Scholar 

  • Lydersen JM, Collins BM (2018) Change in vegetation patterns over a large forested landscape based on historical and contemporary aerial photography. Ecosystems 21:1–16

    Google Scholar 

  • Mast JN, Veblen TT, Hodgson ME (1997) Tree invasion within a pine/grassland ecotone: an approach with historic aerial photography and GIS modeling. For Ecol Manag 93:181–194

    Google Scholar 

  • Maxwell RS, Taylor AH, Skinner CN, Safford HD, Isaacs RE, Airey C, Young AB (2014) Landscape-scale modeling of reference period forest conditions and fire behavior on heavily logged lands. Ecosphere 5:1–28

    Google Scholar 

  • McCune B (1988) Ecological diversity in North American Pines. Am J Bot 75:353–368

    PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • McGarigal K, Cushman SA, Ene E (2012) FRAGSTATS v4: spatial pattern analysis program for categorical and continuous maps

  • Metcalfe P, Beven K, Freer J (2018) Dynatopmodel: implementation of the dynamic TOPMODEL hydrological model. R package version 1.2.1. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=dynatopmodel

  • Miller RF, Heyerdahl EK (2008) Fine-scale variation of historical fire regimes in sagebrush-steppe and juniper woodland: an example from California, USA. Int J Wildl Fire 17:245–254

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller RF, Rose JA (1999) Fire history and western juniper enroachment in sagebrush steppe. J Range Manag 52:550–559

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller RF, Tausch RJ (2001) The role of fire in juniper and pinyon woodlands: a descriptive analysis. In: Galley KEM, Wilson TP (eds) Proceedings of the invasive species workshop: the role of fire in the control and spread of invasive species. fire conference 2000: the first national congress on fire ecology, prevention and management. Miscellaneous Publication No. 11, Tall Timbers Research Station, Tallahassee, FL, USA, pp 15–30

  • Miller JD, Thode AE (2007) Quantifying burn severity in a heterogeneous landscape with a relative version of the delta Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR). Remote Sens Environ 109:66–80

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller RF, Tausch RJ, McArthur ED, Johnson DD, Sanderson SC (2008) Age structure and expansion of pinyon-juniper woodlands: a regional perspective in the Intermountain West. RMRS-RP-69, USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fort Collins, CO, USA

  • Miller JD, Knapp EE, Key CH, Skinner CN, Isbell CJ, Creasy RM, Sherlock JW (2009) Calibration and validation of the relative differenced Normalized Burn Ratio (RdNBR) to three measures of fire severity in the Sierra Nevada and Klamath Mountains, California, USA. Remote Sens Environ 113:645–656

    Google Scholar 

  • Murphy MA, Evans JS, Storfer A (2010) Quantifying Bufo boreas connectivity in Yellowstone National Park with landscape genetics. Ecology 91:252–261

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • North MP, van de Water KM, Stephens SL, Collins BM (2009) Climate, rain shadow, and human-use influences on fire regimes in the Eastern Sierra Nevada, California, USA. Fire Ecol 5:20–34

    Google Scholar 

  • Parks SA, Dobrowski SZ, Shaw JD, Miller C (2019) Living on the edge: trailing edge forests at risk of fire-facilitated conversion to non-forest. Ecosphere 10:e02651

    Google Scholar 

  • Patton DR (1975) A diversity index for quantifying habitat “Edge”. Wildl Soc Bull 3:171–173

    Google Scholar 

  • Pausas JG (2003) The effect of landscape pattern on Mediterranean vegetation dynamics: a modelling approach using functional types. J Veg Sci 14:365–374

    Google Scholar 

  • Platt RV, Schoennagel T (2009) An object-oriented approach to assessing changes in tree cover in the Colorado Front Range 1938-1999. For Ecol Manag 258:1342–1349

    Google Scholar 

  • Platt RV, Veblen TT, Sherriff RL (2006) Are wildfire mitigation and restoration of historic forest structure compatible? A spatial modeling assessment. Ann Assoc Am Geogr 96:455–470

    Google Scholar 

  • Potter DA (1998) Forested communities of the upper montane in the central and southern Sierra Nevada. PSW-GTR-169, USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station, Albany, CA, USA

  • Reinhardt JR, Filippelli S, Falkowski M, Allred B, Maestas JD, Carlson JC, Naugle DE (2020) Quantifying pinyon-juniper reduction within North America’s sagebrush ecosystem. Rangel Ecol Manag. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rama.2020.01.002

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Restaino C, Young DJN, Estes B, Gross S, Wuenschel A, Meyer M, Safford HD (2019) Forest structure and climate mediate drought-induced tree mortality in forests of the Sierra Nevada, USA. Ecol Appl 29:1–14

    Google Scholar 

  • Rodman KC, Veblen TT, Saraceni S, Chapman TB (2019) Wildfire activity and land use drove 20th-century changes in forest cover in the Colorado front range. Ecosphere. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.2594

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Romme WH, Allen CD, Bailey JD, Baker WL, Bestelmeyer BT, Brown PM, Eisenhart KS, Floyd ML, Huffman DW, Jacobs BF, Miller RF, Muldavin EH, Swetnam TW, Tausch RJ, Weisberg PJ (2009) Historical and modern disturbance regimes, stand structures, and landscape dynamics in piñon–juniper vegetation of the western United States. Rangel Ecol Manag 62:203–222

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosenzweig ML (1968) Net primary productivity of terrestrial communities: prediction from climatological data. Am Nat 102:67–74

    Google Scholar 

  • Rotenberg E, Yakir D (2010) Contribution of semi-arid forests to the climate system. Science 327:451–454

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Safford HD, Stevens JT (2017) Natural Range of Variation (NRV) for yellow pine and mixed conifer forests in the Sierra Nevada, southern Cascades, and Modoc and Inyo National Forests, California, USA. PSW-GTR-256, USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station, Albany, CA, USA

  • Schultz B, Tueller P, Tausch R (1990) Ecology of curlleaf mahogany in western and central Nevada: community and population structure. J Range Manag 43:13–20

    Google Scholar 

  • Schwilk DW, Ackerly DD (2001) Flammability and serotiny as strategies: correlated evolution in pines. Oikos 94:326–336

    Google Scholar 

  • Sherriff RL, Platt RV, Veblen TT, Schoennagel TL, Gartner MH (2014) Historical, observed, and modeled wildfire severity in montane forests of the Colorado Front Range. PLoS ONE 9:1–17

    Google Scholar 

  • Skinner CN (1995) Change in spatial characteristics of forest openings in the Klamath Mountains of northwestern California, USA. Landsc Ecol 10:219–228

    Google Scholar 

  • Sørensen R, Zinko U, Seibert J (2006) On the calculation of the topographic wetness index: evaluation of different methods based on field observations. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci 10:101–112

    Google Scholar 

  • Steel ZL, Koontz MJ, Safford HD (2018) The changing landscape of wildfire: burn pattern trends and implications for California’s yellow pine and mixed conifer forests. Landsc Ecol 33:1159–1176

    Google Scholar 

  • Stephens SL (2001) Fire history differences in adjacent Jeffrey pine and upper montane forests in the eastern Sierra Nevada. Int J Wildl Fire 10:161–167

    Google Scholar 

  • Stephenson N (1990) Climatic control of vegetation distribution: the role of the water balance. Am Nat 135:649–670

    Google Scholar 

  • Stephenson NL (1998) Actual evapotranspiration and deficit: biologically meaningful correlates of vegetation distribution across spatial scales. J Biogeogr 25:855–870

    Google Scholar 

  • Stevens JT, Collins BM, Miller JD, North MP, Stephens SL (2017) Changing spatial patterns of stand-replacing fire in California conifer forests. For Ecol Manag 406:28–36

    Google Scholar 

  • Stevens-Rumann CS, Morgan P (2019) Tree regeneration following wildfires in the western US: a review. Fire Ecol 15:1–17

    Google Scholar 

  • Syphard AD, Keeley JE (2016) Historical reconstructions of California wildfires vary by data source. Int J Wildl Fire 25:1221–1227

    Google Scholar 

  • Tausch RJ, West NE, Nabi AA (1981) Tree age and dominance patterns in Great Basin pinyon-juniper woodlands. J Range Manag 34:259–264

    Google Scholar 

  • Taylor AH (2004) Identifying forest reference conditions on early cut-over lands, Lake Tahoe Basin, USA. Ecol Appl 14:1903–1920

    Google Scholar 

  • Turner MG, Gardner RH, Dale VH, O’Neill RV (1989) Predicting the spread of disturbance across heterogeneous landscapes. Oikos 55:121–129

    Google Scholar 

  • Vaillant NM, Stephens SL (2009) Fire history of a lower elevation Jeffrey pine-mixed conifer forest in the eastern Sierra Nevada, California, USA. Fire Ecol 5:4–19

    Google Scholar 

  • Van Auken OW (2009) Causes and consequences of woody plant encroachment into western North American grasslands. J Environ Manag 90:2931–2942

    Google Scholar 

  • van de Water KM, Safford HD (2011) A summary of fire frequency estimates for California vegetation before Euro-American settlement. Fire Ecol 7:26–58

    Google Scholar 

  • Vander Wall SB (2008) On the relative contributions of wind vs. animals to seed dispersal of four sierra Nevada pines. Ecology 89:1837–1849

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Veblen TT, Lorenz DC (1988) Recent vegetation changes along the forest/steppe ecotone of northern Patagonia. Ann Assoc Am Geogr 78:93–111

    Google Scholar 

  • Wangler MJ, Minnich RA (1996) Fire and succession of pinyon-juniper woodlands of the San Bernadino Mountains, California. Madrono 43:493–514

    Google Scholar 

  • Weisberg PJ, Lingua E, Pillai RB (2007) Spatial patterns of pinyon–juniper woodland expansion in central Nevada. Rangel Ecol Manag 60:115–124

    Google Scholar 

  • With KA (2002) The landscape ecology of invasive spread. Conserv Biol 16:1192–1203

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank Andrew Carleton, Laura Leites and Erica Smithwick for their comments on earlier versions of the manuscript; and Marc Meyer and Duncan Leao for advice and logistical support. This project was funded by a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Award (No. 1735558) and by a Center for Landscape Dynamics research award and a Ruby S. Miller Graduate Student Fellowship from The Pennsylvania State University.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, The Pennsylvania State University, 302 Walker Building, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

    Lucas B. Harris

  2. Department of Geography, Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, The Pennsylvania State University, 302 Walker Building, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

    Alan H. Taylor

Authors
  1. Lucas B. Harris
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Alan H. Taylor
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lucas B. Harris.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 4569 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Harris, L.B., Taylor, A.H. Spatial patterns of tree cover change at a dry forest margin are driven by initial conditions, water balance and wildfire. Landscape Ecol 36, 353–371 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-020-01178-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-020-01178-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation