Thesis Fire History and Serotiny in the Rocky
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THESIS FIRE HISTORY AND SEROTINY IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS OF COLORADO Submitted by Carissa F. Aoki Department of Forest, Rangeland and Watershed Stewardship In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the Degree of Master of Science Colorado State University Fort Collins, Colorado Spring 2010 COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY April 5, 2010 WE HEREBY RECOMMEND THAT THE THESIS PREPARED UNDER OUR SUPERVISION BY CARISSA F. AOKI ENTITLED FIRE HISTORY AND SEROTINY IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS OF COLORADO BE ACCEPTED AS FULFILLING IN PART REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE. Committee on Graduate Work ________________________________________ Melinda Laituri ________________________________________ Philip Cafaro ________________________________________ Advisor: William Romme ________________________________________ Co-Advisor: Peter Brown ________________________________________ Department Head: Michael Manfredo ii ABSTRACT OF THESIS FIRE HISTORY AND SEROTINY IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS OF COLORADO Fire is a natural part of forested ecosystems in Colorado, playing an essential role in regenerating and maintaining forests. I studied two aspects of fire: historical fire regime in mixed-conifer forests, and serotiny in lodgepole pine. I. During the 1990s and early 2000s, fire management in the western United States was often based on lessons learned from fire regime studies in ponderosa pine ecosystems in the Southwestern states. As managers sought to apply these policies to an ever-broader range of forest types, it became clear that different forest types were characterized by different fire regimes and thus required further research as well as new management strategies. Mixed-conifer forests have been particularly hard to quantify in terms of their historical fire regimes. My study aimed to understand the historical range of variability (HRV) in a mesic mixed-conifer forest in southwestern Colorado. Banded Peak Ranch, located in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, provided a unique setting in which to study the historical fire regime of this forest type in the southern Rocky Mountains. I used a combination of stand age structure, species composition, and fire scar data, collected at two different spatial scales on 40 plots, in both logged and iii unlogged stands. At both scales, I found a combination of mixed- and high-severity fire regimes. The spatial distribution of fire severity appears to have been patchy, with mixed- and high-severity stands lying in close proximity to one another. Species composition and age structure varied widely among both the high- and mixed- severity stands, suggesting that a variety of future disturbance regime trajectories might be expected. II. Regeneration in Rocky Mountain lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta var. latifolia) is characterized by two methods of reproduction: serotinous cones, which open and release their seeds only under heat from fire; and non-serotinous cones, which open and release their seeds with cone maturity. Stands with a high proportion of serotinous cones can thus regenerate strongly following stand-replacing fire. I used data from across Rocky Mountain National Park (ROMO) to quantify the distribution of serotiny on the landscape and to try to understand the key abiotic variables controlling serotiny. I found that serotiny varied from 0-97% per stand, with an average across the landscape of 58%. Because my data did not correlate strongly with any single variable, I used regression tree analysis to explore the combined effects of abiotic variables on serotiny. Elevation, aspect, and topographic convergence index (a measure of local moisture) were the key variables in the resulting regression tree, and higher serotiny was correlated with the range of each variable that is more conducive to fire—lower, more west-facing, drier. Previous research has shown that serotiny is affected by stand-replacing fire, but not by low-severity fire. In an environment such as the lodgepole pine forests of ROMO, where stand-replacing fire is the predominant fire regime, serotiny is highly related to the environmental variables that generally contribute to fire occurrence. iv III. Serotinous cones remain on living trees for many years, holding within them the canopy seed bank for regeneration after fire. After large-scale mortality caused by mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae), however, the seeds in serotinous cones may remain on the dead trees for a number of years. I tested seeds from living and beetle-killed serotinous stands to determine whether they remain viable after tree death, and whether germination rates were affected by cone age. There was no significant difference between germination success rates from the living stand vs. the dead stand. While there was a significant relationship between cone age and germination success, cones that were 21-25 yrs still had >30% germination rates. I conclude that post-beetle regeneration likely will not be limited by viable seed availability in stands with serotinous cone-bearing trees. Carissa F. Aoki Department of Forest, Rangeland and Watershed Stewardship Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 80523 Spring 2010 v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost I would like to thank my advisors, Peter Brown and Bill Romme, for the teaching, guidance, and project opportunities they provided me during my time at Colorado State. I would also like to thank the other members of my committee, Melinda Laituri and Phil Cafaro. I thank the owners and managers of Banded Peak, Catspaw, and Navajo Headwaters Ranches for their support and participation in the fire history study. In addition to providing terrific field support, they completely changed my perspective about the nature of private land ownership, and the role of private landowners in 21st century conservation efforts. For the project at Rocky Mountain National Park, I thank Judy Visty and the many other park staff who made our project possible and enjoyable. For their help in the field and lab, I thank Brandon Corcoran, Jonas Feinstein, Luke Griscom, Jared Lyons, Jed Meunier, Greg Pappas, Katie Shields, and Lisa Slepetski. Monique Rocca, Matt Diskin, and Kellen Nelson were great colleagues on the Rocky Mountain National Park project. They and their other lab members graciously allowed me to be a guest at their meetings, from which I gained invaluable assistance and feedback. Jason Sibold generously allowed me to use his serotiny data, and I thank David Coblentz for his assistance with topographic data analysis. This work was funded by Banded Peak Ranch, a McIntyre-Stennis grant to Colorado State University and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Finally I thank Lin Murphy, whose support and good cheer makes my work possible. vi Table of Contents Foreword ................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 1: Fire Regime of a Mixed-Conifer Forest in Southwestern Colorado ... 3 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 3 Methods ............................................................................................................... 7 Study area ........................................................................................................ 7 Sampling methods ........................................................................................... 9 Fire severity determination ............................................................................ 13 Results ............................................................................................................... 15 Fire scar data .................................................................................................. 15 Species composition, aspen establishment dates, general age structure ........ 19 Fire severity classification ............................................................................. 23 Fire severity results ........................................................................................ 24 Discussion and Management Recommendations .............................................. 25 Fire regime ..................................................................................................... 26 Historical range of variability (HRV) ............................................................ 29 Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 32 Appendix A. Detailed forest structure and species composition data ................ 1 Appendix B: Fire severity map ........................................................................ 36 Chapter 2: Lodgepole pine serotiny in Rocky Mountain National Park ............. 46 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 46 Methods ............................................................................................................. 47 Study Location ............................................................................................... 47 Methods ............................................................................................................. 48 Field Sampling ............................................................................................... 48 Additional topographic variables ................................................................... 51 Statistical Analysis .......................................................................................