Latest Ecological succession Stories

VERGENNES, Vt., May 17, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- May marks the start of wildfire season in the US, and authorities are predicting that 2013 will be a particularly dangerous year. Drought conditions, high temperatures, and high winds across the West have already put wildfire statistics for the year well above average. The coming high-hazard months (the remainder of May, June, July, and August) will bring particularly acute fire hazards to most of California, Oregon, Arizona, and New...

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Forest fires are a major cause of plant death and destruction, but they can also be a source of life as some dormant seeds begin to germinate in the aftermath of a raging inferno. Previous research has shown chemicals in the smoke of burning trees called karrikins are responsible for this phoenix-like rebirth. Now, a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has described new details on the mechanism behind...

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online More than a hundred years of growth data on individual plants has been digitized by a team of researchers at the University of Arizona’s Tumamoc Hill. The team has made this data available for study by people around the globe. New insights into the behavior of ecosystems can be developed by knowing how plants respond to changing conditions over many decades. Tumamoc Hill’s permanent research plots represent the world’s...

American Geophysical Union When scientists torched an entire 22-acre watershed in Portugal in a recent experiment, their research yielded a counterintuitive result: Large, hot fires do not necessarily beget hot, scorched soil. It’s well known that wildfires can leave surface soil burned and barren, which increases the risk of erosion and hinders a landscape’s ability to recover. But the scientists’ fiery test found that the hotter the fire—and the denser the vegetation feeding...

Airborne imaging technology developed at NASA and transferred to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service (USFS) in 2012 is being tested to prepare for this year's wildfire season in the western United States. The Autonomous Modular Sensor (AMS) is a scanning spectrometer designed to help detect hot-spots, active fires, and smoldering and post-fire conditions. Scientists at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., and USFS engineers installed it on a Cessna Citation...

WASHINGTON, April 11, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Airborne imaging technology developed at NASA and transferred to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service (USFS) in 2012 is being tested to prepare for this year's wildfire season in the western United States. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The Autonomous Modular Sensor (AMS) is a scanning spectrometer designed to help detect hot-spots, active fires, and smoldering and post-fire...

HARRISBURG, Pa., March 14, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Governor Tom Corbett has proclaimed March 17-23 as Wildfire Prevention Week in Pennsylvania, noting warming temperatures and drying March winds have combined to increase fire dangers across Pennsylvania's forests and brush lands. "Last spring brought many brush and woodlands fires, showing us how quickly our wealth of forest resources can be endangered," Corbett said. "People cause 98 percent of wildfires; a mere spark by a...

Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Forest fires are responsible for laying waste to entire ecosystems. As the flames rush through, animals attempt to make their escape, seeking shelter in less incendiary locales. Charred remains of trees and ground cover are completely unsuitable for sustaining the life of the animals that once called the area home. However, a new study led by bat ecologist Winifred Frick of the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) reports the...

Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Scientists from three universities have found that record temperatures in 2010 and 2012 resulted in the earliest spring flowering season in the eastern United States in more than 160 years. Using the phenological records of two iconic American naturalists, Henry David Thoreau and Aldo Leopold, scientists have shown that some springtime bloomers have appeared as much as a month earlier in response to the warming climate. This study...

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online An international team of scientists comprised of members from Penn State, UMass Amherst, UC Santa Barbara (UCSB) and University College London has revealed that an invasive grass species may be one reason that fires are bigger and more frequent in certain regions of the western U.S. Using satellite imagery, the team identified cheatgrass – a plant species accidentally introduced by western settlers during the 1800s – in a...