Long-Term Tree Cover Dynamics in a Pinyon-Juniper Woodland: Climate-Change-Type Drought Resets Successional Clock

Ecosystems

Volumn 14, Issue 6, 2011, Pages 949-962

  Clifford, Michael J ^a   Cobb, Neil S ^b   Buenemann, Michaela ^c  

^a LEHIGH UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^c NEW MEXICO STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

aerial photographs; climate change; die off; drought; elevation gradient; fire; grazing; mortality; pinyon juniper woodland expansion; QuickBird

Indexed keywords

AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH; CLIMATE CHANGE; CONIFEROUS FOREST; DROUGHT STRESS; ELEVATION; EPISODIC EVENT; EXTREME EVENT; FOREST CANOPY; LONG-TERM CHANGE; MORTALITY; QUICKBIRD; SEMIARID REGION; WOODLAND;

UNITED STATES;

JUNIPERUS; PINUS EDULIS;

EID: 80052447587     PISSN: 14329840     EISSN: 14350629     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s10021-011-9458-2     Document Type: Article

References (61)

1. Adams HD, Guardiola-Claramonte M, Barron-Gafford GA et al. 2009. Temperature sensitivity of drought-induced tree mortality portends increased regional die-off under global-change-type drought. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 106: 7063-6.
2. Adams HD, Kolb TE. 2005. Tree growth response to drought and temperature in a mountain landscape in northern Arizona, USA. J Biogeog 32: 1629-40.
3. Adams HD, Macalady AK, Breshears DD et al. 2010. Climate-induced tree mortality: earth system consequences. Eos 91: 153-4.
4. Allen CD, Breshears DD. 1998. Drought induced shifts of a forest-woodland ecotone: rapid landscape response to climate variation. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 95: 14839-42.
5. Allen EA, Nowak RS. 2008. Effect of pinyon-juniper tree cover on the soil seed bank. Range Ecol Manag 61: 63-73.
6. Allen CD, Macalady AK, Chenchouni H et al. 2010. A global overview of drought and heat-induced tree mortality reveals emerging climate change risks for forests. For Ecol Manag 259: 660-84.
7. Anderson RS. 1993. A 35, 000 year vegetation and climate history from Potato Lake, Mogollon Rim, Arizona. Quat Res 40: 351-9.
8. Anderson JJ, Cobb NS. 2004. Tree cover discrimination in panchromatic aerial imagery of pinyon-juniper woodlands. Photogramm Eng Remote Sens 70: 1063-8.
9. Archer S. 1994. Woody plant encroachment into southwestern grasslands and savannas: rates, patterns and approximate causes. In: Vavra M, Laycock W, Pieper R, Eds. Ecological implications of livestock herbivory in the west. Denver, CO: Society for Range Management. p 13-68.
10. Aro RS. 1971. Evaluation of pinyon-juniper conversion to grassland. J Range Manag 24: 188-97.
11. Asner GP, Archer S, Hughes RF et al. 2003. Net changes in regional woody vegetation cover and carbon storage in Texas Drylands, 1937-1999. Glob Change Biol 9: 316-35.
12. Baker WL, Shinneman DJ. 2004. Fire and restoration of piñon-juniper woodlands in the western United States: a review. For Ecol Manag 189: 1-24.
13. Barger NN, Adams HD, Woodhouse C et al. 2009. Influence of livestock grazing and climate on pinyon pine (Pinus edulis) dynamics. Range Ecol Manag 62: 531-9.
14. Betancourt JL, Schuster WS, Mitton JB, Anderson RS. 1991. Fossil and genetic history of a pinyon pine (Pinus edulis) isolate. Ecology 72: 685-1697.
15. Bradley BA, Fleishman E. 2008. Relationship between expanding pinyon-juniper cover and topography in the central Great Basin, Nevada. J Biogeogr 35: 951-64.
16. Breshears DD. 2006. The grassland-forest continuum: trends in ecosystem properties for woody plant mosaics? Front Ecol Environ 4: 96-104.
17. Breshears DD, Rich PM, Barnes FJ, Campbell K. 1997. Overstory-imposed heterogeneity in solar radiation and soil moisture in a semiarid woodland. Ecol Appl 7: 1201-15.
18. Breshears DD, Cobb NS, Rich PM et al. 2005. Regional vegetation die-off in response to global-change type drought. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 102: 15144-8.
19. Breshears DD, Huxman TE, Adams HA et al. 2008. Vegetation synchronously leans upslope as climate warms. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 105: 11591-2.
20. Breshears DD, Myers OB, Barnes FJ. 2009a. Horizontal heterogeneity in the frequency of plant-available water with woodland intercanopy-canopy vegetation patch type rivals that occurring vertically by soil depth. Ecohydrology 2: 503-19.
21. Breshears DD, Whicker JJ, Zou CB et al. 2009b. A conceptual framework for dryland aeolian sediment transport along the grassland-forest continuum: effects of woody plant canopy cover and disturbance. Geomorphology 105: 28-38.
22. Brown PM, Sieg CH. 1999. Historical variability in fire at the ponderosa pine-Northern Great Plains prairie ecotone, southeastern Black Hills, South Dakota. Ecoscience 8: 539-47.
23. Buckhouse JC, Gifford GF. 1976. Grazing and debris burning on pinyon-juniper sites-some chemical water quality implications. J Range Manag 29: 299-301.
24. Carmel Y, Kadmon R. 1998. Computer classification of Mediterranean vegetation using panchromatic aerial photographs. J Veg Sci 9: 445-54.
25. Clifford MJ, Rocca ME, Delph R, Ford PL, Cobb NS. 2008. Drought induced tree mortality and ensuing Bark beetle outbreaks in Southwestern pinyon-juniper woodlands. In Gottfried G, Shaw J, Ford PL, compilers. Ecology, management, and restoration of piñon-juniper and ponderosa pine ecosystems: combined proceedings of the 2005 St. George, Utah and 2006 Albuquerque, New Mexico workshops. Proceedings RMRS-P-51. Fort Collins, CO: U. S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. pp 39-51.
26. Dullinger S, Dirnbock T, Grabherr G. 2004. Modelling climate change-driven treeline shifts: relative effects of temperature increase, dispersal and invisibility. J Ecol 92: 241-52.
27. Floyd ML, Hanna DD, Romme WH. 2004. Historical and recent fire regimes in piñon-juniper woodlands on Mesa Verde, Colorado, USA. For Ecol Manag 198: 269-89.
28. Floyd ML, Clifford M, Cobb N, Hanna D, Delph R, Ford P, Turner D. 2009. Relationship of stand characteristics to drought-induced mortality in piñon-juniper woodlands in Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. Ecol Appl 19: 1223-30.
29. Ganey JL, Vojta SC. 2011. Tree mortality and drought stressed mixed-conifer and ponderosa pine forests, Arizona, USA. For Ecol Manag 261: 162-8.
30. Greenwood DL, Weisberg PJ. 2008. Density-dependent tree mortality in pinyon-juniper woodlands. For Ecol Manag 255: 2129-37.
31. Harris AT, Asner GP, Miller ME. 2003. Changes in vegetation structure after long-term grazing in pinyon-juniper ecosystems: integrating imaging spectroscopy and field studies. Ecosystems 6: 368-83.
32. House JI, Prentice IC, Quéré CL. 2002. Maximum impacts of future reforestation or deforestation on atmospheric CO2. Glob Change Biol 8: 1047-52.
33. Huang C, Asner GP, Martin RE et al. 2009. Multiscale analysis of tree cover and aboveground carbon stocks in pinyon-juniper woodlands. Ecol Appl 19: 668-81.
34. Huang C, Asner GP, Barger NN et al. 2010. Regional aboveground live carbon losses due to drought-induced tree dieback in pinyon-juniper ecosystems. Remote Sens Environ 114: 1471-9.
35. Kadmon R, Harari-Kremer R. 1999. Studying long-term vegetation dynamics using digital processing of historical aerial photographs. Remote Sens Environ 68: 164-76.
36. Kelly A, Goulden M. 2008. Rapid shifts in plant distribution with recent climate change. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 105: 11823-6.
37. Ko D, Bristow N, Greenwood D, Weisberg P. 2009. Canopy cover estimation in semiarid woodlands: comparison of field-based and remote sensing methods. For Sci 55: 132-41.
38. Koepke DF, Kolb TE, Adams HD. 2010. Variation in woody plant mortality and dieback from severe drought among soils, plant groups, and species within a northern Arizona ecotone. Oecologia 163: 1079-90.
39. Köppen WP. 1936. Das geographische System der Klimate. In: Köppen W, Geiger R, Eds. Handbuch der Klimatologie in fünf Bänden, Band I, Teil C, vol 44. Berlin, Germany: Gebrüder Borntraeger.
40. Kulakowski D, Veblen TT, Bebi P. 2003. Effects of fire and spruce beetle outbreak legacies on the disturbance regime of a subalpine forest in Colorado. J Biogeogr 30: 1445-56.
41. Loft ER, Menke JW, Kie JG, Bertram RC. 1987. Influence of cattle stocking rate on the structural profile of deer hiding cover. J Wildl Manag 51: 655-64.
42. Malmstrom CM, Raffa KF. 2000. Biotic disturbance agents in boreal forests: considerations for vegetation change models. Glob Change Biol 6: 35-48.
43. McDowell N, Pockman WT, Allen CD et al. 2008. Mechanisms of plant survival and mortality during drought: why do some plants survive while others succumb to drought? New Phytol 178: 719-39.
44. Miller RF, Wigand PE. 1994. Holocene changes in semi-arid pinyon-juniper woodlands. Bioscience 44: 465-74.
45. Negron JF, Wilson JW. 2003. Attributes associated with probability of infestation by the piñon Ips confusus (Coleoptera: Scolytidae), in piñon pine, Pinus edulis. West N Am Nat 63: 440-51.
46. Overpeck J, Udall B. 2010. Dry times ahead. Science 328: 1642-3.
47. Romme WH, Allen CD, Bailey JD et al. 2009. Historical and modern disturbance regimes, stand structures, and landscape dynamics in piñon-juniper vegetation of the western United States. Range Ecol Manag 62: 203-22.
48. Royer PD, Cobb NS, Clifford MJ et al. 2011. Extreme event-triggered overstory vegetation loss increases understory solar input regionally: primary and secondary ecological implications. J Ecol 99: 714-23.
49. Santos MJ, Whitham TG. 2010. Predictors of Ips confusus outbreaks during a record drought in Southwestern USA: implications for monitoring and management. Environ Manag 45: 239-49.
50. Shaw JD, Steed BE, DeBlander LT. 2005. Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) annual inventory answers the question: what is happening to pinyon-juniper woodlands? J For 103: 280-5.
51. Shinneman DJ, Baker WL. 2009. Historical fire and multidecadal drought as context for piñon-juniper woodland restoration in western Colorado. Ecol Appl 19: 1231-45.
52. Steltzer H, Landry C, Painter TH, Anderson J, Ayers F. 2009. Biological consequences of earlier snowmelt from desert dust deposition in alpine landscapes. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 106: 11629-34.
53. Stimson HC, Breshears DD, Ustin SL, Kefauver SC. 2005. Spectral sensing of foliar water conditions in two co-occurring conifer species: Pinus edulis and Juniperus monosperma. Remote Sens Environ 96: 108-18.
54. Swetnam TW, Betancourt JL. 1998. Mesoscale disturbance and ecological response to decadal climatic variability in the American Southwest. Clima Change 11: 3128-47.
55. Turner MG. 1989. Landscape ecology: the effect of pattern on process. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 20: 171-97.
56. van Auken OW. 2000. Shrub invasions of North American semiarid grasslands. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 31: 197-215.
57. Weisberg PJ, Lingua E, Pillai RB. 2007. Spatial patterns of pinyon-juniper woodland expansion in central Nevada. Range Ecol Manag 60: 115-24.
58. Weiss J, Castro CL, Overpeck JT. 2009. Distinguishing pronounced droughts in the southwestern United States: seasonality and effects of warmer temperatures. J Clim 22: 5918-32.
59. Westerling AL, Hidalgo HG, Cayan DR, Swetnam TW. 2006. Warming and earlier spring increases Western U. S. forest wildfire activity. Science 313: 940-3.
60. Willms WD, Dormaar JF, Schaalje B. 1988. Stability of grazed patches on rough fescue grasslands. J Range Manag 41: 503-8.
61. Yorks TP, West NE, Capels KM. 1994. Changes in pinyon-juniper woodlands in western Utah's Pine Valley between 1933-1989. J Range Manag 47: 359-64.