Prescribed Fire in Natural Resources Management

Creating early successional habitat for wildlife, increasing landscape diversity, and improving oak management are among the reasons for increased use of fire in eastern forests. Fire exclusion has been linked to species composition changes in once fire-prone upland oak ecosystems that are implicated in causing cooler, wetter, closed-canopy conditions with increased abundance of fire-sensitive trees limiting oak regeneration. This webinar covered these topics and presented some of our research findings that highlight how variability in moisture dynamics and flammability across species' litter and other species' traits may help explain the dynamics of fire-dependent ecosystems and the challenges for restoration in fire-excluded sites in the eastern US.

Presenter

Jesse Kreye, Assistant Professor of Fire and Natural Resources Management, Penn State University