@silence7 Yeah that's a great question. We haven't done the work to model the expected movement of chaparral, oak woodland, or mixed broadleaf forest into these conifer forests, but that's definitely forthcoming. We just kind of did the inverse here, modeling where conifers were likely to recede. Generally, chaparral prefers steeper, sun exposed slopes. Wildfire frequency will also be very important. Chaparral likes fire, but has a hard time when fires are more frequent than every 30 years.
avephill
joined 2 years ago
I'm the lead author on this. Feel free to ask me anything!
@silence7 I think a very interesting implication of the fire-dependency of vegetation composition is that we will actually need to make some decisions about what vegetation we /want/ to see in these areas. Like the wildfire regime is heavily managed today, and these decisions impact what vegetation will be more likely to expand into these forests. So there's important choices being made, whether we fully understand the implications or not.