The Demise of Fire and “Mesophication” of Forests in the Eastern United States
Abstract
A diverse array of fire-adapted plant communities once covered the eastern United States. European settlement greatly altered fire regimes, often increasing fire occurrence (e.g., in northern hardwoods) or substantially decreasing it (e.g., in tallgrass prairies). Notwithstanding these changes, fire suppression policies, beginning around the 1920s, greatly reduced fire throughout the East, with profound ecological consequences. Fire-maintained open lands converted to closed-canopy forests. As a result of shading, shade-tolerant, fire-sensitive plants began to replace heliophytic (sun-loving), fire-tolerant plants. A positive feedback cycle—which we term “mesophication”—ensued, whereby microenvironmental conditions (cool, damp, and shaded conditions; less flammable fuel beds) continually improve for shade-tolerant mesophytic species and deteriorate for shade-intolerant, fire-adapted species. Plant communities are undergoing rapid compositional and structural changes, some with no ecological antecedent. Stand-level species richness is declining, and will decline further, as numerous fire-adapted plants are replaced by a limited set of shade-tolerant, fire-sensitive species. As this process continues, the effort and cost required to restore fire-adapted ecosystems escalate rapidly.
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Strong feedbacks between plants and fire mean that plants directly influence fire regimes.
“However, strong feedbacks between plants and fire also mean that plants directly influence fire regimes (Beckage, Platt, & Gross, 2009;Nowacki & Abrams, 2008;Platt, Ellair, Huffman, Potts, & Beckage, 2016).”
From Fire as a fundamental ecological process: Research advances and frontiers (2020) · cites this paper as Nowacki & Abrams, 2008
Cites
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“However, strong feedbacks between plants and fire also mean that plants directly influence fire regimes (Beckage, Platt, & Gross, 2009; Nowacki & Abrams, 2008; Platt, Ellair, Huffman, Potts, & Beckage, 2016).”
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- Authors
- Nowacki, G. J., & Abrams, M. D.
- Affiliations
- United States Department of Agriculture (US)
- Venue
- BioScience
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2008-02-01
- Volume
- 58
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 123-138
- ISSN
- 0006-3568 (ISSN-L)
- 1525-3244
- OpenAlex
- W2097153239
- Cited by
- 1,316
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 70 · 2025: 85 · 2024: 75 · 2023: 89 · 2022: 81 · 2021: 101 · 2020: 103 · 2019: 86 · 2018: 87 · 2017: 64 · 2016: 83 · 2015: 73 · 2014: 78 · 2013: 71 · 2012: 56
- FWCI
- 34.20
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- BioScience (publishedVersion)
- BioOne Complete (BioOne) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- U.S. Forest Service
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Fire effects on ecosystems
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Nature and Landscape Conservation › Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Rangeland and Wildlife Management
- Keywords
- fire suppression, mesophication, fire regimes, shade-tolerant species, fire-sensitive species, northern hardwood forest, tallgrass prairie, positive feedback, species richness decline, ecological restoration, eastern United States forests
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