Tropical Fire Ecology: Climate Change, Land Use and Ecosystem Dynamics

Mark Cochrane

Eph 2010 · Springer Science & Business Media

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Fire Ecology of Tropical Ecosystems gives an extensive explanation of historic and current fire situations in the tropics, describing the fire ecology of tropical ecosystems from around the globe. Eighteen groups of leading researchers explain the many different aspects and roles of fire in tropical ecosystems. Regional chapters address a set of common subjects including the causes of fire, typical fire behavior, and elements of the fire regime. In addition, they study the impacts of human land use, landscape fragmentation and climate change on the fire environment and the challenges of fire management in these ecosystems. The common set of topics provides consistency among the chapters and facilitates comprehensive understanding of fire’s place in tropical ecology. This cohesive book covers unique aspects of fire in each ecosystem and includes a discussion of common elements to enable comparisons and syntheses of fire effects in disparate tropical ecosystems. Current scientific literature is too fragmented: it hampers the understanding of tropical fire ecology and degrades all global studies of land cover change and global carbon emissions. Fire

Ecology of Tropical Ecosystems fills a large void in our current understanding of how fire affects terrestrial biota.

The book opens with a general explanation of fire in the tropics, giving the examples of Oazaca, Mexico in 1998 and Roraima, Brazil in 1997-1998. It follows with the concepts and principles of wildland fire, including heat transfer, fire behavior, fuels, weather and climate.

Chapters 3-19 cover the implications of fire in Asia, Africa, Australia, Central and South America, Pacifica and Pantropical, addressing the causes, fire behavior, severity, fire and land use, fire and landscapes (fragmentation and connectivity), fire, climate and climate change, fire regimes (why frequency matters), issues for fire management and regional issues of specific importance or interest. An overview at the end of the book considers the global fire regime conditions, threats, and opportunities for fire management in the tropics.

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Professor Mark A. Cochrane is eminently qualified to explain in detail the historic and current fire situations in the tropics. He is internationally renowned for the documentation of the characteristics, behavior and ecological effects of fire in tropical forests. His research focuses on understanding spatial patterns, interactions and synergisms between the multiple physical and biological factors that affect ecosystems. His recent published work has emphasized human dimensions of land-cover change and the potential for sustainable development and it has been instrumental in the Brazilian government’s recent (2003) program to increase its national forest system in the Amazon to 50 million hectares. In current research programs, Professor Cochrane investigates the drivers and effects of disturbance regime changes resulting from various forms of forest degradation, including fire, fragmentation and logging. He is the President of the Association for Fire Ecology of the Tropics (AFET) and has written and edited several books and articles in influential scientific publications about fire in tropical forests.