Geog 433/533
Fire and Natural Disturbances
Fall, 2009
Lecture: Monday and Wednesday, 10:00-11:20, in 127 Chiles
Instructor: Daniel Gavin (dgavin@uoregon.edu)
Office: 110 Condon Hall; Phone: 346-5787
Office Hours: T.B.D.
Required field trips:
Sunday October 4th 11:00-4:00, to the western Cascades.
Saturday October 24 8:30-5:00, to the High Cascades and east side forests.
Course Overview:
Wildland
fire is one of the most important natural disturbances of
ecosystems. It is also a disturbance that presents a risk to
human society that is difficult to balance among competing
interests. This course will serve as an introduction to
disturbance ecology class, we will first be introduced to the field of
disturbance ecology with a focus on wildland fire. Fire will be
examined at many levels: the weather
and fuel conditions
that result in a range of fire
behaviors, the effects
of fire on
vegetation and ecosystems, and the history
of fire including its
connection to long-term climate change.
We will study fire as
an important process in all of the major biomes, not only the Pacific
Northwest. Other natural disturbances to be addressed include
wind, insect outbreaks, ice storms, and drought, all of which have
synergistic effects with fire. The last portion of the class will
address human
use and suppression of fire, including specific management issues of
fire in the Pacific Northwest. Field trips will involve
visits to a variety of forest types and recent fires.
Goals of the course:
- Understand the patterns and controls influencing natural disturbances over landscapes and through time.
- Examine the basics of fire behavior and effects on species and ecosystems, including adaptations of species to fire, in the major biomes.
- Examine the historical variability of fire in order to place the current fire landscape in a longer-term context.
- Develop an in-depth knowledge in an area of fire science of your choice.
- Research paper on a topic of your choice. 35% of your total grade.
- Two field trip reports: each 10% of your total grade.
- One homework exercise: 15% of your total grade.
- Two exams: 20% and 10% of your total grade.
Course materials (weekly schedule will be posted during the summer):
- Fire Ecology of Pacific Northwest Forests (James K. Agee)
- Flames in Our Forest (Stephen F. Arno and Steven Allison-Bunnell). NOTE: this is required but not in the UO Bookstore. It is very cheap on Amazon.com. Apologies for this last-minute change.
- NOTE Contrary to listing in the bookstore: Mimicking Nature's Fire (Stephen Arno and Carl Fiedler) is NOT required.
- Additional materials will be compiled into a reading packet or posted on blackboard.uoregon.edu.
Blackboard will be used to share
your photos related to disturbance in any way.
Contributing to the blog is not required, but it may serve as a
means to discuss things that are not the topics du jour in class.
Several students may have photos showing a noteworthy fire event,
or someone may want to post a link to a news story.
Expectations for the courseA. Attend lecture and field
trips. Repeated absences will be noted and, more importantly, you
will miss crucial information that will be on the exams.
B. During lecture please be respectful of everyone's learning experience. This includes:
No talking amongst each other. Please leave your social conversations for outside the classroom. However, questions during lectures are encouraged. If you have a question, raise your hand or catch me after class.
C. Please don't leave in the middle of lecture. It is distracting for many people, including me. If you need to leave, then let me know before the lecture starts, then sit near an exit.
D. Do not have your laptop open to surf the web. Note-taking on laptops is OK.
Cheating, such as copying material from other students on tests, will result in failing the test at a minimum and I will pass the information on to the Dean of Students. In serious cases, you will flunk the class or be expelled from the university.
E. Plagiarizing. Plagiarizing occurs when you copy materials from other sources without citing the source (i.e., taking credit for someone else’s work), or copy someone else’s lab. All students should be familiar with the material in this guide on avoiding plagiarism (http://libweb.uoregon.edu/guides/plagiarism/students/).
F. Incomplete policy. An “I” grade will be given only under the most unavoidable circumstances. I can only provide minimal extra help for completing an I grade. Incomplete grades must be completed during the summer.
G. Disabilities: I will accommodate all disabilities; please let me know early in the course what these may be.
H. Field trips are mandatory--as each field trip is followed up with a list of short questions due one week later (Field trip reports). It is important to let me know ASAP if you have an unavoidable conflict. Transportation will be provided in 2 or 3 vans (supported by attached fees). Please be prepared for the weather, bring water and food (lunches), and sturdy walking shoes. It can be significantly cooler and wetter in the areas we will be going.Field trips will involve short hikes and some off-trail walking, and may be during cold and wet weather.
B. During lecture please be respectful of everyone's learning experience. This includes:
No talking amongst each other. Please leave your social conversations for outside the classroom. However, questions during lectures are encouraged. If you have a question, raise your hand or catch me after class.
C. Please don't leave in the middle of lecture. It is distracting for many people, including me. If you need to leave, then let me know before the lecture starts, then sit near an exit.
D. Do not have your laptop open to surf the web. Note-taking on laptops is OK.
Cheating, such as copying material from other students on tests, will result in failing the test at a minimum and I will pass the information on to the Dean of Students. In serious cases, you will flunk the class or be expelled from the university.
E. Plagiarizing. Plagiarizing occurs when you copy materials from other sources without citing the source (i.e., taking credit for someone else’s work), or copy someone else’s lab. All students should be familiar with the material in this guide on avoiding plagiarism (http://libweb.uoregon.edu/guides/plagiarism/students/).
F. Incomplete policy. An “I” grade will be given only under the most unavoidable circumstances. I can only provide minimal extra help for completing an I grade. Incomplete grades must be completed during the summer.
G. Disabilities: I will accommodate all disabilities; please let me know early in the course what these may be.
H. Field trips are mandatory--as each field trip is followed up with a list of short questions due one week later (Field trip reports). It is important to let me know ASAP if you have an unavoidable conflict. Transportation will be provided in 2 or 3 vans (supported by attached fees). Please be prepared for the weather, bring water and food (lunches), and sturdy walking shoes. It can be significantly cooler and wetter in the areas we will be going.Field trips will involve short hikes and some off-trail walking, and may be during cold and wet weather.
Research paper: Undergraduate students will write a synthetic review paper on the natural disturbance regime of a region. The goal of this paper is to 1) synthesize at least two scientific disciplines and 2) address how scientific data are used in the public policy arena. For example, a paper may address the disturbance regime of Douglas-fir forests of the western Cascades of Oregon (from historical and remote-sensing approaches) and how scientific understanding of these disturbances has influenced development of forest policy on federal land. Or, the natural disturbance regime of the “sagebrush sea” of the Great Basin is poorly understood, yet this region has seen huge changes in vegetation cover. The research paper would 1) review the evidence for the Great Basin disturbance regime from documentary evidence and tree-ring studies, 2) in light of this history, discuss what current restoration goals may be and the management practices occurring today, and 3) how management addresses natural disturbance regimes. These papers may be based largely on existing review papers and government reports, but it is expected that the student will go to primary journals for the most current data and perspectives. Undergraduate papers will be 10 to 12 pages double-spaced plus references and figures. Graduate students will complete a major research paper with an original research component. These papers should have two elements: 1) a review component based entirely on peer-reviewed scientific literature, and 2) an original research component, where primary data is collected and analyzed. The data may come from fieldwork, remote sensing, geospatial databases, or be a formal meta-analysis of existing literature. The research paper is to be 15 to 18 pages double-spaced plus figures and references. (35% of the total grade.)
The key to producing a quality review paper will be the research involved. This requires going to a wide range of sources of information, and cite them properly as outlined in the UO Guide to Avoiding Plagiarism. All source material should not be material produced to be distributed on the Web, but rather from material produced to be published by reputable publishers (i.e., books and journals). The topic of the paper should have a focus on wildland fire and use scientific evidence, but the topic is your choice. For example, fire regimes of a particular area or biome, aspects of particular management situation, etc. It is OK to advocate in your paper, but it should be clear what is personal opinion (generally best to keep to a separate section of the paper). Use evidence and examples to support any general statement.
A preliminary, very brief, outline of the research paper is due on or before Oct XX. This should describe the major sections of the paper, and a list of references (as described above) demonstrating you have looked into the feasibility of your idea for a research paper. There is no required format for your paper, but I suggest using headings such as 'Introduction', headings specific to different themes of the paper, and 'Conclusions.' Be sure to state clearly the goal of the review in the Introduction.
Field trip reports: Undergraduate students will write a one-page (double-spaced) answer to questions posed at the start of each field trip. These reports are to help teach note-taking skills of natural environments. Alternative assignments regarding the assigned reading will be given to students who cannot attend the field trip. The alternative will be to draw a comparison between two recently assigned readings and add additional interpretation to the readings. Graduate students will analyze small data sets collected during the field trip. These data sets will be on tree seedling density in permanent plots established at each of the field sites. These results will be presented in class. (10% total grade).
One homework exercise involving computer simulation of disturbance dynamics: The graduate students will be required to perform a complex statistical analysis of the results of the simulation, while the undergraduates will summarize the results with data graphics alone. (5% total grade)
Two exams: Neither are open-note. Exam 1: Multiple choice and very-short answers. Graduate students will have 50% fewer multiple-choice questions and will have short-answer questions allowing for a longer written answer. Exam 2: A short, short-answer exam (10% total grade). Undergraduate students will answer four questions directly derived from lecture and assigned readings. Graduate students will have two of the four questions making connections between readings.
Department of Geography, University of Oregon
Modified Sep 19th, 2009
