Describing or explaining: Understanding effects of disturbance processes on ecological processes

Background/Question/Methods:

Often missing in vegetation dynamics has been the incorporation of a physical understanding of how specific disturbances cause population effects. In ecology, disturbances are often defined by descriptive variables, e.g. frequency of occurrence, intensity, severity.  No causal connection is clearly made between the disturbance process and the ecological process.

Results/Conclusions:

In this talk we will present a model connecting a computational fluid dynamics numerical simulation of a Navier-Stokes approach for low velocity thermally driven flow in a wildfire to heat transfer processes of injury or death to individual trees, and thus the effect on cohort mortality in the population. The model allows computer experiments with different realistic fire conditions to address specific ecological problems, e.g., fire effects on seed mortality in conifer cones.