Papers by Elena Kukavskaya
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, Dec 1, 2019
Počvovedenie, Nov 1, 2023
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, Dec 1, 2017
Wildfires are one of the main disturbances that impact structure, sustainability, and carbon budg... more Wildfires are one of the main disturbances that impact structure, sustainability, and carbon budget of Siberian forests, as well as infrastructure and human safety. The Zabaikal region in the south of Siberia is characterized by one of the highest levels of fire activity in Russia. We have estimated fire disturbances in the Zabaikal region using both a satellite fire dataset and official fire statistics. Both datasets show a trend of increasing fire activity in the region. According to the satellite fire dataset, from 1996 to 2015 total annual area burned in the Zabaikal region varied from 0.12 to 6.33 M ha with forest area burned accounting for 0.04-5.60 M ha. The highest fire activity was observed in the central and southern parts of the Zabaikal region. About 13% (3.88 M ha) of the total forest area in the Zabaikal region was burned more than once during the 20-yr period of observation, with many sites burned multiple times. Fire disturbance was highest in forests dominated by Scots pine. We have evaluated fire impact on fuel loads, carbon emissions, and tree regeneration on about 150 sites in the light-coniferous (larch or Scots pine dominated) forests of the region. Carbon emissions from fires on repeatedly burned areas were 3-50% of those from previously undisturbed sites. Regeneration density depended on site conditions and fire characteristics. Inadequate regeneration for forest recovery was observed in Scots pine stands on dry nutrient-poor soils as well as on repeatedly-disturbed sites. This regeneration failure is leading to transformation of forests to steppe ecosystems on some sites. We conclude that negative impacts of fire disturbance on forests of the Zabaikal region could be decreased through implementation of fire prevention measures with emphasis on education of local communities as well as construction and maintenance of a fuel break system, first of all, nearby settlements and tree plantations.
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, Dec 1, 2018
Wildfire disturbances effect changes in vegetation communities that in turn influence climate. Su... more Wildfire disturbances effect changes in vegetation communities that in turn influence climate. Such changes in boreal forest ecosystems can persist over decadal time scales or longer. In the ecotone between boreal forest and steppe in the region southeast of Lake Baikal in southern Siberia, shifts between the two vegetation types may be precipitated by variations in site specific conditions, as well as disturbance characteristics such as fire frequency and severity. Warmer, drier conditions in the region have been associated with a decrease in fire return intervals and greater burn severity that may, in turn, drive conversion of forests to steppe vegetation at a greater rate than has occurred prior to the onset of warming and drying. Stand-replacing fires in Pinus sylvestris stands in southern Siberia may lead to recruitment failure postfire, particularly on southwest to west-facing slopes, which are more often dominated by grasses. This study uses a combination of field data and remotely sensed indices of vegetation and moisture to distinguish between recruitment pathways in southern Siberia, and to study the influence of factors related to soils, topography, fire severity and winter snow cover on these. We expected that recruitment success would be associated with lower burn severity (higher NBR), higher greenness (NDVI) and moisture (NDMI), and winter snow (NDSI) postfire. We also expected phenological characteristics to differ among recruitment paths. Prior to burning, our sites are broadly similar in terms of remotely sensed indices of moisture (NDMI), vegetation (NDVI), and winter fractional snow cover (NDSI), but recruitment failure sites are generally drier and less green postfire. Initial differences in greenness and moisture among sites characterized by abundant recruitment (AR), intermediate recruitment (IR) and recruitment failure (RF) become more pronounced over the initial decades postfire. The earliest separability of AR and RF sites using remotely sensed indices occurs in the winter months 3-4 years postfire, during which time NDSI is highest for AR sites and lowest for RF. Although seasonality was important with regard to distinguishing among AR, IR and RF index values, the timing of phenological events such as start and end of season did not differ significantly among the sites.
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, Dec 1, 2013
EGU General Assembly Conference Abstracts, Apr 1, 2019
Environmental Research Letters, 2010
Forest fires resulting from long periods of drought cause extensive forest ecosystem destruction ... more Forest fires resulting from long periods of drought cause extensive forest ecosystem destruction and can impact on the carbon balance and air quality and feed back to the climate system, regionally and globally. Past fire frequency is reconstructed for Tuvan Scots pine stands using dendrochronology and statistics. Central Tuvan Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) stands are subject to annual fire regimes;
Remote Sensing of Environment, Feb 1, 2020
The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, ... more The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY
Eurasian Soil Science, Mar 1, 2014
The influence of surface fires and cutting on the quantitative and functional parameters of micro... more The influence of surface fires and cutting on the quantitative and functional parameters of micro bial cenoses in the soils of light coniferous forests in the Lower Angara River basin was studied. In the litters of soddy podzolic soils under pine forests, the microbial biomass was 4080-4700 µg C/g; the basal respira tion was 17.00-20.32 µg C CO 2 /g/h; and the qCO 2 , 4.17-4.33 µg C CO 2 /mg C mic /h. In the humus accu mulative horizon, these values were 880-1160 µg C/g, 2.48-4.12 µg C CO 2 /g/h, and 2.83-3.55 C CO 2 /mg C mic /h, respectively. In the litter of the one year old felled area, the content of microbial biomass carbon was by two times lower; in the litter of burned plots, it was by 60-70% lower than in the litter of the control area. The intensity of the microbial respiration did not change proportionally to the microbial biomass content, which resulted in an imbalance between the processes of the organic matter mineralization-immobilization towards a release of CO 2 as evidenced by the increase of the qCO 2 values by 2-4 times. In the five year old felled area, at the stage of restoring the herbaceous vegetation, a tendency towards the stabilization of the destructive microbiological processes was revealed. In the felled areas, the high number of heterotrophic microorganisms, the reduced oligotrophy of the soil organic horizons, and the more intense microbiological mineralization of the organic matter were observed. The surface fires in the felled areas and forests signifi cantly affected the structure and the number of ecological-trophic groups of microorganisms in the litters, the humus-accumulative horizons, and in the upper mineral soil layers. The maximal structural and func tional disturbance in the soil microbial complex was found in the logged areas affected by fires.
Japan Geoscience Union, Mar 10, 2016
Fire, Feb 9, 2023
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY
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Papers by Elena Kukavskaya