Nickolas Kichas, PhD

🗓️🔥 It’s Week 2 of our #FirePrepFriday series.

This week, create a Go Bag for your pet(s).

I started writing blog posts to accompany each week’s tasks, so please visit my website to read more details and find links to additional resources.

www.kristaleewest.com/fireprepfrid...

Extreme Fire Spread Events Burn More Severely and Homogenize Postfire Landscapes in the Southwestern United States Extreme fire spread events rapidly burn large areas and are predicted to increase under a warmer and drier climate. Using satellite data, we analyzed the daily progression of over 600 wildfires in th...

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Our team just published a new paper in Global Change Biology 🧪🔥

The title succinctly describes the main take home message, but here's the deal:

We produced gridded, fine-scale (resolution = 30m) daily fire progression maps for 623 wildfires in the SW US using satellite fire data.

read on ...

Modeling the probability of bark beetle-caused tree mortality as a function of watershed-scale host species presence and basal area In recent decades, bark beetle outbreaks have caused mass tree mortality in western US forests, which has led to altered wildfire characteristics, hyd…

1/4 We have a new paper in Forest Ecology and Management! We modeled bark beetle caused tree mortality as a function of host basal area for eight bark beetle species across the western US. With Jeff Hicke, Chang Gyo Jung, and @mhurteau.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A fire deficit persists across diverse North American forests despite recent increases in area burned - Nature Communications Across many North American forests, recent years with exceptional area burned are not unprecedented when considering the multi-century perspective offered by fire-scarred trees. Nevertheless, abundant...

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Please see our new paper in Nature Communications!

We used 1,851 tree-ring fire-scar sites and contemporary fire perimeters to quantify the prevalence of wildfire from 1600-1880 compared to 1984-2022. 🧪🌍🔥

Our key findings are as follows ...

Events - Dendrochronicle This page lists events organised by, or featuring Dendrochronicle. We can offer talks and workshops on dendrochronology and woodland heritage, guided walks and ancient woodworking demonstrations. If i...

Explore the world of Scotland’s #dendrochronology with me at my upcoming talks and workshop.

What can tree-rings tell us about our built heritage, timber trade & environment?

The Dendrochronicle website events page has just been updated for 2025’s first few gigs.

dendrochronicle.co.uk/events/

Reburning Before Recovery: Effects of Short-Interval Fire on Subalpine Forest Nitrogen Stocks and Fluxes - Ecosystems In forests adapted to infrequent (> 100-year) stand-replacing fires, novel short-interval (< 30-year) fires burn young forests before they recover from previous burns. Postfire tree regeneration is re...

Our new paper in #Ecosystems! Short-interval #fires in lodgepole pine change aboveground N stocks (a lot) but not total ecosystem N, tho available NO3- goes up. #GreaterYellowstone #FireEcology #NSFfunded W/ @nathankiel.bsky.social C Cleveland, J Warren, R Heumann
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Honored to write a commentary recent Pederson et al paper with an AMAZING floating tree-ring chron from whitebark melting out of the ice. The way they use that (unique) resource with ESMs is so well done and gives us a look at the mid Holocene. Freq response y'all! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Melting ice reveals millennia old forest buried in the Rocky Mountains Trees dating back almost 6000 years ago have come to scientists' attention due to ice melting in the Rocky Mountains, offering a "time capsule" into the past

Melting ice reveals buried trees dating back almost 6000 years in the Rocky Mountains, offering us a “time capsule” into previous climate conditions. www.newscientist.com/article/2463...

Melting ice reveals millennia-old forest buried in the Rocky mountains Trees dating back almost 6000 years have come to scientists' attention due to ice melting in the Rocky mountains, offering a "time capsule" into the past

Scientists recently unearthed remnants of a ~5900-year-old pine forest melting out of alpine ice high in the Rockies. 🌲🧪🏺

The rare find reveals an exceptional view of our recent climate past, including the effects of Icelandic volcanos on global temperatures.

New from me @newscientist.bsky.social

Abrupt changes in biomass burning during the last glacial period - Nature An increase in wildfire extent and related greenhouse gas emissions can be linked to abrupt climatic changes during the last glacial period.

I'm thrilled to share our new @nature.com paper! We present ice core methane isotope data revealing that past abrupt climate changes likely triggered surges in wildfires, simultaneously driving rapid methane—and possibly CO2—rises 🌎🔥

Read it here 👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Very cool work by Greg Pederson et al. using a remnant whitebark pine forest preserved in a perennial ice patch to look at Mid-Holocene treeline dynamics in the Greater Yellowstone region www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Thinning enhances whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) growth and resin duct defenses Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) is an important component of high-elevation ecosystems throughout the northern Rocky Mountains; however, the species was recently listed as “threatened” under the En...

Delighted to share our latest research:

dx.doi.org/10.1002/ecs2...

We found that whitebark pine trees showed positive responses to thinning, including increased growth and resin duct production. Thinning also created conditions favorable for seedling and sapling establishment. Check it out!

Zion_WC3F1 This is one of the neatest samples we cut. The tree recorded three recent wildfires that occurred on Horse Pasture Plateau on the west side of the main canyon: Hiker 1988 - 1,503 acres - started on 6...

Damn but I'm a day late for #FireScarFriday but thought this would be a good one to include: a cross section from a log we cut at Zion National Park with three recent Rx and managed wildfires in the Park since 1988! So great to see fire coming back to at least some locations. flic.kr/p/QBRe47

🐴 PhD Opportunity: Wild Horses & Fire Dynamics 🔥

@econovoau.bsky.social invites applications for an exciting PhD project exploring the ecological impacts of wild horses on fire dynamics and ecosystem functionality in sagebrush ecosystems.

More information here: phd.nat.au.dk/for-applican....

In the foreground is a drone (a.k.a. UAS) outfitted with special aerosol sampling equipment on its orange landing mat. In the background is a large smoke plume from a high-intensity prescribed burn in Utah. The photo was taken in October so the grasses and aspens are a beautiful golden color.

Our recent paper traces the bacteria 🦠 in wildland fire 🔥 smoke back to ground sources for the 1st time.

We found that 70% of smoke-borne bacteria originated from the aspen (33%) & soil (37%) communities at the burn location.

🌎🔥🧪💻🧬

doi.org/10.1029/2024...

#FireEcology #smoke #microbiology #NSF

Fagus sylavtica flowering

🚨 Funded PhD opportunity: forests & climate change
Drought reduces growth, triggers dieback & can kill trees, but how does it affect tree reproduction? Help us answer this question! Join a great team in Liverpool & Kew, inc. @belenfadrique.bsky.social 🌳🌱🌲 Deadline = Jan
Info: tinyurl.com/3z9z3ad6

Soil microbiomes show consistent and predictable responses to extreme events - Nature Soils from 30 grasslands across Europe were subjected to 4 contrasting extreme climatic events under drought, flood, freezing and heat conditions, with the results suggesting that soil microbiomes fro...

My first Bluesky post is (coincidentally) my first Nature paper! Soil microbiomes show consistent and predictable responses to extreme events doi.org/ntzk. Huge props to @frantecol.bsky.social and the other collaborators for this mammoth effort.
#Soil #Microbiome #ClimateChange

Joshua Tree National Park is looking for a new Vegetation Ecologist, a great chance to take on an important hands-on role in conservation of Mojave Desert plant communities 🌿