Fig. 2

Method used to estimate pyrodiversity in the Illilouette Creek basin in Yosemite National Park and Sugarloaf Valley in Kings Canyon National Park, California, USA. Data were collected from 2002 to 2013 to observe naturally occurring patterns of forest and understory structure and composition in relationship to fire regime. A Each 30 × 30 m raster cell was assigned a fire history classification based on the fires and severities it experienced (three representative fires depicted). B The diversity of fire, either weighted for the similarity of fire history or unweighted, was calculated within buffers around the monitoring sites. Concentric circles represent plots in a small region with a subset of buffers around them. C The most recent fire’s severity was also included as a possible interaction with pyrodiversity. Open dots represent plots in a small region. D An example of sites with relatively low and high pyrodiversity