Accommodating Mixed-Severity Fire to Restore and Maintain Ecosystem Integrity with a Focus on the Sierra Nevada of California, USA

Fire Ecology

Table 1 Pyrodiversity attributes produced by mixed-severity fires associated with high levels of biodiversity and ecosystem functions.

Mixed-severity fire attribute	Ecological importance
Landscape heterogeneity	Habitat for wide array of species—early to late seral associates
Landscape heterogeneity	Mixture of foraging and nesting habitat for spotted owls
Complex stand structures	Biological legacies: large snags, down wood, shrubs, flowering plants
Complex stand structures	Habitat for black-backed woodpeckers
Food web dynamics	Complex trophic structure connected across seral stages with abundant food for certain taxa (e.g., beetle larvae for woodpeckers)
Food web dynamics	Pulsed nutrient inputs (aquatic and terrestrial)
Ecosystem processes	Nutrient cycling and soil nutrient exchange, energy transfer from live to dead material, pollination, predator-prey (owls-mice)
Species composition	Rich and varied, compared to old growth