Fire and Climate Suitability for Woody Vegetation Communities in the South Central United States

Fire Ecology

Table 1 Primary ecological site potential (ESP) types and community groupings in three south central US states: Oklahoma (OK), New Mexico (NM), and Texas (TX). Oak, mesquite, and pinyon-juniper community groups were selected for environmental suitability modeling.

	Area (km²)
Environmental site potential name	Community	OK	NM	TX	Total
Western Great Plains mesquite woodland and shrubland	mesquite	5 045	7 734	77 441	90 219
Western Great Plains shortgrass prairie	grassland	8 042	40 253	39 836	88 132
Apacherian Chihuahuan mesquite upland scrub	mesquite	0	24 186	37 971	62 156
Western Great Plains sandhill steppe	grassland	9 593	11 665	35 752	57 010
Crosstimbers oak forest and woodland	oak	32 441	0	20 207	52 647
Southeastern Great Plains tallgrass prairie	grassland	45 251	0	6 504	51 755
Tamaulipan mixed deciduous thorn scrub	mesquite	0	0	47 708	47 708
Western Great Plains floodplain systems	floodplain	17 731	3 081	26 477	47 289
Chihuahuan creosotebush desert scrub	desert	0	19 438	25 617	45 055
Chihuahuan mixed desert and thorn scrub	desert	0	16 056	27 841	43 897
Edwards Plateau limestone savanna and woodland	oak*	16	0	42 589	42 606
Colorado Plateau pinyon-juniper woodland	pinyon-juniper	0	38 926	0	38 926
Gulf and Atlantic coastal plain floodplain systems	floodplain	1 314	0	3 3613	34 926
Southern blackland tallgrass prairie	grassland	381	0	32 330	32 711
Central mixed grass prairie	grassland	16 058	2 211	14 168	32 438
East central Texas plains post oak savanna and woodland	oak	40	0	28 523	28 563
Southern Rocky Mountain pinyon-juniper woodland	pinyon-juniper	178	27 242	3	27 423
Tamaulipan mesquite upland scrub	mesquite	0	0	4 835	4835
Colorado Plateau pinyon-juniper shrubland	pinyon-juniper	0	365	0	365
Proportion of study area					0.30

*Three oak species and two conifer species not found in the other oak ESPs dominate this type; it was not included in the oak community model.