Fire Ecology - The Good, the bad, and the Whole Ecosystem Approach with Lisa Handforth
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Transcript
Kamryn: Hi! My name is Kamryn and today we're super excited and lucky to be able to speak with Lisa Handforth.
Kamryn: Yeah, thanks so much for being here and kind of taking this time to chat and give a talk tomorrow night. Everyone's super excited to be able to hear that. Lisa: Yeah, I'm excited to be here.
Kamryn: If you wouldn't mind just letting us know who you are, and we'll get started.
Lisa: Yeah, I'm Lisa Markovchick, married named Handforth, Fire Ecologist at Grand Canyon National Park.
Kamryn: Awesome. Yeah, can you tell us what that means to be the park’s ecologist? What that looks like here at the Grand Canyon?
Lisa: Yeah so I oversee a fire--we call them the Fire Effects crew. We've got 2 permanent staff and three seasonals who are on the ground collecting both short-term project data and long-term ecological monitoring data, particularly as it pertains to our Fire Program. And then they also collaborate with the inventory and monitoring program. That's the long-term ecological monitoring program for our region, for the National Park Service. And then I spend a lot of time also looking at the interaction between fire and all the different parts of the ecosystem. So, working with our Wildlife and Veg program, for example, thinking about invasives, thinking about our endangered species like Mexican spotted owls, sentry milk vetch that we have, and sort of navigating the intricacies of how fire is interacting with all of the different parts of the ecosystem.
Kamryn: Cool, super cool. And from what I understand, this is a newer role for you, newer in the Park Service, so can you talk about your journey here and why you decided to get into the Park Service?
Lisa: Yeah, I started out in ecology actually up in Seattle, working with volunteers on former Superfund sites to monitor vegetation recovery after restoration projects. And then did a masters in fire ecology in San Diego, looking at some of the endemic plant species and how their life histories interact with fire and are actually dependent on fire. And then worked for the Navy for about a decade, really looking at sort of how the military mission interacts with a lot of our ecology and how to navigate that and make the most of that synergy. And so, we would also look at things like very specific data on microclimate, for example, and how we could leverage that to really help our endangered species and our species at risk. And just, you know, strange things like you think where moving an invasive is a good idea, but there was actually an interaction going on where removing it without providing some of the things that that invasive was now providing to the ecosystem had negative effects on some of our endangered plants and sensitive plants. And so, we're really kind of leveraging that data on the ground to make better decisions and then working with people to help them understand why it was important to protect this plant or this animal, when we also had another mission. And then I really wanted to learn more about our microbiome and how that was playing into things like our wildfire risk and recovery, drought resilience, managing invasives, because we had a lot of wildfire risk reduction activity that we also did on the military lands and a lot of the different pieces of the ecosystem we are trying to address really seemed to interact with the microbiome and we weren't really doing a lot on the ground in response to that new science. And so, I came to Flagstaff to do my PhD in the Gehring Lab at Northern Arizona University and looked at how we can kind of leverage that microbiome along with things like assisted migration in response to climate change and really get a lot more for our efforts out of the management by thinking more about the whole ecosystem. Of things like how it affects plant physiology and their ability to cope with drought or recover after a fire and how that interacts with things like mycorrhizal fungi. And I don't know if I answered all of your questions or not. That was my journey here. But yeah. And then coming to the Park Service honestly has been and is one of the, you know, biggest pleasures and privileges of my life to be called upon to help protect and sort of safeguard and steward these, you know, beautiful places, particularly the, you know, some of the last remaining wild places on the planet. And how amazing they are and to be entrusted to help care for them and work with, you know, other people who are really trying their best to care for them, particularly in, you know, the age that we're in with climate change starting to affect a lot of things.
Kamryn: Yeah, yeah. That's great. Thanks. What have you enjoyed most about your work so far and where do you hope to see the park’s Fire Program going in the next years or phases?
Lisa: Yeah. I mean, so far, I, you know, I just started with the Park Service in February, so I've just been enjoying getting to know this amazing place, in addition to learning more from our fire managers and seeing things, being able to see things more through their eyes. That's been just a great privilege and will help us down the line as we start to look at our data, as well as just getting to know the rest of the team. And so both the folks that I am privileged to mentor and oversee, as well as the larger Grand Canyon team and National Park Service team and all the different things that people are doing. Working hard, you know, with, sort of without, largely without recognition or, you know, agenda, just trying to make sure that we're doing the right things for our park. Yeah. And just seeing everyone's enthusiasm for, for really doing the right thing with regard to managing our lands. As well as getting to know the amazing long term ecological like data set that we have so learning more about what are all the different projects we've done in the past and the innovations that the Fire Program has done in the past and then starting to get into being able to extract like the 30 years of data that we have from the database and get it into some software where we can have a little more flexibility with analyzing it. So that's sort of been an adventure so far, yeah.
Kamryn: Yeah. And you started mentioning this with Grand Canyon, these places that are seeing very real threats these days. So what do you think are the biggest challenges facing Grand Canyon's forests, the ecosystems that you're working with?
Lisa: Yeah, I mean, really the biggest challenge of our time, right, is probably climate change and how do we come together and help all of our species adapt in the time frame that they will need to. So, you know, if you look at the climate future summary for our park for example, it's very clear that our climate is already warming and that the pace of warming is increasing, that we've already had a 17% increase in the precipitation that's falling during the 1% heaviest events. So more, already being very heavily skewed towards more extreme events and that's you know, we often think of warming and fire and drought, but it's also heavy precipitation or precipitation that's not necessarily falling when the species of plants, animals need it. So that snowpack and the window for how long it lasts is changing. Water is running off faster. So, we're seeing, you know, for example, less moisture sinking into the ground and being there for a longer time and these more extreme events and so that's probably our biggest challenge because and it's all intertwined, right like that is also shifting and diminishing our windows where we can do controlled burns for example. And so biggest challenge for us is thinking about how all those things are connected and how can we really leverage everything we've got in defense of protecting our ecosystems, particularly, you know, these very high elevation, mixed conifer, large snowpack areas in a very arid, you know, within the matrix of a very arid region. Right? And all that that brings to us, including our drinking water.
Kamryn: Yeah, yeah. How is the team here working in the face of climate change? How is the team working to kind of maintain these robust ecosystems?
Lisa: Yeah. So, we're actually working, the Fire Program and our Science and Resources folks--so that's our Veg and Wildlife Programs for example--we have a joint effort currently to really start digging into our climate change planning. So, we're spearheading, sort of taking those climate future summaries, that sort of layout--what the meteorological expectations are, right, and climate expectations are and then sort of moving forward from there of how do we maybe need to refine our goals and our strategies? What does the best available science say about the different strategies and their relative risks and advantages? And then also we're taking another look at how--what can our data that we already have tell us about how we've already been affected. You know, are we seeing places that used to be dominated by ponderosa pine now having maybe more pinyon juniper, for example? So that's something I'll be looking at, for example, over the winter as we start to delve into really analyzing that data that we have to try and figure out if what changes we're already seeing from a species perspective and if that, you know, what are the implications for our management. For example, if we’re looking at prescribed fire and how to manage, what is that optimal interval? Maybe if it used to be ponderosa pine and it's moving more towards pinyon juniper, that interval may be different or some of the other metrics that we're looking at achieving may be different. And so, really starting to dig into that while also maintaining our long-term ecological monitoring efforts so that we can continue to draw on that as a resource for adaptive management, whether that's, you know, the long-term plots and or the sort of more rapid plots that we sometimes do for specific projects. So, trying to take a whole ecosystem approach to that as well, thinking about how can we work with the Vegetation Program and the Wildlife Program? What are the tools that maybe we haven't thought about in the past or what are the factors that we maybe haven't considered as heavily such as erosion, that if we have these more extreme precipitation events, you know, following a fire for example, might be of more concern than they used to be?
Kamryn: I guess what is something that you wish the more general public understood about fire management and kind of the role of fire in these types of ecosystems?
Lisa: Yeah, I think, I think the main thing that I would love for everyone to understand a little more is the role of good fire, right? I've seen, and understandably so, you know, when there is smoke in the park or that kind of thing, it's not really valued and it's sort of a scary thing for folks. And I think, you know, that of course and is understandable. We spend a lot of time in the news, for example, covering fires that are really quite tragic and scary and awful. But I think maybe we don't focus as much in our news and storytelling and understanding, generally, about communicating about the good things that fire does. I mean there are some plant species that are wholly dependent upon it because they have cones that won't open unless there's a fire and that's how they reproduce, right. As well as just, you know, helping to maintain the biodiversity in some of our ecosystems and things like that, that are very important. And I think we could spend, and I look forward to spending more time, just sort of talking with folks about, you know, when we do have prescribed burns and stuff, not only how much fun fire can be, because it's actually pretty fun, right? That's why we all like campfires and barbecues and all those kinds of things, fireplaces in our homes during the winter, sitting next to the wood stove. But also, you know, the great things that it is doing in the ecosystem and that not every time we see a smoke plume is it a bad thing, right. It actually, we've had some burns that were managed for good on the South Rim this year, and there was a lot of, I noticed, a lot of fear among park visitors that, you know, they weren't going to be able to get out or that it was something really scary. And I think we could spend a lot more time really helping folks understand the amazing phenomenon that it is and the privilege it is to actually see it on the ground in a wild place. And that how much that’s just as much a part of the ecosystem as you know, getting to see, I don't know, a bear, or a deer, or an elk. So, I think we can do better there, and I think we will, but just sort of helping to tell that story of the subtleties.
Kamryn: Yeah, yeah. Are there other particular challenges that come with fire ecology or fire management in Grand Canyon National Park? This is a very busy, populated, I'm guessing there's a lot of rules here for all kinds of different things. Are there particular challenges that come with that?
Lisa: I think we're a little, you know, I used to work in Southern California, for example. It was incredibly difficult to get permission to do a prescribed burn there because of the smoke impacts, but also because you have so much wildland urban interface where you have houses immediately adjacent to these wildlands areas. In Grand Canyon, you know, we're a little bit lucky in that it's we still have a lot of rules. There's still a lot of, you know, particularly with climate change, like I said, those envelopes in the weather where we can actually do a prescribed burn are shifting and narrowing, for example. So, there are a lot of challenges. Folks also maybe don't value the fact that there’s smoke around and what that means or how picturesque that can be in the Canyon. I have some amazing photographs from some of our fire managers of just how the smoke settles and what that, what picture that creates with the sunset. And so, I think there there's a little bit of tension there with, you know, we want we want to see the Grand Canyon the way we've seen it portrayed without that going on. But I think we also have some good opportunities because we do have a lot of wildland areas where there is not, you know, quite so much congestion with homes and traffic. So, we have a little bit more freedom to actually put fire on the ground in that respect than some places do. You know, it's certainly it's a little bit easier to do it, for example, potentially in the southeast where you have maybe more time throughout the year where you can put fire on the ground. We have more limited time periods when we think about things like the smoke impacts and the drought and the relative humidities and different variables of the weather that we really rely on to help us make sure that we're going to have a productive fire as well as a safe fire. So, there are definitely challenges, but we also have some unique opportunities here.
Kamryn: Yeah, cool. And that kind of brings up this other question. Are there particular mistakes or lessons that you've learned from past fire management, and this could be in any decade?
Lisa: I think past mistakes, I would actually say Grand Canyon has been on the cutting edge of really looking at and using data to assess how to best manage. Particularly in our fire ecology program, which is what I can speak to you know, we had some amazing innovations with how to use prescribed burns. And even the fact that we were using them and allowing fire in our park before potentially other, you know, land management agencies were as comfortable with that. So, I would actually say, you know, our history is pretty amazing here at Grand Canyon, particularly from a fire management standpoint. We've had innovations where we've targeted, you know, sort of used more targeted approaches of managed fire or prescribed fire on certain slopes, for example, where trees maybe were historically less dense and try and restore that variation across the landscape. And so that was largely backed by science and the data that we had at the time, and the fact that Grand Canyon was willing to sort of entertain these, you know, sort of more novel approaches to prescribed fire where we didn't necessarily try to burn the whole area, but we sort of worked with the system to try and reincorporate some of that variation across the landscape back into the landscape. So, I think there's been a lot of really amazing achievements actually. The mistakes that we've all made in the past, right, really were largely due to maybe the data we didn't have. So, for example, maybe we didn't take as much of an ecosystem approach because we didn't know as much about the microbiome and what role it played in drought and fire resilience or post-fire recovery. So, I think those are some of the areas where we can continue to improve. But actually, we have a really amazing foundation of both data and a willingness to follow the data and work with the system and ecosystem, which is quite amazing, and I hope we can continue.
Kamryn: Yeah that’s great. Are there ways that Traditional Ecological Knowledge inform your work and understanding of this area?
Lisa: So to date, at the Grand Canyon, my understanding is we have been an innovator and amazing leader in a lot of ways, but I don't think we're yet doing all that we could do to involve the Tribes, for example, in our Fire Program. I'm hoping to present info on our program this fall at some of the meetings with the Tribes and really find out more, you know, listen, do some deep listening and see how we can involve them and support them to really be more involved themselves in things like our Fire Program. And so I'm looking forward to that. I know other areas of the country have been, for example, supporting cultural burning and I think, to date here, we don't yet have that, but that would certainly be a place where we could perhaps, you know, try to figure out a new path forward, and that would be great.
[canyon wren birdsong]
Kamryn: To provide a little more background on what Lisa is talking about here with cultural burning, is that for many millennia, fire has been integral to many Indigenous peoples’ way of life. People use fire to clear areas for crops and travel, to manage the land for specific species of both plants and animals, to hunt game, and for many other important uses. According to Frank Kanawha Lake, a research ecologist with the Forest Service, and a wildland firefighter of Karuk descent, cultural burning links back to the tribal philosophy of fire as medicine. When you prescribe it, you’re getting the right dose to maintain the abundance of productivity of all ecosystem services to support the ecology in your culture. In many areas, cultural burning took a hiatus during the era of fire suppression in the 20th century due to land management agencies’ enforcement of differing practices and the removal of Tribal people from their lands and not being allowed to practice their own culture. However, this has been changing over the past few decades and cultural burning is again showing up in the landscape in some federally managed lands, as it has been done, and continued to be done even on other lands as well. With that info, we’ll go back to our conversation with Lisa now.
[canyon wren birdsong]
Kamryn: Are there any other kind of key principles or values that you bring into fire management here at the park?
Lisa: Yeah, it's funny. I, in thinking about this question, I feel like the principles that I bring to the Fire Ecology Program are like principles that are kind of generally true too, just in life, right? Leveraging everything we can, particularly in the face of climate change, when time is of the essence, resources are of the essence. Viewing complexity as our friend, not our foe. Understanding that the more factors you look at, the more the results you get can change. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, that just means we have to, we're really being called to refine our understanding of the systems and ecosystems that we live in and how to better work with them, right? And as a result, sort of, you know, taking that whole ecosystem approach where we can leverage every part of the ecosystem for the benefit of all. Looking and listening and asking good questions, right, because of all that complexity. And just sort of viewing, yeah, I view climate change as a call to sort of listen. Listen harder, look deeper, and think about all the ways that we can work together to leverage, you know, whether that's different parts of a team or different parts of the ecosystem. I think we're really being called to understand ourselves and our ecosystems better so that we can do that, which you know can be quite daunting, but also in another way, it's sort of an adventure for an inquisitive mind and is really good work for the soul, I think.
Kamryn: Yeah, we can shift over to that larger ecosystem view of the whole forest, these ecosystems that we find at the Grand Canyon. Can you talk more about the microbiome that you were speaking about earlier? The mycorrhizal fungi and how that symbiosis kind of plays an important role in the ecosystem or the landscape?
Lisa: Yeah, I think so traditionally, you know, a lot of our program focused quite a lot on what we call fuel loadings. So, for example, tree density, the size of the trees, were they at such a point in their lifespan as to be able to withstand fire, or were they really tall, or sorry, really narrowly, narrow diameter, small diameter trees, but very dense as they grow up, you know, not having been thinned out by fire, for example. So, in the past, a lot of our data analysis was really focused on that even though we were also collecting other aspects like plant community. But what we've learned in the past decades and is really how interlinked all the different parts of the ecosystem are. So, for example, what you were talking about, mycorrhizal fungi, are fungi that are symbiotic with plant roots and what we've learned is that they actually provide a whole bunch of different services in the ecosystem that we all value. So, things like helping the plants get nutrition, right, and we all know that when we get better nutrition, we're more resilient to whatever comes along. Whether that's, you know, a disease or a drought or some kind of sickness. And it's the same for plants. But they are also helping plants moderate their water use efficiency. So, when there is a drought, for example, those plants are more able to withstand it because they have more control, more ability to kind of modulate how well they're using their water. They also provide, you know, a lot of sort of aggregating the soil and changing aspects of the soil that we might be interested in. So, for example, if we're looking at more extreme precipitation events and more erosion and more runoff and less water being absorbed actually into the system to provide that moisture during those hot months, mycorrhizae actually help with that as well. Because they're sort of emitting substances that kind of glue the soil together in bigger chunks and then they provide this sort of what's been called like a sticky string bag or a sticky net of mycorrhizal fungi in the soil connecting those particles as well. So, they're kind of increasing the pore spaces, the spaces between the soil particles in the soil allowing more of that water infiltration, holding onto the soil so it doesn't erode, those kinds of things. And we haven't necessarily been thinking about that, right, because we have, you know, a lot in the past, people have been more focused on sort of, you know, measuring the plant composition and the diversity and maybe not so much on the things that we couldn't see like the microbiome. So, as we have become more familiar with what bacteria and fungi and all these things are doing in our ecosystems, we really have a great opportunity to harness that as well, and work with that in addition to, you know, different types of, for example, the genetics of our plants and how well are they adapted to what they're seeing and how can we support that. And additionally, the microbiome sort of has shorter times to reproduction and genetic remixing, they share DNA in different ways that say plants and animals might not. And so, they actually do also offer, you know, potentially shorter time frames to adaptation and climate change, we're particularly concerned with that, right? Like it's not just the fact that things are changing, but it's how much they're going to change within a very short period of time, which makes it hard for things like genetics to really play out and adapt to that. And so having pieces of that system that can help plants adapt on shorter time frames could be really beneficial.
Kamryn: Yeah. Yeah. How do you hope and plan for this knowledge of this, more symbiosis of different species and things encouraging each other's growth, how does that work here at the Grand Canyon? How will that be coming into action in the next few years?
Lisa: So, we're, you know, really just getting started on incorporating some of that. But one of the things I've been trying to work on is we know that lots of different kinds of disturbances impact our, the microbiome and our ecosystem, so, for example, mycorrhizal fungi, and that could be anything you know from really severe fire to things like using pesticides and herbicides to try and get rid of invasives. It doesn't mean those things don't have a place in our park, right? It just means that if we're aware that we might also be disrupting the microbiome, then we can actually take some action around that to support the ecosystem. So, one of the things we've been trying to do is look at areas, for example, on the North Rim, where we have an obligation to provide, say Mexican spotted owl habitat, for example, that require certain types of vegetation to be there. After two relatively severe fires that have happened in the same place within, say, 20 years, we can see that those trajectories of the ecosystem are changed and that some intervention and support is required if we want to have the same ecosystem. So, one of the things we can do is actually not just restore the plants that have fallen out of the plant community because, say they have more reliance on a seed bank and now that seed bank is gone, but we can actually plant the plants with their mycorrhizal fungi and microbiome and in that way help them survive because since they're not there and their fungi are reliant on them, basically, they won't have their partners if we plant them, right. So that puts them at a distinct disadvantage if we're not also restoring their microbiome along with them. So being able to pinpoint some spots, and this sort of goes hand in hand with our climate change planning that we're trying to do, pinpoint some spots where we know that the topography is such that those plant communities are going to have a better shot in the long run and then go ahead and restore them in those areas along with their microbiome to give them, you know, that added drought resilience and fire resilience into the future is sort of where we're starting.
Kamryn: Yeah, super cool. Are there particular lessons that you think people or human communities can kind of learn from this? Is there a type of maybe biomimicry that people can understand from these relationships?
Lisa: Yeah, I mean, this is a really interesting and I feel like sometimes like potentially controversial question strangely, but so the whole notion that we have of survival of the fittest and how that was interpreted, wasn't actually the quote. The quote was the survival of the fit and that meaning that we were adapted to the ecosystem. Animals and plants were adapted to where they were living, right? Rather than it being more of a competition thing, and I think you know, what the microbiome is often teaching us is to really have an understanding of a little more subtlety and nuance and that not everything is a neat little box and not everything is competition right. It's not to say that sometimes we're not, there's not competition, but there's also partnerships and working together and how things are interconnected. And so, I think that's a good lesson for us as we face climate change, for example. That we're really, yeah, kind of being called to understand those subtleties and nuances and also to work together. Right? Like there's certainly managing this park, for starters, is not an individual endeavor. It really requires us to put all of our heads together. And requires good teamwork and so learning how to kind of biomimic, if you will, partnerships and good teamwork I think is a great lesson for all of us, sure.
Kamryn: Yeah, yeah. Is there anything else that you want to add or talk about or go back to?
Lisa: I think, I think there's probably two things. Maybe one just that as we embark on kind of taking this look back at our, you know, 30 years of long-term ecological monitoring data and reevaluating, like, are we collecting the right things? Are there some things that maybe we could be more efficient on or are there areas that we're not, we haven't in the past collected data, but might be good to look at? As well as you know things that we might have not considered doing proactively before, before a fire or after a fire. Or even the kinds of treatments that we're putting on the ground. It would be great to hear from researchers who are looking at some of those same questions and try to work together with them. I was just down at, in Tucson, at the Society for Ecological Restoration Southwest meeting sort of just trying to provide some background on our program and what data we have and places that we might like to explore additional methods, for example, and asking that same question. I would put that out there for folks. You know, we have a wealth of knowledge in the Southwest of all different kinds of disciplines and I'd really like to work with folks who are interested in some of those things where fire and drought and water and snowpack and different treatments all come together. So that would be one thing. The other thing that I find having worked a lot with them, volunteers, and for example working with high school groups is that, you know, climate change is daunting for us adults, and older folks. I shouldn't say adults, older folks. It's even more daunting if you're coming into it and inheriting it all, right? And trying to figure out what on Earth can you do to contribute and make things better in the future. And so I just would also invite, you know, folks coming at it from that perspective. If you yeah want to get involved, you know we're here. We'd love to hear from you. Not, I'm sure, not just me and the Fire Ecology Program, but also, you know, the Vegetation Program, the Wildlife Program. We have amazing volunteers at the park and I don't, I don't think people know how much volunteers actually do. And can do. And so just put that out there along with, you know, sort of what I was saying earlier, that as daunting as it is, I think it's also, you know, an amazing adventure for an inquisitive mind to really be called to learn our systems better or ecosystems or species. Where we are in the place that we are and how things work together. And that's great for the mind and it's also great as we learn to work better together as teams. It's just good soul work and I think provides a more hopeful path forward than you know maybe being overwhelmed by it all, which is easy to do, right? It's easy to be overwhelmed by the challenge.
Kamryn: Yeah, that's great. Thanks.
Lisa: Yeah. Thanks for having me!
Kamryn: Yeah, this is a great conversation, so we're excited for other people to be able to listen in on it as well.
Lisa: Yeah, me too. And I'm excited to, yeah, hear from folks as well.
Kamryn: Yeah, that should be cool.
[canyon wren birdsong]
Kamryn: Thank you so much everyone for listening and thank you to Lisa for taking the time to have this conversation and share so much about Grand Canyon’s Fire Program, climate change and the challenges that we’re facing in this area, mycorrhizal fungi, and really the importance of collaboration and symbiosis in relationships. As Lisa was saying, if you’re interested in collaborating or volunteering, please reach out and let’s see what we can all accomplish together. Thanks everyone!
Lisa Handforth serves as the Fire Ecologist at Grand Canyon National Park. In this episode, we explore her role in the park’s fire program and discuss topics like climate, mycorrhizal fungi, and the interconnectedness of ecosystems. Tune in to discover the vital role of fire in Grand Canyon’s forests and the fascinating world of symbiosis!