Extreme event ecology needs proactive funding

• Published in: Frontiers in ecology and the environment Vol. 20; no. 9; pp. 496 - 497
• Main Authors: Patrick, Christopher J, Hensel, Enie, Kominoski, John S, Stauffer, Beth A, McDowell, William H
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington Ecological Society of America 01-11-2022
• Subjects: Carbon sequestration; Case studies; Ecosystem management; Ecosystem services; Ecosystems; Funding; Hurricanes; Stochasticity; Wildfires
• ISSN: 1540-9295; 1540-9309
• DOI: 10.1002/fee.2569

Extreme events such as wildfires, hurricanes, and floods have increased in frequency and intensity. It is no longer a question of if, but rather when and where these events will occur, with adverse impacts on essential ecosystem services including clean water, harvestable materials, and carbon sequestration. In some cases, extreme events such as wildfires may have positive impacts on populations and ecosystems. Managing these impacts requires understanding how environmental context as well as ecosystem and disturbance characteristics drive system responses. However, funding for ecological extreme events research, such as through the US National Science Foundation's (NSF's) RAPID program, is typically reactive. Pre-event data, a RAPID prerequisite, are typically lacking or only sporadically available, and case studies of extreme events often arise from chance disturbances at existing long-term research sites. This reactive stochastic approach has seeded the literature with unplanned case studies describing individual events.