Wildfire Effects

PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVID MCNEW/STRINGER

There are many wildfires burning in the western US. Using some of the concepts from the chapter so far, explain what you think some of the effects might be on the natural communities that have burned. (Hint: on page 158 there are lists of the vocab words from the sections of the chapter that might give you topics to write about.)

16 Responses

  1. alec says:

    The effects could range from forests going away. All the way to ash in the atmosphere. And also animals losing habatates and extenction.

  2. Kyleisha G says:

    A natural community that is burning per-say in California could negatively effect the niche and the food chain of the species. In the fires, plants are being burned, and animals which other organisms do eat. The loss of their food will impact species more because they don’t have anything to eat, then some animals eat this animal that don’t got much nutrients. So the whole chain and niche gets messed up by one natural disaster as well as even a species of animals or food dying off.

  3. neal says:

    Wildfires effect lot not jest in a ecosystem but in global effects can happen when to many trees get brend down. like in California peluchin in the air is now not safe to breathe cuz there is less trees.

  4. marchello says:

    I think that the wildfires will cause a lot of damage to the communities in very serious ways as this is will undoubtedly wipe out many resources, homes, and animals which will then most likely cause many of the surviving organisms causing them to need a new source of food whether because they are a predator now in need of new prey or a herbivore now in need of fresh healthy plants and will also most likely be a similar situation to what we watched online about the removal of the whales but obviously more large scale and damaging and will in some ways will most likely affect humans as well this time.

  5. Raegan says:

    Wildfires will likely lead to the destruction of many producers like plants. The death of these producers will harm all levels of consumers. Species’ who were effected by the fires will likely have their niche effected. They will also have less access to food, which could possibly harm their populations as well as other species’ populations. For example, primary consumers, having less access to their source of food, will likely have a population decrease, leading to secondary consumers to have less access a source of food, and so on.

  6. Carlito says:

    What i think the effects could be for a community is that a wildfire could burn food supplies, especially for herbivores. or just destroy resources in general. They could also destroy homes, and mess with species adaptations which could mess with the food chain maybe.

  7. Caden says:

    The first and most obvious effect from a wildfire burning through say a forest would be the mass decline in both plant and animal species. The animals that could out run it might survive but there would be far less room for them to live since their habitat had been almost or completely destroyed. The decline of the food wed and possible keystone species would put all other species in the ecosystem under extreme stress. But depending on the type of tree that makes up the forest a wild fire could be good since a tree like a jackpine need heat in order for their cones to release its seeds. There is also the long term effects like how long the forest will need in order to recover and all the ash which could effect the near by cities or towns.

  8. William says:

    The effects of the forest burning away would be the reemergence of new trees after the fire. It would also result in the destruction of habitat. Food sources and animals homes would be burned up, so surviving animals would left to survive.

  9. cyrus says:

    I think that there are many effects of a wildfire like. Ash in the atmosphere, loss of habitat, lots of animals dead, but burning may break down some of the underbrush helping the soil for when it grows back being more lush. Also in some places they use forest fires to help the forest grow and when they do have a fire it doesn’t grow to big.

  10. matthew says:

    The fires are burning many of the resources many organisms use to survive and this will cause increased competition for those resources. One resource that is being burned is plant life that many animals solely feed on and this will cause the land inhabitable for the herbivores. This will also make it harder for carnivores because many animals are dying which they used to feed on.

  11. Frank says:

    Some of the effects on the natural communities could be that they would have to find somewhere else to go to. Then the trophic level would have been changed to because the predators and the prey would have been targeted by one thing the fire. The food chain would have also been changed because the fire would have killed animals then that would change the diet of other animals.

  12. Robert says:

    The fire would mess up the food web if a keystone species got taken out in the fire, meaning that some of the species in that community would either die of hunger or die in the fire. Not all of the species would die by hunger since some might be omnivore, herbivore, or carnivore but it depends what got taken out in the fire.

  13. Glenn says:

    How wildfires can affect a food source for animals is that they are moved from the habitat they are used to by force first off and things that don’t eat meat lose most of their food so a food chain or animal chain is lost and populations are reduced because of that.

  14. Maddox says:

    Not only the communities were affected but so will the energy and nutrients that used to move through the environment. The affected communities might not ever recover which would mean some species would either immigrate or they would die off.

  15. Ally says:

    The extent to which these forest fires have reached are harmful to the community by possibly eliminating whole communities. In order to build that community you’ll have to start from scratch, primary succession. There is also no guarantee in the return of the native species. This process can take 115+ years which is in no way fast.

  16. hailey says:

    A wildfire would destroy most of the resources and habitats in the area it occurred. Many animals would have difficulty surviving with the limited resources, altering the food web..

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