Climate change is altering fire regimes and post‐fire conditions, contributing to relatively rapid transformation of landscapes across the western US. Studies are increasingly documenting post‐fire vegetation transitions, particularly from forest to non‐forest conditions or from sagebrush to invasive annual grasses. The prevalence of climate‐driven, post‐fire vegetation transitions is likely to increase in the future with major impacts on social–ecological systems. However, research and management communities have only recently focused attention on this emerging climate risk, and many knowledge gaps remain. We identify three key needs for advancing the management of post‐fire vegetation transitions, including centering Indigenous communities in collaborative management of fire‐prone ecosystems, developing decision‐relevant science to inform pre‐ and post‐fire management, and supporting adaptive management through improved monitoring and information‐sharing across geographic and organizational boundaries. We highlight promising examples that are helping to transform the perception and management of post‐fire vegetation transitions.

Drought stress is a major contributing factor to plant mortality across the globe. Drought effects are often studied at the local scale, but recent advances in remote sensing allow for observations of plant water status across broad geographic scales. The vegetation optical depth (VOD) derived from satellite-based surface microwave emission has been shown to be sensitive to canopy water content, which is increasingly recognized as an important indicator of water relations and incipient mortality in plants. We develop an index which quantifies the normalized difference between night- and daytime diurnal VOD retrievals (nVODr) and apply it across the western U.S. to determine the relative sensitivity of plants to variations in water supply (soil moisture) and atmospheric water demand (vapor pressure deficit -VPD). Canopy water content dynamics were most sensitive to soil moisture variation at intermediate climatic water deficits where tree cover transitions to grass cover. These areas are in transitional climate zones and occur at ecotones between forest and non-forest vegetation where canopy water content dynamics are most sensitive to both soil moisture and VPD variation. Our results suggest that vegetation in semi-arid ecotones is likely to see the most proximal impacts of drought stress as the planet warms.

Expanding the global protected area network is critical for addressing biodiversity declines and the climate crisis. However, how climate change will affect ecosystem representation within the protected area network remains unclear. Here we use spatial climate analogs to examine potential climate-driven shifts in terrestrial ecoregions and biomes under a +2 °C warming scenario and associated implications for achieving 30% area-based protection targets. We find that roughly half of land area will experience climate conditions that correspond with different ecoregions and nearly a quarter will experience climates from a different biome. Of the area projected to remain climatically stable, 46% is currently intact (low human modification). The area required to achieve protection targets in 87% of ecoregions exceeds the area that is intact, not protected, and projected to remain climatically stable within those ecoregions. Therefore, we propose that prioritization schemes will need to explicitly consider climate-driven changes in patterns of biodiversity.

Implementing treatments to create structural complexity and spatial heterogeneity within forest stands can be difficult and time consuming. We asked if real-time implementation monitoring with an Android OS tablet application can facilitate successful implementation of such treatments. We compared two tree-marking methods—free selection (FS) and individuals, clumps and openings (ICO)—which were used to implement the same silvicultural prescription. ICO marking guidelines differed from FS in one way: inclusion of targets describing the number of tree clumps of different sizes to be left, with real-time monitoring of progress towards these targets using the tablet app. ICO trials were more successful at producing desired conditions. FS trials resulted in stand densities below the target and lacked large and very large tree clumps. Implementation efficiency (trees marked per person-hour) was similar between the two systems. Real-time implementation monitoring of quantitative targets can increase the likelihood of treatment success.