Fire has been a source of global biodiversity for millions of years. However, interactions with anthropogenic drivers such as climate change, land use, and invasive species are changing the nature of ...fire activity and its impacts. We review how such changes are threatening species with extinction and transforming terrestrial ecosystems. Conservation of Earth's biological diversity will be achieved only by recognizing and responding to the critical role of fire. In the Anthropocene, this requires that conservation planning explicitly includes the combined effects of human activities and fire regimes. Improved forecasts for biodiversity must also integrate the connections among people, fire, and ecosystems. Such integration provides an opportunity for new actions that could revolutionize how society sustains biodiversity in a time of changing fire activity.
We review science-based adaptation strategies for western North American (wNA) forests that include restoring active fire regimes and fostering resilient structure and composition of forested ...landscapes. As part of the review, we address common questions associated with climate adaptation and realignment treatments that run counter to a broad consensus in the literature. These include the following: (1) Are the effects of fire exclusion overstated? If so, are treatments unwarranted and even counterproductive? (2) Is forest thinning alone sufficient to mitigate wildfire hazard? (3) Can forest thinning and prescribed burning solve the problem? (4) Should active forest management, including forest thinning, be concentrated in the wildland urban interface (WUI)? (5) Can wildfires on their own do the work of fuel treatments? (6) Is the primary objective of fuel reduction treatments to assist in future firefighting response and containment? (7) Do fuel treatments work under extreme fire weather? (8) Is the scale of the problem too great? Can we ever catch up? (9) Will planting more trees mitigate climate change in wNA forests? And (10) is post-fire management needed or even ecologically justified? Based on our review of the scientific evidence, a range of proactive management actions are justified and necessary to keep pace with changing climatic and wildfire regimes and declining forest heterogeneity after severe wildfires. Science-based adaptation options include the use of managed wildfire, prescribed burning, and coupled mechanical thinning and prescribed burning as is consistent with land management allocations and forest conditions. Although some current models of fire management in wNA are averse to short-term risks and uncertainties, the long-term environmental, social, and cultural consequences of wildfire management primarily grounded in fire suppression are well documented, highlighting an urgency to invest in intentional forest management and restoration of active fire regimes.
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This paper examines the past, present, and future use of the concept of historical range and variability (HRV) in land management. The history, central concepts, benefits, and limitations of HRV are ...presented along with a discussion on the value of HRV in a changing world with rapid climate warming, exotic species invasions, and increased land development. This paper is meant as a reference on the strengths and limitations of applying HRV in land management. Applications of the HRV concept have specific contexts, constraints, and conditions that are relevant to any application and are influential to the extent to which the concept is applied. These conditions notwithstanding, we suggest that the HRV concept offers an objective reference for many applications, and it still offers a comprehensive reference for the short-term and possible long-term management of our nation's landscapes until advances in technology and ecological research provide more suitable and viable approaches in theory and application.
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4.
Breast-Cancer Adjuvant Therapy with Zoledronic Acid Coleman, Robert E; Marshall, Helen; Cameron, David ...
New England journal of medicine/The New England journal of medicine,
10/2011, Volume:
365, Issue:
15
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
A large, randomized trial has shown that the addition of zoledronic acid to adjuvant chemotherapy in patients with early-stage breast cancer does not influence rates of recurrence or survival.
...Metastasis is a complex process that is dependent on both the biologic features of the primary tumor and cellular interactions within host tissues. In the bone microenvironment, cancer cells stimulate osteoblasts to release receptor activator of nuclear factor κB ligand (RANKL), which binds to its receptor, RANK, on both precursor and mature osteoclasts. The resulting increase in osteoclastic bone resorption leads to the release of bone-derived growth factors that may provide a fertile environment for survival and growth of adjacent cancer cells.
1
Thus, targeting bone-cell function provides a potential additional approach to preventing bone metastases as a component of standard . . .
Wildfire in declining whitebark pine forests can be a tool for ecosystem restoration or an ecologically harmful event. This document presents a set of possible wildfire management practices for ...facilitating the restoration of whitebark pine across its range in Western North America. These management actions are designed to enhance whitebark pine resilience and health, while also being effective wildfire management measures. The actions are presented by the three phases of the wildfire continuum: Before, during, and after a wildfire. Current pre-wildfire restoration actions, such as mechanical thinning’s, prescribed burning, and fuel treatments, can also be designed to be fuel treatment activities that allow more effective suppression of wildfires when needed. Three wildfire strategies can be implemented while the wildfire is burning—full suppression, partial suppression, and wildland fire use (letting some fires burn under acceptable conditions)—for protecting valuable whitebark pine trees and for ecosystem restoration. Finally, post-wildfire activities include planting rust-resistant seedlings and monitoring effects of the wildfires. Recommended wildfire management practices for the wildfire continuum are specified by region, site type, and stand type in the last section of this paper.
Many natural resource agencies and organizations recognize the importance of fuel treatments as tools for reducing fire hazards and restoring ecosystems. However, there continues to be confusion and ...misconception about fuel treatments and their implementation and effects in fire-prone landscapes across the United States. This paper (1) summarizes objectives, methods, and expected outcomes of fuel treatments in forests of the Interior West, (2) highlights common misunderstandings and areas of disagreement, and (3) synthesizes relevant literature to establish a common ground for future discussion and planning. It is important to understand the strengths and limitations of fuel treatments to evaluate their potential to achieve an objective, develop sensible fire management policies, and plan for their effective use. We suggest that, while the potential of fuel treatment to reduce wildfire occurrence or enhance suppression capability is uncertain, it has an important role in mitigating negative wildfire effects, increasing ecosystem resilience and making wildfire more acceptable.
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CONTEXT: More than a century of forest and fire management of Inland Pacific landscapes has transformed their successional and disturbance dynamics. Regional connectivity of many terrestrial and ...aquatic habitats is fragmented, flows of some ecological and physical processes have been altered in space and time, and the frequency, size and intensity of many disturbances that configure these habitats have been altered. Current efforts to address these impacts yield a small footprint in comparison to wildfires and insect outbreaks. Moreover, many current projects emphasize thinning and fuels reduction within individual forest stands, while overlooking large-scale habitat connectivity and disturbance flow issues. METHODS: We provide a framework for landscape restoration, offering seven principles. We discuss their implication for management, and illustrate their application with examples. RESULTS: Historical forests were spatially heterogeneous at multiple scales. Heterogeneity was the result of variability and interactions among native ecological patterns and processes, including successional and disturbance processes regulated by climatic and topographic drivers. Native flora and fauna were adapted to these conditions, which conferred a measure of resilience to variability in climate and recurrent contagious disturbances. CONCLUSIONS: To restore key characteristics of this resilience to current landscapes, planning and management are needed at ecoregion, local landscape, successional patch, and tree neighborhood scales. Restoration that works effectively across ownerships and allocations will require active thinking about landscapes as socio-ecological systems that provide services to people within the finite capacities of ecosystems. We focus attention on landscape-level prescriptions as foundational to restoration planning and execution.
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The advanced prostate cancer therapeutic landscape has changed dramatically over the last several years, resulting in improved overall survival for patients with both castration-naive and ...castration-resistant disease. The evolution and development of novel next generation imaging (NGI) techniques will affect diagnostic and therapeutic decision-making. Clinicians must navigate when and which NGI techniques to use and how to adjust treatment strategies based upon their results, oftentimes in the absence of correlative therapeutic data. Therefore, guidance is needed based on best available information and current clinical experience.
The RADAR III Group convened to offer guidance on the use of NGI to stage prostate cancer based on available data and clinical experience. The group also discussed the potential impact of NGIs on treatment options based on earlier detection of disease.
The group unanimously agreed that progression to metastatic disease is a seminal event for patient management. NGI techniques are able to detect previously undetectable metastases, which could redefine the phases of prostate cancer progression. Hence, earlier treatment, either systemic or locally directed, may positively alter patient outcomes.
The RADAR III Group recommends NGI techniques for select patients suspected of disease progression based on laboratory (biomarker) values, comorbidities, and symptoms. Currently, 18F-fluciclovine and 68Gallium (Ga) PSMA PET/CT are the NGI agents with a favorable combination of availability, specificity, and sensitivity. There is ongoing research for additional NGI technologies, which may offer improved diagnostic accuracy and therapeutic options. As NGI techniques evolve and presumably result in improved global accessibility, a clinician’s ability to detect micrometastases may be enhanced for both decision-making and patient outcomes.
Context
Interactions among disturbances, climate, and vegetation influence landscape patterns and ecosystem processes. Climate changes, exotic invasions, beetle outbreaks, altered fire regimes, and ...human activities may interact to produce landscapes that appear and function beyond historical analogs.
Objectives
We used the mechanistic ecosystem-fire process model FireBGCv2 to model interactions of wildland fire, mountain pine beetle (
Dendroctonus ponderosae
), and white pine blister rust (
Cronartium ribicola
) under current and future climates, across three diverse study areas.
Methods
We assessed changes in tree basal area as a measure of landscape response over a 300-year simulation period for the Crown of the Continent in north-central Montana, East Fork of the Bitterroot River in western Montana, and Yellowstone Central Plateau in western Wyoming, USA.
Results
Interacting disturbances reduced overall basal area via increased tree mortality of host species. Wildfire decreased basal area more than beetles or rust, and disturbance interactions modeled under future climate significantly altered landscape basal area as compared with no-disturbance and current climate scenarios. Responses varied among landscapes depending on species composition, sensitivity to fire, and pathogen and beetle suitability and susceptibility.
Conclusions
Understanding disturbance interactions is critical for managing landscapes because forest responses to wildfires, pathogens, and beetle attacks may offset or exacerbate climate influences, with consequences for wildlife, carbon, and biodiversity.
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A classification of spatial simulation models of fire and vegetation dynamics (landscape fire succession models or LFSMs) is presented. The classification was developed to provide a foundation for ...comparing models and to help identify the appropriate fire and vegetation processes and their simulation to include in coarse scale dynamic global vegetation models. Other uses include a decision tool for research and management applications and a vehicle to interpret differences between LFSMs. The classification is based on the four primary processes that influence fire and vegetation dynamics: fire ignition, fire spread, fire effects, and vegetation succession. Forty-four LFSMs that explicitly simulated the four processes were rated by the authors and the modelers on a scale from 0 to 10 for their inherent degree of stochasticity, complexity, and mechanism for each of the four processes. These ratings were then used to group LFSMs into similar classes using common ordination and clustering techniques. Another database was created to describe each LFSM using selected keywords for over 20 explanatory categories. This database and the ordination and clustering results were then used to create the final LFSM classification that contains 12 classes and a corresponding key. The database and analysis results were used to construct a second classification key so managers can pick the most appropriate model for their application based on computer resources, available modeling expertise, and management objective.
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