Mojave Desert Ecoregion

Publication Date

2022-10-28

Start Date

1972

End Date

2010

Klinger, R.C., Underwood, E.C., McKinley, R., and Brooks, M.L., 2022, Fire regimes in the Mojave Desert (1972-2010): U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P99YGHSJ.

The purpose of this shapefile is to show our study area boundary. The extent and frequency of fire has increased in many arid systems over the last century, with a large proportion of area in some regions undergoing transitions to novel conditions. Portions of the Mojave Desert in southwestern North America have undergone such transitions, most often from woody to herbaceous-dominated systems. These transitions have often been attributed to the proliferation of invasive annual grasses that promote more frequent fire, but recent evidence indicates that transitions can also occur independent of fire frequency if burn severity is high. In addition, high probability of ignition (i.e. potentially high fire frequency) and high burn severity may not always be geographically related. Therefore, our goals were to: (1) map potential burn severity, fire frequency, and probability of ignition across the Mojave; and, (2) evaluate spatial association among predicted burn severity, fire frequency and probability of ignition. Besides the large geographic extent, the data are representative of environmental conditions in the Mojave. We are unaware of any dataset on these four taxa in the Mojave Desert with such large geographic and environmental extents. Thus, these data would be very suitable for numerous types of analyses, especially those related to niches, range shifts, and potential ecosystem transformations.

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ScienceBase WFS

• USGS Western Ecological Research Center

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