Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Box 1.2 Terms Used Frequently in This topic
aseasonal climate: long-term average rainfall similar in all seasons and thus
lacking a predictable annual drought, although, at somewhat longer timescales
anomalous rainfall years generate drought in different seasons; such environ-
ments experience fire-prone conditions but not annually
BP: abbreviation for years before present, or kBP, thousands of years before
present
ENSO: acronym for El Nin˜ o-Southern Oscillation; El Nin˜ o is the anomalous
warming of surface water of the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean and cooling of the
surface water in the western Pacific, resulting in changes in winds that affect
distant weather events. This occurs periodically every 4-6 yrs and alternates with
La Nin˜ a cooling in the central Pacific; this periodic altering between El Nin˜ oand
La Nin˜ a is known as the Southern Oscillation
fire-dependent recruitment: plant functional type that delays seedling
recruitment to a single pulse in the first growing season after fire
fire-independent recruitment: plant functional type that does not delay
seedling recruitment until the immediate postfire conditions and recruits more
or less continuously between fires
fire intensity: energy release from a fire
fire return interval: time between fires at a defined place, also expressed as
inter-fire interval
fire rotation interval: time to burn an area equivalent to the size of a
particular unit in question, such as a county, province or state
fire severity (or burn severity): impact of fire intensity on plant biomass loss
both aboveground and belowground
kyr (or ka): abbreviation for a thousand years
lignotuber: a basal woody tuber produced in seedlings and saplings as a
normal developmental stage, which contains adventitious buds that generate
resprouts after fire
Ma: abbreviation for million years ago
malacophyllous leaves: short-lived semi-fleshy leaves often in arid-adapted
summer-deciduous subshrubs
Mg ha
1
: megagrams per hectare and equivalent to tonnes per hectare
MTC: acronym for mediterranean-type climate of winter rains with mild
temperatures alternating with late spring and summer drought and high
temperatures
MTE: acronym for mediterranean-type ecosystem. Often applied to
ecosystems dominated by evergreen sclerophyllous-leaved plants typical of
mediterranean-type climates (MTC). This term is best restricted to MTC
regions because such mediterranean-type vegetation (MTV) when it occurs
outside MTC regions is often assembled into very different plant communities
with rather different ecosystem properties (e.g. Fotheringham
2009
)
Continued
