82: Impacts on our Environment and Ecology from Wildfires with Morgan Tingley

Morgan Tingley, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and faculty in the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, is an expert on how climate change and other environmental changes impact biodiversity, primarily birds. His research, which largely focuses on birds in temperate mountain environments, including California’s Sierra Nevada, examines how species shift their ranges and the timing of their activities in response to rising temperatures and other effects of climate change. Tingley is a leading authority on the effects of wildfire on biodiversity, specifically in the western United States. For over a decade, he has studied how birds respond during and after fires and, in particular, how the increase in massive forest fires is negatively affecting species.

For Morgan’s lab website and more information about the research he conducts, please visit https://www.morgantingley.com/. 

Check out his Bird of the Day at https://www.morgantingley.com/botd/ and a fantastic resource for all bird enthusiasts - Cornell Lab All About Birds - https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/.  

Outdoors and onscreen, check out a movie that Morgan was the “ornithological consultant” on to ensure an accurate portrayal of birding and matching bird sounds to the images - “Birder’s Guide to Everything” - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6375322/.

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Chapters

• 1:06 Introduction
• 1:07 The collective impact of the LA fires & the effects on species
• 7:22 Black-backed Woodpecker, post fire landscapes, adapted to the fire regime
• 8:57 Pre/Post fire studies to understand the ecosystems of the Chaparral fires and globally
• 11:27 How to assess the evidence of species loss - pre/during/post fire
• 14:32 Black box for fires and means of recording data during a fire
• 16:16 Canary in a coal mine, most at risk birds and animals
• 22:27 Displaced wildlife, repopulation, how to handle and who to contact to help wildlife move naturally and help native species
• 30:08 Mega fires, fire resilience, how to balance human lives and land conservation, future planning to rebuild
• 37:26 Land management, scenario building, climate change, what can we do?
• 40:54 How to have a sense of security and hope for our well-being? Protecting California's environment
• 43:35 Bird of the day
• 47:15 What does it mean for you to live well?