FARMINGTON — During a time when the western U.S. is bracing for a historic fire season, Drew Barton, University of Maine at Farmington professor of biology, has received a $67,000 federal research grant to investigate impacts of high severity fires on forests in the West.

Barton and his two collaborators, Helen Poulos of Wesleyan University and Graeme Berlin of Yale University, will use the 18-month research grant to examine how the change in fire regime is altering the forest. The results will be presented to forestry specialists to help policymakers and land managers make sound, science-based decisions about fire and land management.

The grant will also pay for two UMF students to join Barton for six weeks of field work in Arizona in May and June 2016.

According to current research, most of the forests in the Southwest are adapted to low-severity ground fires that occur naturally every few years. They are characterized by minimal, short-term ecosystem effects that open up the vegetation, rarely affecting the taller vegetation.

More than a century of fire suppression, however, has led to a buildup of forest fuel, which often burns in high-severity crown fires. This is being exacerbated by warmer temperatures and less rain.

This change in fire regime is altering the forest, according to Barton. The grant will investigate whether these large fires are permanently transforming diverse, mixed pine and oak forests into more simple oak woodlands, and whether a change in fire management can help them return to a more resilient and sustainable ecosystem.

Jointly funded by the Department of Agriculture and Department of the Interior’s Joint Fire Science Program, the research project will be conducted in the Coronado National Forest and the Chiricahua National Monument in the Chiricahua Mountains in Arizona.

Representatives of the Forest Service, Bureaus of Land Management, Indian Affairs, Fish and Wildlife Service, Park Service and the U.S. Geological Survey will oversee the grant.

A longtime faculty member at UMF, Barton teaches biology with an emphasis on forest ecology, conservation and environmental science. He has worked on fire ecology for many years, including in the Chiricahua Mountains in southeastern Arizona and on the dynamics of Jack Pine on Great Wass Island and Pitch Pine on Phippsburg peninsula, both in Maine.

His scholarly interests include the study of the ecology of forest communities, the dynamics of these communities and the role of natural disturbance and human-caused disturbance. His research often involves Farmington students, who work as research assistants and collaborators. 

In 2013, Barton was named a Maine Literary Award winner by the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. His 2012 work “The Changing Nature of the Maine Woods,” in collaboration with Alan S. White and Charles V. Cogbill, was awarded the John N. Cole Award for Maine-themed nonfiction.