Jon Keeley
Dr. Keeley is currently a research scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, stationed at Sequoia National Park.
Prior to this appointment, he served one year in Washington, D.C. as director of the ecology program for the National Science Foundation. He was professor of biology at Occidental College for 20 years and spent a sabbatical year at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He has more than 350 publications in national and international scientific journals and books. His research has focused on ecological impacts of wildfires as well as other aspects of plant ecology, including rare plants, rare habitats such as vernal pools, and plant physiology. In 1985 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and is a Fellow of the Ecological Society of America and an Honorary Lifetime Member of the California Botanical Society. He has served on the Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning Environmental Review Board, and the State of California Natural Communities Conservation Program (NCCP) Board of Scientific Advisors.
Professional Experience
U.S. Geological Survey, Western Ecological Research Center, Research Scientist
(ST Scientist), 2015–present
(GS series 0408), 1998–present
University of California, Los Angeles, Adjunct Full Professor, 2001-present
Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, Research Associate, 1997–present
National Science Foundation, Program Director 1997–1998
Occidental College,
Professor 1988–1998
Department Chair 1982–1988
Assist/Assoc Professor 1977–1988
University of Cape Town, Visiting Professor 1990
Education and Certifications
Ph.D. (Botany) University of Georgia, Athens, 1977
M.S. (Biology) San Diego State University, 1973
B.S. (Biology) San Diego State University, 1971
Honors and Awards
Fellow, Ecological Society of America, 2014
Distinguished MEDECOS Fellow, 2011
USGS Performance Award, 2011
USGS Star Award, 2008
Honorary Lifetime Member, California Botanical Society, 1998
Fellow, Southern California Academy of Sciences, l994
Guggenheim Fellow, l985–l986
Sterling Award for Outstanding Teaching, l985
Science and Products
Filter Total Items: 349
Comparing the role of fuel breaks across southern California national forests
Fuel treatment of wildland vegetation is the primary approach advocated for mitigating fire risk at the wildland–urban interface (WUI), but little systematic research has been conducted to understand what role fuel treatments play in controlling large fires, which factors influence this role, or how the role of fuel treatments may vary over space and time. We assembled a spatial database of fuel b
Authors
Alexandra D. Syphard, Jon E. Keeley, Teresa J. Brennan
A comparison of effects from prescribed fires and wildfires managed for resource objectives in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
Current goals for prescription burning are focused on measures of fuel consumption and changes in forest density. These benchmarks, however, do not address the extent to which prescription burning meets perceived ecosystem needs of heterogeneity in burning, both for overstory trees and understory herbs and shrubs. There are still questions about how closely prescribed fires mimic these patterns co
Authors
Jonathan C. B. Nesmith, Anthony C. Caprio, Anne H. Pfaff, Thomas W. McGinnis, Jon E. Keeley
Fire as an evolutionary pressure shaping plant traits
Traits, such as resprouting, serotiny and germination by heat and smoke, are adaptive in fire-prone environments. However, plants are not adapted to fire per se but to fire regimes. Species can be threatened when humans alter the regime, often by increasing or decreasing fire frequency. Fire-adaptive traits are potentially the result of different evolutionary pathways. Distinguishing between trait
Authors
Jon E. Keeley, Juli G. Pausas, Philip W. Rundel, William J. Bond, Ross A. Bradstock
Effects of eradication and restoration treatments on Italian thistle (Carduus pycnocephalus)
Low elevation grasslands in California long have been dominated by Mediterranean grasses, but many areas still have large native forb populations. Alien forbs invade these grasslands, displacing both native and other alien species. Italian thistle is a noxious alien herb that has recently invaded these grasslands, including ungrazed blue oak (Quercus douglassii) and interior live oak (Quercus wisl
Authors
Thomas McGinnis, Jon Keeley
The human dimension of fire regimes on Earth
Humans and their ancestors are unique in being a fire‐making species, but ‘natural’ (i.e. independent of humans) fires have an ancient, geological history on Earth. Natural fires have influenced biological evolution and global biogeochemical cycles, making fire integral to the functioning of some biomes. Globally, debate rages about the impact on ecosystems of prehistoric human‐set fires, with vie
Authors
David M. J. S. Bowman, Jennifer Balch, Paulo Artaxo, William J. Bond, Mark A. Cochrane, Carla M. D'Antonio, Fay H. Johnston, Ruth DeFries, Jon E. Keeley, Meg A. Krawchuk, Christian A. Kull, Michelle Mack, Max A. Moritz, Stephen Pyne, Christopher I. Roos, Andrew C. Scott, Navjot S. Sodhi, Thomas W. Swetnam
The application of prototype point processes for the summary and description of California wildfires
A method for summarizing repeated realizations of a space‐time marked point process, known as prototyping, is discussed and applied to catalogues of wildfires in California. Prototype summaries are constructed for varying time intervals using California wildfire data from 1990 to 2006. Previous work on prototypes for temporal and space‐time point processes is extended here to include methods for c
Authors
K. Nichols, F.P. Schoenberg, Jon E. Keeley, A. Bray, D. Diez
Alien species and fire
A large diversity of alien plants is found in most mediterranean-type climate (MTC) regions and fire is sometimes closely linked to their ability to invade natural ecosystems. This is a concern because aliens often upset natural ecosystem processes, and thus are a major management concern. These five regions not only differ in their contributions of non-native plant species to other regions, but a
Authors
Jon E. Keeley, William J. Bond, Ross A. Bradstock, Juli G. Pausas, Philip W. Rundel
Ecological strategies in california chaparral: Interacting effects of soils, climate, and fire on specific leaf area
Background: High values of specific leaf area (SLA) are generally associated with high maximal growth rates in resource-rich conditions, such as mesic climates and fertile soils. However, fire may complicate this relationship since its frequency varies with both climate and soil fertility, and fire frequency selects for regeneration strategies (resprouting versus seeding) that are not independent
Authors
Brian Anacker, Nishanta Rajakaruna, David Ackerly, Susan Harrison, Jon E. Keeley, Michael Vasey
Fire in the Mediterranean Basin
The Mediterranean Basin is a meeting point of three continents, Europe, Asia and Africa, and this is responsible for the great diversity of plants, animals and cultures that formed the cradle of Western civilization. It is considered one of the biodiversity hotspots (Myers et al. 2000) because of its high species richness and high proportion of endemisms (Thompson 2005). The total area showing a M
Authors
Jon E. Keeley, William J. Bond, Ross A. Bradstock, Juli G. Pausas, Philip W. Rundel
Fire and the fire regime framework
A global view of potential vs. actual vegetation distributions points to fire as a major driver of biome distribution and determinant of community structure (Bond et al. 2005). In ecological terms, fire acts much like an herbivore, consuming biomass and competing with biotic consumers for resources, and in this sense is an important part of trophic ecology (Bond & Keeley 2005). As in other competi
Authors
Jon E. Keeley, William J. Bond, Ross A. Bradstock, Juli G. Pausas, Philip W. Rundel
Fire management of Mediterranean landscapes
The hazardous mediterranean climate, highly flammable vegetation, and rugged terrain, all important elements of fire behavior, become problems only in the presence of people. People recreate and build homes in the mediterranean wildlands because of the delightful climate and will continue to do so as long as space is available. People start most fires, and their mere presence tends to warp fire su
Authors
Jon E. Keeley, William J. Bond, Ross A. Bradstock, Juli G. Pausas, Philip W. Rundel
Fire-related plant traits
As illustrated in Fig. 2.1 there are four environmental parameters that are necessary to determine the distribution of fire-prone ecosystems. However, they are insufficient to predict ecosystem responses to fire without a detailed understanding of the fire regime (see Fig. 2.7). Different fire regimes have very different potentials for recovery and place very different premiums on specific plant t
Authors
Jon E. Keeley, William J. Bond, Ross A. Bradstock, Juli G. Pausas, Philip W. Rundel
Science and Products
Filter Total Items: 349
Comparing the role of fuel breaks across southern California national forests
Fuel treatment of wildland vegetation is the primary approach advocated for mitigating fire risk at the wildland–urban interface (WUI), but little systematic research has been conducted to understand what role fuel treatments play in controlling large fires, which factors influence this role, or how the role of fuel treatments may vary over space and time. We assembled a spatial database of fuel b
Authors
Alexandra D. Syphard, Jon E. Keeley, Teresa J. Brennan
A comparison of effects from prescribed fires and wildfires managed for resource objectives in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
Current goals for prescription burning are focused on measures of fuel consumption and changes in forest density. These benchmarks, however, do not address the extent to which prescription burning meets perceived ecosystem needs of heterogeneity in burning, both for overstory trees and understory herbs and shrubs. There are still questions about how closely prescribed fires mimic these patterns co
Authors
Jonathan C. B. Nesmith, Anthony C. Caprio, Anne H. Pfaff, Thomas W. McGinnis, Jon E. Keeley
Fire as an evolutionary pressure shaping plant traits
Traits, such as resprouting, serotiny and germination by heat and smoke, are adaptive in fire-prone environments. However, plants are not adapted to fire per se but to fire regimes. Species can be threatened when humans alter the regime, often by increasing or decreasing fire frequency. Fire-adaptive traits are potentially the result of different evolutionary pathways. Distinguishing between trait
Authors
Jon E. Keeley, Juli G. Pausas, Philip W. Rundel, William J. Bond, Ross A. Bradstock
Effects of eradication and restoration treatments on Italian thistle (Carduus pycnocephalus)
Low elevation grasslands in California long have been dominated by Mediterranean grasses, but many areas still have large native forb populations. Alien forbs invade these grasslands, displacing both native and other alien species. Italian thistle is a noxious alien herb that has recently invaded these grasslands, including ungrazed blue oak (Quercus douglassii) and interior live oak (Quercus wisl
Authors
Thomas McGinnis, Jon Keeley
The human dimension of fire regimes on Earth
Humans and their ancestors are unique in being a fire‐making species, but ‘natural’ (i.e. independent of humans) fires have an ancient, geological history on Earth. Natural fires have influenced biological evolution and global biogeochemical cycles, making fire integral to the functioning of some biomes. Globally, debate rages about the impact on ecosystems of prehistoric human‐set fires, with vie
Authors
David M. J. S. Bowman, Jennifer Balch, Paulo Artaxo, William J. Bond, Mark A. Cochrane, Carla M. D'Antonio, Fay H. Johnston, Ruth DeFries, Jon E. Keeley, Meg A. Krawchuk, Christian A. Kull, Michelle Mack, Max A. Moritz, Stephen Pyne, Christopher I. Roos, Andrew C. Scott, Navjot S. Sodhi, Thomas W. Swetnam
The application of prototype point processes for the summary and description of California wildfires
A method for summarizing repeated realizations of a space‐time marked point process, known as prototyping, is discussed and applied to catalogues of wildfires in California. Prototype summaries are constructed for varying time intervals using California wildfire data from 1990 to 2006. Previous work on prototypes for temporal and space‐time point processes is extended here to include methods for c
Authors
K. Nichols, F.P. Schoenberg, Jon E. Keeley, A. Bray, D. Diez
Alien species and fire
A large diversity of alien plants is found in most mediterranean-type climate (MTC) regions and fire is sometimes closely linked to their ability to invade natural ecosystems. This is a concern because aliens often upset natural ecosystem processes, and thus are a major management concern. These five regions not only differ in their contributions of non-native plant species to other regions, but a
Authors
Jon E. Keeley, William J. Bond, Ross A. Bradstock, Juli G. Pausas, Philip W. Rundel
Ecological strategies in california chaparral: Interacting effects of soils, climate, and fire on specific leaf area
Background: High values of specific leaf area (SLA) are generally associated with high maximal growth rates in resource-rich conditions, such as mesic climates and fertile soils. However, fire may complicate this relationship since its frequency varies with both climate and soil fertility, and fire frequency selects for regeneration strategies (resprouting versus seeding) that are not independent
Authors
Brian Anacker, Nishanta Rajakaruna, David Ackerly, Susan Harrison, Jon E. Keeley, Michael Vasey
Fire in the Mediterranean Basin
The Mediterranean Basin is a meeting point of three continents, Europe, Asia and Africa, and this is responsible for the great diversity of plants, animals and cultures that formed the cradle of Western civilization. It is considered one of the biodiversity hotspots (Myers et al. 2000) because of its high species richness and high proportion of endemisms (Thompson 2005). The total area showing a M
Authors
Jon E. Keeley, William J. Bond, Ross A. Bradstock, Juli G. Pausas, Philip W. Rundel
Fire and the fire regime framework
A global view of potential vs. actual vegetation distributions points to fire as a major driver of biome distribution and determinant of community structure (Bond et al. 2005). In ecological terms, fire acts much like an herbivore, consuming biomass and competing with biotic consumers for resources, and in this sense is an important part of trophic ecology (Bond & Keeley 2005). As in other competi
Authors
Jon E. Keeley, William J. Bond, Ross A. Bradstock, Juli G. Pausas, Philip W. Rundel
Fire management of Mediterranean landscapes
The hazardous mediterranean climate, highly flammable vegetation, and rugged terrain, all important elements of fire behavior, become problems only in the presence of people. People recreate and build homes in the mediterranean wildlands because of the delightful climate and will continue to do so as long as space is available. People start most fires, and their mere presence tends to warp fire su
Authors
Jon E. Keeley, William J. Bond, Ross A. Bradstock, Juli G. Pausas, Philip W. Rundel
Fire-related plant traits
As illustrated in Fig. 2.1 there are four environmental parameters that are necessary to determine the distribution of fire-prone ecosystems. However, they are insufficient to predict ecosystem responses to fire without a detailed understanding of the fire regime (see Fig. 2.7). Different fire regimes have very different potentials for recovery and place very different premiums on specific plant t
Authors
Jon E. Keeley, William J. Bond, Ross A. Bradstock, Juli G. Pausas, Philip W. Rundel