Principal Investigator Dr. Phil Higuera at University of Montana is leading a new project, “Anticipating forest vulnerability to fire-catalyzed ecosystem change.” Climate change is impacting forest ecosystems both directly, through changes in tree mortality and regeneration, and indirectly through an increased frequency of tree-killing disturbances, such as wildfires. This project will leverage ongoing and previous research, funded by the Joint Fire Science Program, the National Science Foundation, and NASA, and focuses on quantifying the biophysical drivers of post-fire conifer regeneration across Rocky Mountains forests. The main goal of this work is to create a vulnerability assessment that broadly highlights geographic areas and forest types most vulnerable to fire-catalyzed ecosystem transitions under current and future climate change scenarios.