Davide Ascoli

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• PhD
• Professor at University of Turin

A method to build and calibrate custom fuel models was developed by linking genetic algorithms (GA) to the Rothermel fire spread model. GA randomly generates solutions of fuel model parameters to form an initial population. Solutions are validated against observations of fire rate of spread via a goodness-of-fit metric. The population is selected f...

Synchronous pulses of seed masting and natural disturbance have positive feedbacks on the reproduction of masting species in disturbance‐prone ecosystems. We test the hypotheses that disturbances and proximate causes of masting are correlated, and that their large‐scale synchrony is driven by similar climate teleconnection patterns at both inter‐an...

There is evidence that variable and synchronous reproduction in seed plants (masting) correlates to modes of climate variability, e.g. El Niño Southern Oscillation and North Atlantic Oscillation. In this perspective, we explore the breadth of knowledge on how climate modes control reproduction in major masting species throughout Earth's biomes. We...

It is commonly believed that wildfires in southern Europe have been favored by the encroachment of flammable vegetation on cultivated and grazed areas no longer managed as a consequence of deep socioeconomic changes in rural areas. Using the whole of Italy as study case, this paper explores the hypothesis that wildfires selectively burn areas with...

Fuel management for wildfire risk prevention generally lacks economic sustainability. In marginal areas of southern Europe, this limits fuel treatment programs from reaching the critical mass of required treated area to modify landscape flammability, the fire regime and its impacts. This study investigates key fuel management initiatives for wildf...

The Cerrado is the largest tropical savanna in the world, featuring a wide range of vegetation types with different sensitivity to fire. The structure, functioning and rich biodiversity of the non-forest formations is intimately associated with the presence of fire, which historically has acted both as a natural disturbance and as a tool used by In...

Wildfires in Europe are becoming more frequent and intense, even impacting regions that are historically less affected. This report, prepared by a working group of the European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC), examines the drivers behind these changes, explores the consequences, and reviews current wildfire management practices. It advo...

Mast seeding, synchronous and highly variable reproduction among perennial plants, profoundly impacts ecosystem dynamics and species interactions. However, the extent of periodicity in mast seeding, defined as cyclical but not strictly regular intervals between reproduction, remains poorly understood, including how it varies across and within speci...

Novel fire regimes are emerging worldwide and pose substantial challenges to biodiversity conservation. Addressing these challenges and mitigating their impacts on biodiversity will require developing a wide range of fire management practices. In this paper, we leverage research across taxa, ecosystems and continents to highlight strategies for app...

The current increase in large wildfires is a socio-economic and ecological threat, particularly in populated mountain regions. Prescribed burning is a fuel management technique based on the planned application of fire to achieve land management goals; still, little is known about its potential impacts on tree physiology and soil properties in the E...

Gli incendi in Italia rappresentano una minaccia per i sistemi forestali, con impatti su protezione del suolo e stabilità ambientale, specialmente in zone montane. Negli ultimi decenni, cambiamenti socioeconomici, uso del suolo e condizioni climatiche estreme hanno intensificato il fenomeno, superando spesso la capacità di lotta attiva. Per affron...

Altered fire regimes are a global challenge, increasingly exacerbated by climate change, which modifies fire weather and prolongs fire seasons. These changing conditions heighten the vulnerability of ecosystems and human populations to the impacts of wildfires on the environment, society, and the economy. The rapid pace of these changes exposes sig...

Historically, Sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa Mill.) has played a key role in the southern European rural economy. In the last century, due to the spread of diseases, there has been a massive shift from orchards to coppice management. Furthermore, a combination of socio-ecological factors led to chestnut cultivation decline with the withdrawal of m...

The reproduction of many long‐lived plants is highly variable and synchronized, known as masting. Masting is a key driver of plant regeneration dynamics and has cascading effects on food webs and carbon and nutrient fluxes through ecosystems. Masting patterns can respond to changes in climate, but natural long‐term variability in masting behavior (...

The agricultural, forestry, and animal production domain (AFA domain) plays an essential role in meeting global needs and supporting livelihoods while facing escalating challenges from climate change-induced impacts and extreme natural events. This perspective advocates for urgent strategies to enhance resilience through effective emergency managem...

The fundamental trade‐off between current and future reproduction has long been considered to result in a tendency for species that can grow large to begin reproduction at a larger size. Due to the prolonged time required to reach maturity, estimates of tree maturation size remain very rare and we lack a global view on the generality and the shape...

Characterised by the presence of old and senescence trees, and providing several ecosystem services, old-growth forests are nowadays among the rarest European ecosystems. Despite the ecological importance of these forests, the small dimension of forest patches and the direct and indirect human actions, endangered these rare forests, so much so that...

Spatial synchrony may be tail‐dependent, meaning it is stronger for peaks rather than troughs, or vice versa. High interannual variation in seed production in perennial plants, called masting, can be synchronized at subcontinental scales, triggering extensive resource pulses or famines. We used data from 99 populations of European beech (Fagus sylv...

Many perennial plants show mast seeding, characterized by synchronous and highly variable reproduction across years. We propose a general model of masting, integrating proximate factors (environmental variation, weather cues, and resource budgets) with ultimate drivers (predator satiation and pollination efficiency). This general model shows how th...

This report documents the creation of a geospatial dataset of wildfires that occurred in Italy over the period 2007-2022. The original wildfire data were provided by national and regional agencies. The dataset was standardized and went through several manual and automatic steps of data processing and quality control. While the dataset still present...

Spatial synchrony may be tail-dependent, meaning it is stronger for peaks rather than troughs, or vice versa. High interannual variation in seed production in perennial plants, called masting, can be synchronized at subcontinental scales, triggering extensive resource pulses or famines. We used data from 99 populations of European beech (\emph{Fagu...

Wildfires represent a critical environmental and social challenge, with long-term implications for human health, ecosystems, and infrastructure. This complex issue is exacerbated by various factors, including socioeconomic changes, unsustainable practices in agro-forestry land management, and the intensifica-tion of extreme weather events. The comp...

Climate change effects on tree reproduction are poorly understood, even though the resilience of populations relies on sufficient regeneration to balance increasing rates of mortality. Forest‐forming tree species often mast, i.e. reproduce through synchronised year‐to‐year variation in seed production, which improves pollination and reduces seed pr...

Introduction According to various censuses, Europe has less than 1.5 million ha of old-growth forests (OGF). Most of them are in the boreal zone, while their presence in the temperate zone is residual and fragmented.In the framework of the EU biodiversity strategy, it has been adopted a broad definition of OGF which includes late-seral forests and...

Lightning-ignited wildfires (LIWs) can go unreported for hours, days or even weeks before being reported. This is due to the fact that some LIWs present an intermediate phase between ignition and detection characterized by a smoldering combustion. Holdover time is generally defined as the time between lightning-induced ignition and fire detection....

Spatial synchrony is the tendency of spatially separated populations to display similar temporal fluctuations. Spatial synchrony may be tail-dependent, meaning it is stronger for peaks rather than troughs, or vice versa. High interannual variation in seed production in perennial plants, called masting, can be synchronized at subcontinental scales....

Fire is a fundamental social-ecological process, but a combination of changing climate, land use and values at risk is increasing the incidence of large wildfires with high societal and biodiversity impacts. Academic and practitioner understanding is now converging around the need to manage fire risk as an outcome of intersecting governance regimes...

I cambiamenti climatici in corso stanno determinano un aumento della frequenza di eventi meteorologici estremi; fra questi, ondate di calore in concomitanza con siccità prolungate rendono possibile la propagazione di grandi incendi, anche in sistemi forestali storicamente meno interessati da questo disturbo. Le faggete montane sono un esempio di fo...

Uno studio che ha messo a confronto diversi tipi di trattamento (fuoco prescritto, trinciatura meccanizzata e combinazione di entrambi) per la manutenzione dei viali parafuoco. L’indagine ha stimato il carico e la struttura dei combustibili di superficie in tre anni successivi agli interventi. Attraverso l’uso di tecniche di simulazione sono state...

Aim: to understand how wildfire risk policies are designed to mitigate the impacts of wildfires. Wildfires are a growing threat in many parts of the world, posing significant risks to human life, and the environment. In recent years, wildfires have increased, driven largely by climate change, human activity, and changes in land-use patterns. Wildfi...

The benefits of masting (volatile, quasi-synchronous seed production at lagged intervals) include satiation of seed predators, but these benefits come with a cost to mutualist pollen and seed dispersers. If the evolution of masting represents a balance between these benefits and costs, we expect mast avoidance in species that are heavily reliant on...

Il fuoco prescritto ha visto una graduale ma continua applicazione sul territorio della Regione Toscana. Con questo contributo si intendono descrivere i percorsi paralleli di regolamentazione, formazione, pianificazione e monitoraggio con cui si è sviluppata nel tempo questa tecnica.

Al fine di valutare la risposta post-incendio di due specie di mirtillo, sono stati monitorati accrescimento e capacità di fruttificazione di entrambe in tre stagioni successive al passaggio del fuoco. La dominanza del mirtillo nero sul falso mirtillo apre interessanti prospettive nell’uso del fuoco prescritto al fine del ripristino e rinnovo di “m...

Estate 2022, in Europa più di 700.000 ha sono stati interessati da incendi, una superficie di molto sopra la media del periodo 2006-2021 (fonte: EFFIS). Qualcuno parla di una “nuova normalità”, sostenendo che la crisi climatica renderà questi fenomeni più comuni, contribuendo a espandere la “nicchia del fuoco” oltre il range storico, ovvero in stag...

Wildfire regimes affected by global change have been the cause of major concern in recent years. Both direct prevention (e.g., fuel management planning) and land governance strategies (e.g., agroforestry development) can have an indirect regulatory effect on wildfires. Herein, we tested the hypothesis that active land planning and management in Ita...

Background and Objective: Cardiovascular and respiratory diseases are among the leading causes of death in Italy. There is currently growing evidence of the association between exposure to fire smoke and the occurrence of cardiopulmonary diseases. According to the 2017 ARPA Piedmont (regional environmental protection agency) report, October was the...

Holdover fires are usually associated with lightning-ignited wildfires (LIWs), which can experience a smoldering phase or go undetected for several hours, days or even weeks before being reported. Since the existence and duration of the smoldering combustion in LIWs is usually unknown, holdover time is conventionally defined as the time between the...

Aim Our understanding of the mechanisms that maintain forest diversity under changing climate can benefit from knowledge about traits that are closely linked to fitness. We tested whether the link between traits and seed number and seed size is consistent with two hypotheses, termed the leaf economics spectrum and the plant size syndrome, or whethe...

Holdover fires are usually associated with lightning-ignited wildfires (LIWs), which can experience a smouldering phase or go undetected for several hours to days and weeks before being reported. Since the existence and duration of the smouldering combustion in LIWs is usually unknown, holdover time is conventionally defined as the time between the...

This database contains open, harmonized, and ready-to-use global data on holdover time. Holdover time is defined as the time between lightning-induced fire ignition and fire detection. The first version of the database is composed of three data files (censored data, non-censored data, ancillary data) and three metadata files (description of databas...

Silvopastoral systems with grazing pigs are mainly concentrated in Mediterranean regions, for instance in Iberian dehesas and montados . Conversely, in European deciduous forests, outdoor pig farming has almost disappeared, despite it could provide several environmental and socioeconomic benefits. For instance, pig grazing could be used for habitat...

This report contains the annual summary of the fire season of 2021 with official figures provided by 34 contributing countries for the number of fires, burnt areas and fire prevention efforts, and the analysis of fire danger and areas mapped in the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).

Pyrosilviculture and understory fuel management to reduce forest stand and landscape flammability represent loss-making interventions from an economic point of view. Consequently, prevention is carried out above all on public property and with public funds (e.g. Rural Development Programs), while the interest of the private individual for preventio...

The holdover phase (i.e., the time between lightning-induced ignition and fire detection) is a phenomenon characteristic of lightning-caused wildfires. In this paper, we analyzed multiple holdover time datasets to determine the best statistical distribution for this phenomenon. We found that the gamma distribution seems a suitable candidate to mode...

Moris JV, Ascoli D, Hunt HGP. 2022. Probability distributions for holdover time of lightning-caused wildfires. 36th International Conference on Lightning Protection, 2-7 October, Cape Town (South Africa).

Vecchio D, Musio L, Berretti R, Bono A, Moris JV, Meloni F, Sibona EM, Garbarino M, Motta R, Caffo L, Momo E, Accastello C, Dotta A, Ascoli D. 2022. Pyro-silvicultural treatments to mitigate crown fire behaviour in dry coniferous forest. Fire Ecology Across Boundaries, 4-7 October, Florence (Italy).

Spadoni GL, Moris JV, Vacchiano G, Elia M, Garbarino M, Sibona E, Tomao A, Barbati A, Sallustio L, Salvati L, Ferrara C, Corona P, Marchetti M, Motta R, Ascoli D. 2022. Active land management mitigates wildfires impacts in Italy. Fire Ecology Across Boundaries, 4-7 October, Florence (Italy).

Nell’ambito di due progetti finanziati dal PSR della Regione Piemonte, è stato sviluppato un modello selvicolturale di prevenzione degli incendi di chioma in popolamenti di pino silvestre. In questo contributo si riportano risultati e considerazioni relativi agli interventi in 4 aree pilota realizzati al fine di definire i criteri da applicare nei...

Rothermel-based decision support systems are widespread for fire behavior predictionand wildfire risk analysis. The majority of these systems simulate the rate of spread (Ros) ofa surface fire, and linked models (e.g., MTT), using as the input a set of Standard Fuel Model(SFM) parameters. However, the selection of the best SFM for a given fuel comp...

[𝘌𝘹𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘱𝘵 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮: 𝗘𝘅𝗲𝗰𝘂𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗦𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆] Wildfires, as a global phenomenon, are an integral part of the Earth system which affects different regions of the planet quite unevenly. They are of great concern in Europe: in the European Union alone, over 4000 km2 of our land were burnt in 2019; 3400 km2 in 2020; 5000 km2 in 2021. Depending on the proximity to...

Context Several plant traits are associated with resistance to fire, thus fire-resistant species may give rise to more fire-resistant landscapes. However, up-scaling from plant traits to landscape- and regional-scale fire effects remains a challenge. Objectives We test two hypotheses: (1) forests composed of fire-resistant species experience low...

Las proyecciones de cambio climático sugieren un incremento de actividad de incendios forestales en el futuro, especialmente en los ecosistemas mediterráneos, como el sur de California. Esta región es un foco significativo de incendios forestales a nivel global. Los agentes de gestión de incendios están bajo una presión cada vez mayor ante la neces...

European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) can regenerate successfully from seeds after mixed-severity fires with mid-to-long fire return intervals (>60 years). However, if fire return interval is lower than the age of sexual maturity, post-fire seeding will be limited, leaving vegetative resprouting as the only viable option for recovery. This means that...

La divulgazione scientifica nel settore delle scienze ambientali e forestali ha assunto un ruolo di primo piano. In questo contesto, la comunicazione dei sistemi naturali complessi deve essere fatta con la stessa attitudine all’innovazione che usiamo nella ricerca. La diffusione di prodotti tecnologici e le possibilità offerte dalla “rete” hanno ab...

The European Union Rural Development Program (RDP) is a major driver of landscape change over time in Europe. In a context of climate and land use changes and consequent fire risk exacerbation, understanding the possible contribution of RDP measures to wildfire risk mitigation could help planning subsidies allocation criteria in a more efficient wa...

Moris JV, Hunt HGP, Ascoli D. 2022. A global database of lightning-caused holdover fires. 13th SISEF National Congress, 30 May-2 June, Orvieto (Italy)

Ascoli D, Vecchio D, Musio L, Berretti R, Bono A, Moris JV, Meloni F, Sibona E, Garbarino M, Motta R, Caffo L, Momo E, Accastello C, Dotta A. 2022. Pyrosilviculture in mountain pine forests exposed to crown fires. 13th SISEF National Congress, 30 May-2 June, Orvieto (Italy). (In Italian)

Ascoli D, Moris JV, Sil A, Fernandes P. 2022. Using the Rothermel package in R to test standard and custom fuel models against global fire behavior data. 3rd International Conference on Fire Behavior and Risk, 3-6 May, Alghero (Italy).

The relationships that control seed production in trees are fundamental to understanding the evolution of forest species and their capacity to recover from increasing losses to drought, fire, and harvest. A synthesis of fecundity data from 714 species worldwide allowed us to examine hypotheses that are central to quantifying reproduction, a foundat...

A novembre 2022 è stata emanata la Legge 155, di conversione, con modificazioni, del Decreto-Legge 120, recante disposizioni per il contrasto degli incendi boschivi. La Legge 155 è stata ben accolta dall’opinione pubblica e sotto diversi aspetti avrà effetti positivi sul governo incendi in Italia (es. coordinamento Stato-regioni, definizione di fuo...

Lack of tree fecundity data across climatic gradients precludes the analysis of how seed supply contributes to global variation in forest regeneration and biotic interactions responsible for biodiversity. A global synthesis of raw seedproduction data shows a 250‐fold increase in seed abundance from cold‐dry to warm‐wet climates, driven primarily by...

Since February 2022, the National Forestry Strategy (NFS) for the forest sector and its supply chains is public. The NFS addresses in an innovative and science-based way key issues related to forest fire governance such as the integrated fire risk management, the convergence of forest, agro-pastoral and nature conservation policies with fire govern...

Nel febbraio 2022 è stata pubblicata la Strategia Forestale Nazionale (SFN) per il settore forestale e le sue filiere. Questo documento affronta in modo innovativo e fondato sulla scienza i problemi relativi alla governance degli incendi boschivi. L’articolo porta una riflessione su come il tema della disponibilità e trasparenza dei dati sugli ince...

Significant gaps remain in understanding the response of plant reproduction to environmental change. This is partly because measuring reproduction in long‐lived plants requires direct observation over many years and such datasets have rarely been made publicly available. Here we introduce MASTREE+, a data set that collates reproductive time‐series...

Background Pyrogeography is a major field of investigation in wildfire science because of its capacity to describe the spatial and temporal variations of fire disturbance. We propose a systematic pyrogeographic analytical approach to cluster regions on the basis of their pyrosimilarities. We employed the Affinity Propagation algorithm to cluster py...

Populations of many long-lived plants exhibit spatially synchronized seed production that varies extensively over time, so that seed production in some years is much higher than on average, while in others, it is much lower or absent. This phenomenon termed masting or mast seeding has important consequences for plant reproductive success, ecosystem...

The timing of seed production and release is highly relevant for successful plant reproduction. Ecological disturbances, if synchronized with reproductive effort, can increase the chances of seeds and seedlings to germinate and establish. This can be especially true under variable and synchronous seed production (masting). Several observational stu...

Despite its importance for forest regeneration, food webs, and human economies, changes in tree fecundity with tree size and age remain largely unknown. The allometric increase with tree diameter assumed in ecological models would substantially overestimate seed contributions from large trees if fecundity eventually declines with size. Current esti...

The PhD candidate will investigate both the influence of climate variability on forest ecosystem functioning (e.g. tree reproduction, mortality) and adaptation to climate change by sustainable forest management practices (e.g. silvicultural systems that prevent or mitigate drought, fire and storm impacts). The research will deepen how climate, dist...

Forest harvesting in Europe: a healthy scientific debate Is forest harvesting increasing in Europe? There is scientific debate about methodological approach and data regarding clearcut increment in Europe but, besides the discussion, there is a general agreement about the need to collect reliable scientifically robust remote sensing data for sound...

Spatial synchrony is the tendency of spatially separated populations to display similar temporal fluctuations. Synchrony affects regional ecosystem functioning, but it remains difficult to disentangle its underlying mechanisms. We leveraged regression on distance matrices and geography of synchrony to understand the processes driving synchrony of E...

Widely observed inertia of forest communities contrasts with climate change projections that suggest dramatic alterations of forest composition for the coming decades. Disturbances might be a key process to catalyse changes in tree species composition under environmental change by creating opportunities for ‘new’ species to establish. To test this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0wNSeNHoYI

Global change is expanding the ecological niche of mixed-severity fire regimes into ecosystems that have not usually been associated with wildfires, such as temperate- and rainforests. In contrast to standreplacing fires, mixed-severity fires may result in delayed tree mortality driven by secondary factors such as post-fire environmental conditions...

Ceccherini et al.1 reported an abrupt increase in harvested forest—in terms of both biomass and area—in Europe from 2016, and suggested that this reflected expanding wood markets encouraged by the bioec- onomy policies of the European Union (EU). They used Global Forest Watch2 and GlobBiomass3 data together with an analysis that sought to remove na...

Projections of future climate change impacts suggest an increase of wildfire activity in Mediterranean ecosystems, such as southern California. This region is a wildfire hotspot and fire managers are under increasingly high pressures to minimize socio-economic impacts. In this context, predictions of high-risk fire seasons are essential to achieve...

Partendo dall’esperienza nordamericana, si propongono modelli selvicolturali per aumentare l’eterogeneità strutturale di boschi di conifere per la prevenzione degli incendi boschivi, quali interessanti spunti di riflessione anche per le realtà mediterranee e alpine.

La prevención de incendios forestales tiene como ejes principales reducir tanto el riesgo de ignición como la capacidad de propagación de los incendios. En ambos objetivos, la gestión del combustible forestal es fundamental. Tradicionalmente, las actividades agropecuarias y forestales han contribuido de forma indirecta a esa gestión a escala de pai...

Surface biomass characterization plays a key role in wildfire management. It allows classifying vegetation fuels flammability for fire risk analysis, to define silvicultural prescriptions for fire hazard reduction, to plan prescribed burning , or to model fire behavior and its effects, such as greenhouse gas and pollutant emissions. To facilitate f...

Wildfires are a major disturbance in the Mediterranean Basin and an ecological factor that constantly alters the landscape. In this context, it is crucial to understand where wildfires are more likely to occur as well as the drivers guiding them in complex landscapes such as the Mediterranean area. The objectives of this study are to estimate wildf...

I cambiamenti climatici, l’omogeneità dei boschi, il progressivo abbandono di aree agricole e pascolive, la mancanza di gestione del territorio e un approccio che si concentra principalmente sulla gestione dell’emergenza incendi piuttosto che sul loro governo e prevenzione, sono le principali cause all’origine dei Grandi Incendi Forestali e di ince...