Graduation Year

2026

Date of Submission

4-2026

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Environment, Economics, and Politics (EEP)

Reader 1

Branwen Williams

Rights Information

© 2026 Ashley Park

Abstract

Faced with changing climates and increasing human disturbance, Southern California chaparral communities grow increasingly threatened by altered fire regimes. Yet management remains dominated by lingering suppression paradigm policies, and frameworks developed for timber-management in large forests, rather than vegetation-management in patchy chaparral shrublands. This thesis investigates the question of how shortened fire-intervals and differing fire severities impact chaparral regeneration patterns. I combined a literature review with comparative field sampling across four sites within the 2020 Bobcat Fire perimeter, spanning across unburned, short-interval, low-severity, and high-severity contexts. Short-interval reburn sites showed reduced native shrub recovery and high grass presence, suggesting the beginning of type-conversion dynamics. Meanwhile the high-severity site showed the strongest native regeneration and highest biodiversity across sites. These findings challenge prevailing assumptions that high-severity fire is inherently detrimental to ecosystem health, and that suppression-centered policy, by itself, can effectively minimize wildfire losses. Effective management should instead prioritize reducing human ignitions and maintaining long fire-free intervals.

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This thesis is restricted to the Claremont Colleges current faculty, students, and staff.

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