Jon Keeley
Biography
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.
EDUCATION
- Ph.D. (Botany) University of Georgia, Athens, 1977
- M.S. (Biology) San Diego State University, 1973
- B.S. (Biology) San Diego State University, 1971
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
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
WERC Fire Science
WERC scientists are defining the past, present, and future of wildfires for wildlife and human communities. Explore this webpage to learn about specific, ongoing projects across California and parts of Nevada.
Southern California Wildfire Risk Scenario Project
Every year, wildfires devastate the landscapes of Southern California from Los Angeles to San Diego. How has a higher number of human-caused fires affected fire hazards and threats to resources? WERC’s Dr. Jon Keeley and collaborators are analyzing fire patterns across the state to help cities balance their management of fire hazards and natural resources.
Invasive Plants and Fire
Fire has had a very different influence on the forests and shrublands of California. Unlike the case in many forests where fires have been excluded for over a century, shrublands throughout the state have experienced the opposite impact. Invasive grasses that burn more readily than native plants have increased the frequency of wildfires in southern California shrublands. As fire clears swathes...
Environmental Change and Fire
The effects of a changing environment can ripple throughout an ecosystem. Increased temperatures and more frequent and severe droughts in the future may influence wildfire patterns as well as water resources for communities. Dr. Jon Keeley and partners are using nearly a century’s worth of fire data to aid local landowners, and state and Federal agencies in planning for wildfire on evolving...
Balancing Fire Hazards and Resource Protection
Human impacts on fires across California have been quite diverse. In many forests, fires have been nearly excluded over the past century, causing an unhealthy accumulation of dead vegetation and a greater threat of severe fires. However, on much of California’s lower elevation foothills and valleys, humans have greatly increased fire frequency. These landscapes are often juxtaposed with...
Sequoia and Kings Canyon Field Station
The Sequoia and Kings Canyon Field Station is home to research programs that focus on wildfire patterns in Southern California, and the effects of drought on Sierra Nevada forests. Select the "Science" tab for a more comprehensive summary.
Why are so many structures burning in California?
California has earned a reputation for wildfires that inflict serious damage on human infrastructure, dating back to images of Richard Nixon hosing down the roof of his house in the 1961 Bel-Air fire, and of the famous “fireproof” home of grocery store entrepreneur Fred Roberts burning to the ground in 1982. In recent years, this notoriety has...
Syphard, Alexandra D.; Keeley, Jon Subspecies differentiation in an enigmatic chaparral shrub species
PremiseDelimiting biodiversity units is difficult in organisms in which differentiation is obscured by hybridization, plasticity, and other factors that blur phenotypic boundaries. Such work is more complicated when the focal units are subspecies, the definition of which has not been broadly explored in the era of modern genetic methods. Eastwood...
Huang, Yi; Morrison, Glen R.; Brelsford, Alan; Franklin, Janet; Jolles, Diana D; Keeley, Jon; Parker, V Thomas; Saavedra, Natalie; Sanders, Andrew C; Stoughton, Thomas; Wahlert, Gregory A.; Litt, Amy Protecting the wildland-urban interface in California: Greenbelts vs thinning for wildfire threats to homes
This study utilized native chaparral and sage scrub shrubs to evaluate the impact of light summer irrigation on live fuel moisture content (LFMC) and predicted fire behavior. As to be expected LFMC varied markedly throughout the year being over 100% in winter in all species and treatments but differed markedly by treatment in the summer and fall....
Keeley, Jon; Rubin, Greg; Brennan, Teresa J.; Piffard, Bernadette Nexus between wildfire, climate change and population growth in California
Since the year 2000 California has experienced a remarkable upsurge in wildfires. Over five million hectares have burned in the last 20 years, which is double the area burned in the previous two decades. Much of this increase has been driven by large fires of more than 50,000 hectares that cause catastrophic losses of lives and property (Keeley...
Keeley, Jon; Syphard, Alexandra D. Mapping fire regime ecoregions in California
The fire regime is a central framing concept in wildfire science and ecology and describes how a range of wildfire characteristics vary geographically over time. Understanding and mapping fire regimes is important for guiding appropriate management and risk reduction strategies and for informing research on drivers of global change and altered...
Syphard, Alexandra D.; Keeley, Jon Framework for monitoring shrubland community integrity in California Mediterranean type ecosystems: Information for policy makers and land managers
Shrublands in Mediterranean‐type ecosystems worldwide support important ecosystem services including high levels of biodiversity and are threatened by multiple factors in heavily used landscapes. Use, conservation, and management of these landscapes involve diverse stakeholders, making decision processes complex. To be effective, management and...
Lawson, Dawn M.; Keeley, Jon Fire, climate and changing forests
A changing climate implies potential transformations in plant demography, communities, and disturbances such as wildfire and insect outbreaks. How do these dynamics play out in terrestrial ecosystems across scales of space and time? “Vegetation type conversion” (VTC) is a term used to describe abrupt and long-lasting changes in vegetation...
Keeley, Jon; van Mantgem, Phillip J.; Falk, Donald A. Factors associated with structure loss in the 2013–2018 California wildfires
Tens of thousands of structures and hundreds of human lives have been lost in recent fire events throughout California. Given the potential for these types of wildfires to continue, the need to understand why and how structures are being destroyed has taken on a new level of urgency. We compiled and analyzed an extensive dataset of building...
Syphard, Alexandra D.; Keeley, Jon Twenty-first century California, USA, wildfires: Fuel-dominated vs. wind-dominated fires
Since the beginning of the twenty-first century California, USA, has experienced a substantial increase in the frequency of large wildfires, often with extreme impacts on people and property. Due to the size of the state, it is not surprising that the factors driving these changes differ across this region. Although there are always multiple...
Keeley, Jon; Syphard, Alexandra D. Negative impacts of summer heat on Sierra Nevada tree seedlings
Understanding the response of forests to climate change is important for predicting changes in biodiversity and ecosystem services, including carbon storage. Seedlings represent a key demographic stage in these responses, because seedling establishment is necessary for population persistence and spread, and because the conditions allowing...
Moran, Emily V; Das, Adrian J.; Keeley, Jon; Stephenson, Nathan L. Wildfires as an ecosystem service
Wildfires are often viewed as destructive disturbances. We propose that when including both evolutionary and socioecological scales, most ecosystem fires can be understood as natural processes that provide a variety of benefits to humankind. Wildfires provide open habitats that enable the evolution of a diversity of shade-intolerant plants and...
Pausas, Juli G.; Keeley, Jon Distinguishing disturbance from perturbations in fire-prone ecosystems
Fire is a necessary ecosystem process in many biomes and is best viewed as a natural disturbance that is beneficial to ecosystem functioning. However, increasingly we are seeing human interference in fire regimes that alter the historical range of variability for most fire parameters and result in vegetation shifts. Such perturbations can affect...
Keeley, Jon; Pausas, Juli G.Living with Fire: The USGS Southern California Wildfire Risk Project
Southern California's fire ecology is unlike that of anywhere else in the United States. Fire control strategies developed for mountain forests don't have the same results here. So can science help uncover new answers to help Southern California communities manage and live with wildfires? This 11 minute film showcases ongoing USGS research supporting agencies on the
USGS Film: Living with Fire
A screenshot from the USGS film "Living with Fire".
"Living with Fire" is a 11-minute USGS production exploring ongoing USGS research on wildfire science in southern California -- where the fire ecology is unlike any other region in the United States.
USGS is investigating ways to balance community fire risk management and native habitat conservation as part
...
12 Days of Conifers: The Goldilocks Cones of Tecate Cypress
For Day 5 of 12 Days Of Conifers we have a very cool and rare tree—the Tecate cypress (Hesperocyparis forbesii)--and some fascinating facts about its fire-stimulated cones.
New USGS Research on 21st Century California Wildfires Examines Drivers of Fire Behavior and Structure Losses
Two new publications underscore the role of wind in destructive California wildfires
On Fire, Out West (NPR)
NAPA, SONOMA COUNTIES — As the Tubbs, Atlas, and Nuns fires raged across northern California, WERC's Jon Keeley appeared on NPR to provide insight into fire ecology across the state.