Montane grasslands are distributed across the Southwest, but there has been little quantitative study despite their biological and economic value. The study area is the montane forest-grassland ecotone within the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP) northwest of Albuquerque, New Mexico, situated in the heart of the Jemez Mountains. We hypothesize that the fire history record of the ecotone should closely reflect the fire regimes in the montane grasslands throughout the study area and that this zone served as a pathway to encourage the spread of fire to other valles.
