Effects of fire severity on early development of understory vegetation

Abstract

Four boreal mixedwood stands burned by the 1999 Black River wildfire in southeastern Manitoba were sampled to examine the effects of fire severity on early regeneration dynamics of understory vegetation. In each stand, three fire severity classes (scorched, lightly burned, and severely burned) were identified based on the degree of forest floor consumption, and six plots per severity class were randomly selected. Variation in fire severity significantly affected the initial regeneration of the understory plant community. Regeneration response after fire was largely controlled by interactions between fire severity and species' regeneration strategy. Establishment of invaders, seed bankers, and sprouters was best on severely burned, lightly burned, and scorched plots, respectively. Species richness and Shannon's diversity index was reduced by severe fire only in the first postfire year. However, the effects of fire severity on species abundance and composition persisted through the entire study period (1999–2002). Rapid changes in the understory plant community were only observed during the initial 3 postfire years, regardless of fire severity. At the end of the study, herbaceous plants were the most dominant component, with woody plants being a codominant component on scorched plots, and nonvascular plants being a codominant component on severely burned plots.

Exploring the Relationship between Burn Severity Field Data and Very High Resolution GeoEye Images: The Case of the 2011 Evros Wildfire in Greece

“…Although VHR data have been mainly used for assessing burn severity, there remains a need to explore the interrelationships between remotely-sensed measurements and the physical/ecological processes that the CBI index infers [3]. So far, a limited number of studies have found statistical correlations between fire severity metrics, topography, VHR satellite data, and ecosystem responses [9,28,36,37]. This has generated the need for more studies focused on the understanding of these relationships.…”

“…So far, a limited number of studies have found statistical correlations between fire severity metrics, topography, VHR satellite data, and ecosystem responses [9,28,36,37]. This has generated the need for more studies focused on the understanding of these relationships.…”

Changes in assembly processes in soil bacterial communities following a wildfire disturbance

“…Fires are ecologically important disturbances (Bond et al, 2005) and their effects on plant and animal communities as well as soil biogeochemistry have been widely studied (Certini, 2005;Wang and Kemball, 2005;Ferrenberg et al, 2006). Recent work has also shown that fire induces microbial community shifts characterized by an increase in the relative abundance of Firmicutes and/or b-proteobacteria and an increase in the ratio of bacteria to fungi (Yeager et al, 2005;Smith et al, 2008;Waldrop and Harden, 2008;Bárcenas-Moreno et al, 2011).…”

Index for Characterizing Post-Fire Soil Environments in Temperate Coniferous Forests

“…Many investigators described post-fire soil conditions simply as burned or unburned [30,31], while others focused on select conditions within the range of post-fire outcomes [32][33][34] (Table 1). The least severely burned categories contained evidence of fire, but with the forest floor intact [35][36][37]. Moderately severe burned categories described a wide range of conditions from some litter present to all surface organic material consumed.…”