Effects of fire severity on plant nutrient uptake reinforce alternate pathways of succession in boreal forests

Shenoy, Aditi; Kielland, Knut; Johnstone, Jill F.

doi:10.1007/s11258-013-0191-0

Cited by 53 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“… Siegwart Collier and Mallik , Shenoy et al. , ). These divergent trajectories are driven in part by different species traits, e.g., sprouting species are more prevalent where the burn is less severe, whereas obligate seeders do better on mineral soil, especially species having small seeds (Hollingsworth et al.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deterministic and stochastic processes lead to divergence in plant communities 25 years after the 1988 Yellowstone fires

Romme

Whitby

Tinker

et al. 2016

Ecological Monographs

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Abstract. Young, recently burned forests are increasingly widespread throughout western North America, but forest development after large wildfires is not fully understood, especially regarding effects of variable burn severity, environmental heterogeneity, and changes in drivers over time. We followed development of subalpine forests after the 1988 Yellowstone fires by Accepted ArticleThis article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. periodically re-sampling permanent plots established soon after the fires. We asked two questions about patterns and processes over the past 25 years: (1) Are plant species richness and community composition converging or diverging across variation in elevation, soils, burn severity, and post-fire lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta var. latifolia) density? (2) What are the major controls on post-fire species composition, and has the relative importance of controls changed over time? For question 1, we sampled 10-m 2 plots (n=552) distributed among three geographic areas that differ in elevation and substrate; plots spanned the spectrum of fire severities and were re-sampled periodically from 1991-2013. For question 2, we sampled 0.25-ha plots (n=72), broadly distributed across areas that burned as stand-replacing fire, in 1999 and 2012. Richness and species composition diverged early on between infertile low-elevation areas (lower richness) and more fertile high-elevation areas (greater richness). Richness increased rapidly for the first five years post-fire, then leveled off or increased only slowly thereafter. Only 6% of 227 recorded species were non-native. Some annuals and species with heat-stimulated soil seed banks were associated with severely burned sites. However, most post-fire species had been present before the fire; many survived as roots or rhizomes and regenerated rapidly by sprouting.Among the 72 plots, substrate, temperature, and precipitation (the abiotic template) were consistently important drivers of community composition in 1999 and 2012. Post-fire lodgepole pine abundance was not significant in 1999 but was the most important driving variable by 2012, with a negative effect on presence of most understory species, especially annuals and shadeintolerant herbs. Burn severity was significant in 1999 but not in 2012, and distance to unburned forest had no influence in either year. The 1988 fires did not fundamentally alter subalpine forest community assemblages in Yellowstone, and ecological memory conferred resilience to highseverity fire.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deterministic and stochastic processes lead to divergence in plant communities 25 years after the 1988 Yellowstone fires

Romme

Whitby

Tinker

et al. 2016

Ecological Monographs

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“…, Shenoy et al. ). Features such as living overstory trees and viable seedbanks may be rare to nonexistent in high‐severity sites post‐fire, and ecosystem‐level characteristics such as light infiltration to the understory, soil structure, and nutrient availability are often decidedly altered (Wells et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The species diversity × fire severity relationship is hump‐shaped in semiarid yellow pine and mixed conifer forests

et al. 2019

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The combination of direct human influences and the effects of climate change are resulting in altered ecological disturbance regimes, and this is especially the case for wildfires. Many regions that historically experienced low–moderate severity fire regimes are seeing increased area burned at high severity as a result of interactions between high fuel loads and climate warming with a number of negative ecological effects. While ecosystem impacts of altered fire regimes have been examined in the literature, little is known of the effects of changing fire regimes on forest understory plant diversity even though understory taxa comprise the vast majority of forest plant species and play vital roles in overall ecosystem function. We examined understory plant diversity across gradients of wildfire severity in eight large wildfires in yellow pine and mixed conifer temperate forests of the Sierra Nevada, California, USA. We found a generally unimodal hump‐shaped relationship between local (alpha) plant diversity and fire severity. High‐severity burning resulted in lower local diversity as well as some homogenization of the flora at the regional scale. Fire severity class, post‐fire litter cover, and annual precipitation were the best predictors of understory species diversity. Our research suggests that increases in fire severity in systems historically characterized by low and moderate severity fire may lead to plant diversity losses. These findings indicate that global patterns of increasing fire size and severity may have important implications for biodiversity.

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“…savannas (Boring et al, 2004). In longleaf pine savannas, because these nutrient pulses occur during a period of rapid post-fire plant regrowth, they may influence successional patterns (Shenoy et al, 2013), plant diversity, and ecosystem productivity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contributions of microbial activity and ash deposition to post-fire nitrogen availability in a pine savanna

Ficken

Wright

2017

Biogeosciences

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Abstract. Many ecosystems experience drastic changes to soil nutrient availability associated with fire, but the magnitude and duration of these changes are highly variable among vegetation and fire types. In pyrogenic pine savannas across the southeastern United States, pulses of soil inorganic nitrogen (N) occur in tandem with ecosystem-scale nutrient losses from prescribed burns. Despite the importance of this management tool for restoring and maintaining fire-dependent plant communities, the contributions of different mechanisms underlying fire-associated changes to soil N availability remain unclear. Pulses of N availability following fire have been hypothesized to occur through (1) changes to microbial cycling rates and (2) direct ash deposition. Here, we document fire-associated changes to N availability across the growing season in a longleaf pine savanna in North Carolina. To differentiate between possible mechanisms driving soil N pulses, we measured net microbial cycling rates and changes to soil δ 15 N before and after a burn. Our findings refute both proposed mechanisms: we found no evidence for changes in microbial activity, and limited evidence that ash deposition could account for the increase in ammonium availability to more than 5-25 times background levels. Consequently, we propose a third mechanism to explain post-fire patterns of soil N availability, namely that (3) changes to plant sink strength may contribute to ephemeral increases in soil N availability, and encourage future studies to explicitly test this mechanism.

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Effects of fire severity on plant nutrient uptake reinforce alternate pathways of succession in boreal forests

Cited by 53 publications

References 41 publications

Deterministic and stochastic processes lead to divergence in plant communities 25 years after the 1988 Yellowstone fires

Deterministic and stochastic processes lead to divergence in plant communities 25 years after the 1988 Yellowstone fires

The species diversity × fire severity relationship is hump‐shaped in semiarid yellow pine and mixed conifer forests

Contributions of microbial activity and ash deposition to post-fire nitrogen availability in a pine savanna

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