Effects of burn season on fire-excluded plant communities in the southern Appalachian Mountains, USA

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dc.contributor.authorVaughan, Matthew C.en
dc.contributor.authorHagan, Donald L.en
dc.contributor.authorBridges, William C., Jr.en
dc.contributor.authorBarrett, Kyleen
dc.contributor.authorNorman, Steveen
dc.contributor.authorCoates, T. Adamen
dc.contributor.authorKlein, Roben
dc.date.accessioned2023-05-26T13:51:11Zen
dc.date.available2023-05-26T13:51:11Zen
dc.date.issued2022-07en
dc.description.abstractFollowing decades of fire exclusion, managers are increasingly implementing prescribed fire in southern Appalachian forests. To date, the use of prescribed fire in the region has often been focused on reducing hazardous fuel loads and has typically occurred in the dormant season. Understanding the effects of burning in different periods of plant growth may reveal how burn season influences patterns of vegetative succession. In this study, we compared the effects of prescribed burn treatments conducted in the dormant season (January-early April) vs. the early growing season (mid-late April) on changes in plant abundance by understory, midstory, and overstory forest strata. Plant groups were distinguished by growth habit, stem origin, functional characteristics, and species of management interest (red maple (Acer rubrum L.) and mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia L.)). Burn season had minimal effect on understory cover, density, richness, or diversity. In the midstory, early growing season burns were more effective in reducing shrub density than dormant season burns (-1,585 +/- 188 ha- 1 vs. -813 +/- 240 ha- 1, respectively), with greater differences among smaller stems. Early growing season burns also reduced midstory red maple density to a greater degree than dormant season burns (-356 +/- 57 ha- 1 vs. -219 +/- 69 ha- 1), a response that was not observed among other mesophytic hardwood species. Burning slightly reduced canopy cover, but neither canopy cover nor overstory density response varied by burn season. Our results demonstrate that managers may find increased opportunities to promote forest restoration objectives in the southern Appalachians by extending the use of prescribed fire into the early growing season.en
dc.description.adminPublic domain – authored by a U.S. government employeeen
dc.description.notesThis work was supported by the Joint Fire Science Program (Project #16-1-0612) and by USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture under project number SC-1700586. Technical Contribution No. 7054 of the Clemson University Experiment Station. The authors would like to thank the USDA Forest Service (Andrew Pickens Ranger District, Francis Marion and Sumter National Forests; and Chattooga River Ranger Dis-trict, Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests) for permission to collect field data and for conducting the prescribed burns. The authors would further like to acknowledge Trey Trickett, Emily Oakman, Tom Wal-drop, Gregg Chapman and the many undergraduate and graduate stu-dents who assisted with data collection.en
dc.description.sponsorshipJoint Fire Science Program [16-1-0612]; USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture [SC-1700586]en
dc.description.versionPublished versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2022.120244en
dc.identifier.eissn1872-7042en
dc.identifier.issn0378-1127en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10919/115206en
dc.identifier.volume516en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherElsevieren
dc.rightsPublic Domain (U.S.)en
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/en
dc.subjectBurn seasonen
dc.subjectVegetationen
dc.subjectAbundanceen
dc.subjectDiversityen
dc.subjectRed mapleen
dc.subjectMountain laurelen
dc.titleEffects of burn season on fire-excluded plant communities in the southern Appalachian Mountains, USAen
dc.title.serialForest Ecology and Managementen
dc.typeArticle - Refereeden
dc.type.dcmitypeTexten

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