Influence of Prescribed Burning on Upland Soil Properties in Mark Twain National Forest, Southeast Missouri Ozarks (original) (raw)
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Prescribed Burning and Erosion Potential in Mixed Hardwood Forests of Southern Illinois
Forests
Prescribed fire has several benefits for managing forest ecosystems including reduction of fuel loading and invasive species and enhanced regeneration of desirable tree species. Along with these benefits there are some limitations like nutrient and sediment loss which have not been studied extensively in mixed hardwood forests. The objective of our research was to quantify the amount of sediment movement occurring on a watershed scale due to prescribed fire in a southern Illinois mixed hardwood ecosystem. The research site was located at Trail of Tears State Forest in western Union county, IL, USA and included five watershed pairs. One watershed in each pair was randomly assigned the prescribed burn treatment and the other remained as control (i.e., unburned). The prescribed burn treatment significantly reduced the litter depth with 12.6%-31.5% litter remaining in the prescribed burn treatment watersheds. When data were combined across all watersheds, no significant differences were obtained between burn treatment and control watershed for total suspended solids and sediment concentrations or loads. The annual sediment losses varied from 1.41 to 90.54 kg•ha −1 •year −1 in the four prescribed burn watersheds and 0.81 to 2.54 kg•ha −1 •year −1 in the four control watersheds. Prescribed burn watershed 7 showed an average soil sediment loss of 4.2 mm, whereas control watershed 8 showed an average accumulation of sediments (9.9 mm), possibly due to steeper slopes. Prescribed burning did not cause a significant increase in soil erosion and sediment loss and can be considered acceptable in managing mixed hardwood forests of Ozark uplands and the Shawnee Hills physiographic regions of southern Illinois.
Hydrology, erosion, plant, and soil relationships after rangeland wildfire
… Dynamics—Fire and …, 2007
Wildfire is an important ecological process and management issue on western rangelands. Fire suppression activities in the past century have increased the number and severity of wildfires, resulting in increased soil erosion and decreased water quality. Many infiltration studies on rangeland have shown that litter and vegetation cover protect the soil and enhance infiltration. After fire, water repellency is typically found on the soil surface or a few centimeters below and is also common on unburned rangelands and dry soils conditions. However, the causal agents of water repellency are different for burned and burned conditions. Rainfall simulation studies were conducted for 3 consecutive years immediately following a catastrophic wildfire in Denio, Nevada, in 1999. Study sites were chosen on northfacing hillslopes (35 to 40 percent slope) where the vegetation was dominated by mountain big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata ssp. vaseyana). The objective of this study was to use indirect gradient analysis on the 1999 data to evaluate and summarize pertinent relationships between vegetation, soil, topographic features, infiltration, runoff, sediment production, and microsite distinction (shrub coppice and interspace) on burned and unburned areas. The first ordination (strategy 1) used four infiltration parameters and the results were unexpected. In the multivariate context, higher infiltration trends were associated with the burned treatment compared to the unburned treatment. Water repellency on the burned sites was apparent at the soil surface; however, it appears that repellency was also a significant factor on the unburned area. Water repellency in the unburned treatment was likely caused by assorted litter buildup (up to 11,605 kg/ha) in > 80-year stands (sagebrush duff and grass in the shrub coppice areas and grass litter in the interspace). The second ordination (strategy 2) involved the same four infiltration parameters, but specifically used plots from the burned treatment. More runoff and sediment was associated with the burn shrub coppice plots; in contrast, higher infiltration capacity in the burned interspace. The third ordination (strategy 3) was based on plant canopy cover by species. Discrete taxa of native grasses, forbs, and shrubs were correlated with infiltration, runoff, and sediment loss on burned and unburned sites. On the unburned sites, water repellency and higher runoff was correlated with Sandberg bluegrass (Poa secunda), bluebunch wheatgrass (Pseudoroegneria spicata), and western aster (Symphyotrichum ascendens). Greater infiltration capacity was correlated with increasing cover of Idaho fescue (Festuca idahoensis) and mountain big sagebrush. Future analysis will evaluate conditions after the first years growing season and beyond.
Soil Science Society of America Journal, 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this periodical may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Permission for printing and for reprinting the material contained herein has been obtained by the publisher. Changes in Soil Structure and Hydraulic Properties in a Wooded-Shrubland Ecosystem following a Prescribed Fire Soil Physics I n recent decades, the frequency, severity, and size of wildfires in pinyon pine (predominantly Pinus monophylla Torr. & Frém.)-juniper (Juniperus spp.) ecosystems in the western United States have increased due to its expansion into sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) ecosystems (Chambers and Wisdom, 2009). This encroachment is attributed to fire suppression, grazing, climate shifts, and increased CO 2 levels (Keane et al., 2002). Fire suppression resulted in canopy closure and increased fuel loads, resulting in severe crown fires (Miller and Tausch, 2001). Between 1998 and 2008, an average of nearly 850,000 ha yr −1 burned in the arid and semiarid Great Basin, including >1 million ha in 2007 (Chambers et al., 2008). Factors beyond changes in climate that have contributed to larger fires in the Great Basin include heavy livestock grazing in the late 1800s and early 1900s that reduced native grasses and promoted the expansion of introduced plant species, and historic fire suppression activities that led to dense stands of sagebrush
International Journal of Wildland Fire, 2019
During 2–5 December 2010, an area of 2500ha in the Carmel forests was consumed by a severe wildfire, causing soil erosion from the exposed slopes. Whereas most studies show that post-fire erosion rates tend to decline after the second year, in this case, we aim to address the ongoing consequences that different management practices had on soil erosion 3 and 4 years after a fire. Three management operations were applied: (a) preservation management (PM) – mulching wood chips on the burned area; (b) tree-clearing management (TCM) – burned trees were cut and removed; and (c) skid-trail formation (ST) – provisional pathways were formed while trees were dragged outside. Consequently, the objectives of the study were: (1) to monitor the effects of these post-fire practices 3 and 4 years after fire; and (2) to characterise the physical features of the eroded soil. The sediments were collected after every effective rain event over two rainy seasons (2013–14, 2014–15). TCM and ST practices r...
Forest Ecology and Management, 2006
Following Euro-American settlement in the late 1800s, fire suppression and livestock grazing in ponderosa pine-bunchgrass ecosystems of the southwestern US resulted in the replacement of grass openings with dense stands of ponderosa pine. This, in turn, has led to apparent decreases in decomposition, net N mineralization, and soil respiration (i.e., net soil CO 2 efflux) rates, losses of floral and faunal diversity, and greater risk of the occurrence of stand-replacing wildfire. Alterations in ecosystem structure and function have prompted the implementation of restoration treatments throughout the region. Using a retrospective approach, we investigated the effects of thinning, thinning plus prescribed fire, and wildfire, 6-15 years following treatments, on ecosystem processes and properties across a 750-km 2 area in northern Arizona. We found that stands that had thinning or thinning plus burning treatments had lower in situ annual rates of net N mineralization in the mineral soil than unmanaged stands. However, stands burned by high-severity wildfire had net N mineralization rates that were about 60% higher than unmanaged stands. Because of similarities in net N mineralization rates among treatments under laboratory conditions, we speculate that variation in in situ net N transformation rates among stands were due to differences in C inputs (thinned and thinned plus burned) and soil microclimate (wildfire) among the stands. Size of the soil microbial C and N pools generally declined with decreases in litterfall (highest in unmanaged, intermediate in thinned and thinned plus burned, and lowest in wildfire stands); however, in situ rates of net soil CO 2 efflux did not follow this pattern. Our results contrast with some previous studies in southwestern ponderosa pine forests where restoration treatments (both thinning and thinning plus burning) increased net N transformation rates. We hypothesize that the dissimilarity in responses to treatments across studies is due to differences in the relative effect of these treatments on the quantity and quality of C inputs. Large increases in easily decomposable understory biomass following restoration treatments appear to result in increases in N cycling rates, whereas treatments that result in either no change or minimal increases in understory biomass, accompanied by a long-term decrease in pine needle input to the forest floor, lead to reductions in N cycling rates. We recommend that restoration and fire-hazard reduction treatments be applied preferentially to stands that currently have low understory production.
Forest Ecology and Management, 2012
Practices such as thinning followed by prescribed burning, often termed 'ecosystem restoration practices', are being used in Rocky Mountain forests to prevent uncontrolled wildfire and restore forests to presettlement conditions. Prior to burning, surface fuels may be left or collected into piles, which may affect fire temperatures and attendant effects on the underlying soil. The objective of this study is to determine which pre-fire fuel management treatments best reduce fuel loadings without causing fire temperatures high enough to impair soil chemical and biological properties. Five fuel-management treatments were compared: large piles, small piles, cut and leave, slash-free areas around mature leave-trees, and unburned control. We measured key properties of forest floors and mineral soil (forest floor depth, soil pH, carbon and nutrient levels, and microbial abundances) prior to and during the first year after fire, and explored relationships among fuel loadings, fire temperatures and changes in these soil properties. Fire temperatures were above 300°C for more than 3 h in the large-pile treatment but were lower and of shorter duration in the small-pile and cut-and-leave treatments. The most severe fire effects occurred around the leave-trees where temperatures were above 200°C for more than 2 h, the forest floor was completely consumed, and the mature trees were killed. In the forest floors, abundances of all microbial groups were reduced and pH and availabilities of Ca 2+ , Mg 2+ and PO 3À 4 were increased in all burned treatments. Forest floor C and N contents were reduced in burned plots by an average of 39% and 44% respectively, and availabilities of nitrate and sulphate were increased in the leave-tree areas only. There were few significant changes in mineral soil properties-pH and availabilities of NO À 3 , Mg 2+ and SO 2À 4 increased in leave-tree areas whilst PO 3À 4 and K + increased under large piles. Microbial abundances had not recovered to pre-fire levels in any burned treatments after one year, which may be attributed to the persistence of significant increases in pH. Prior to the fire, microbial abundances were most closely related to N concentration in the forest floor, and C and N concentrations in the mineral soil; after fire, microbial abundances were most closely related to pH of the forest floor. Forest floor consumption and attendant changes in chemical and biological properties were most closely related to pre-fire moisture content, indicating that forest-floor moisture content may be as critical as fuel loading in determining impacts of prescribed fire on soil.
Changes to oak woodland stand structure and ground flora composition caused by thinning and burning
2013
Our objective was to quantify the cumulative eff ects of prescribed burning and thinning on forest stocking and species composition at a woodland restoration experiment site in the Ozark Highlands of Missouri. Our study used four treatments (burn, harvest, harvest and burn, control) on three slope position and aspect combinations (south, north, ridge) replicated in three complete blocks. Harvested stands were thinned from below to 40 percent residual stocking. Two prescribed fi res were applied to both burn and harvest-burn treatment units in a 5-year period. Results refl ect changes that have taken place over a 6-year period, from pretreatment conditions to 1 year after the last fi re. In this period, there was a 10-percent reduction in the stocking in burned stands compared to control and a 6-percent reduction in harvested and burned stands compared to harvested stands. Compared to the control, percentage ground cover of woodland indicators was seven times greater in burned stands, six times greater in harvested stands, and 22 percent greater in harvested and burned stands. Th ere was no signifi cant (P > 0.05) interaction between aspect and treatment on stocking or ground fl ora cover. Th is study indicated that silvicultural treatments do achieve various goals that are common to managers who aim to restore woodland communities.