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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Contents Vol 15(4)

Forest floor fuel dynamics in mixed-oak forests of south-eastern Ohio

John B. Graham A and Brian C. McCarthy A B
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Department of Environmental and Plant Biology, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701-2979, USA.

B Corresponding author. Email: mccarthy@ohio.edu

International Journal of Wildland Fire 15(4) 479-488 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF05108
Published: 7 December 2006

Abstract

Silvicultural treatments alter fuel dynamics in forested systems, which may alter fire regime. Effects of thinning and prescribed fire on forest-floor fuels were studied in mixed-oak forests of south-eastern Ohio to examine fuel dynamics over time. Fuel characteristics were measured before, immediately after, and 3 years following fire and thinning treatments along 20-m transects (n = 432) following Brown’s planar intersect method. Measurements were taken to determine litter, duff, 1-h, 10-h, 100-h, and 1000-h sound (1000S) or rotten (1000R) fuel mass. Coarse woody debris (CWD) was sampled on 432 additional 80-m2 belt-transects. Repeated-measures analysis of variance with post-hoc Bonferonni comparisons was used to analyse the change in the fuels over time. The specific effects of silvicultural treatments varied over time with changes in larger, sound fuels (1000S and CWD) persisting longer than changes to finer (litter, duff, 1-h, 10-h, and 100-h) or less-sound (1000R) fuels, which appear to be more transient. Unlike in western North America where fuels accumulate over time, decomposition and productivity appear comparable in eastern mixed-oak forests. Aside from their impact on decomposition or productivity rates, silvicultural treatments appear to have little impact on fine-fuel loading in these systems.

Additional keywords: coarse woody debris; duff; fire ecology; hardwood forests; litter; Quercus; silviculture.


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