CSIRO Publishing Home Books & CDs Journals About Us Shopping Cart
International Journal of Wildland Fire
  Published on behalf of the International Association of Wildland Fire
You are here: Journals > International Journal of Wildland Fire   
Search
 
 
  Advanced Search
   
Journal Home
General Information
Scope
Editorial Structure
Editorial Contacts
Sites of Interest
Print Publication Dates
Online Content
For Authors
For Referees
How to Order

 Most Read
Visit our Most Read page regularly to keep up-to-date with the most downloaded papers in this journal.

 Early Alert
Subscribe to our email Early Alert or RSS feeds for the latest journal papers.

 

Patterns of post-fire flowering and fruiting in Chlorogalum pomeridianum var. pomeridianum (DC.) Kunth in southern California chaparral

Mark Borchert A C and Claudia M. Tyler B

A San Bernardino National Forest, San Bernardino, 602 South Tippecanoe Ave, San Bernardino, CA 92408, USA.
B Institute for Computational Earth System Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
C Corresponding author. Email: mborchert@fs.fed.us


Abstract

For many geophytes living in Mediterranean ecosystems, the passage of fire can produce bursts of flowering, seed production, vegetative growth, and seedling recruitment. In the present study, we investigated patterns of flowering and fruit production of the chaparral geophyte Chlorogalum pomeridianum (common soap plant) at two sites: one burned in a prescribed fire and one in nearby unburned chaparral. Both sites burned in a wildfire 2 years later, and we continued monitoring marked plants for an additional 6 years, enabling us to observe the effects of recent reburning on reproduction and growth. We found that flowering was stimulated by fire but was not strictly fire-dependent. There was a positive relationship between bulb size and leaf area, as well as between these two characteristics and flower and fruit production. Flower stalk initiation occurred when plants reached a minimum leaf area of ~1000 cm2, indicating that a minimum bulb size must be reached before reproductive effort is initiated. Direct herbivory of flowering stalks reduced fruiting and leaf herbivory indirectly prevented the initiation of flowering stalks. In the first several years after fire, flower and fruit production could be explained by resource matching but in subsequent years, resource matching was replaced by resource switching.

Keywords: bulb, cost of reproduction, fire-dependent reproduction, fire-induced flowering, geophyte, herbivory, Liliaceae, Mediterranean.

International Journal of Wildland Fire 18(5) 623–630    doi:10.1071/WF08039
Submitted: 6 March 2008    Accepted: 29 July 2008    Published: 10 August 2009





   
Subscriber Login
Username:
Password:  

 View
Issue Contents
PDF (243 KB) $25
Export Citation
Cited by
 Tools
Print
Email this page
    


 
Top  Email this page
 


Legal & Privacy | Sitemap | Contact Us | Help

CSIRO

© CSIRO 1996-2010