Response of woody and herbaceous fuel to repeated fires in Mediterranean gorse shrublands

Article

<< Previous

Next >>

Online Early

doi:10.1071/WF12036

Published on behalf of the International Association of Wildland Fire

	Search




	Advanced Search



	Journal Home

	About the Journal

	Editorial Board

	Contacts



	Content

	Online Early

	Current Issue

	Just Accepted

	All Issues

	Special Issues

	Sample Issue

	20-Year Author Index



	For Authors

	General Information

	Notice to Authors

	Submit Article

	Open Access



	For Referees

	Referee Guidelines

	Review Article



	For Subscribers

	Subscription Prices

	Customer Service

	Print Publication Dates

e-Alerts

Subscribe to our Email Alert or

feeds for the latest journal papers.

Connect with us

Response of woody and herbaceous fuel to repeated fires in Mediterranean gorse shrublands

Victor M. Santana ^A ^B ^C, M. Jaime Baeza ^A and Rob H. Marrs ^B

^A Fundación de la Generalitat Valenciana Centro de Estudios Ambientales del Mediterráneo (CEAM), Parque Tecnológico Paterna, C/Charles Darwin, 14, E-46980 Paterna, Valencia, Spain.
^B Applied Vegetation Dynamics Laboratory, School of Environmental Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 3GP, UK.
^C Corresponding author. Email: vm.santana@ua.es

International Journal of Wildland Fire - http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/WF12036
Submitted: 2 March 2012 Accepted: 17 October 2012 Published online: 17 December 2012





	PDF (764 KB) $25



	Supplementary Material



	Export Citation

Print

Abstract

Differences in both species flammability and post-fire regenerative abilities can be the key to understanding fire regimes and vegetation dynamics. We hypothesised that woody species that accumulate the greatest amount of dead fuel and also have fire-stimulated recruitment would benefit when fire occurrence is increased, thus establishing a positive fire–vegetation flammability feedback. To test this hypothesis, we compared successional change over a 25-year period in gorse shrublands that were burnt once and twice. We assessed change in life forms, species traits with respect to the kind of fuel (i.e. woody and herbaceous) and the abundance of standing dead fuel. We found that, at the community level, accumulation of dead fuel was unrelated to recurrent fires because a second fire in the period of maximum fire risk created a community with less dead fuel. This result implies a lack of positive fire–dead fuel accumulation feedback. In contrast, herbaceous species may establish a positive feedback with fire as they were increased by a second fire.

Additional keywords: dead fuels, feedback, flammability, HOF models, obligate seeders, succession.

References

Akaike H (1973) Information theory and an extension of the maximum likelihood principle. In ‘2nd International Symposium on Information Theory’ (Eds Petrov BN, Csaki F) pp. 267–281. (Akademiai Kiado: Budapest, Hungary)

Baeza MJ (2001) Aspectos ecológicos y técnicas de control de combustible (roza y quema controlada) en matorrales con alto riesgo de incendio dominados por Ulex parviflorus (Pourr.). PhD dissertation, Departamento de Ecología, Universidad de Alicante. Available at http://rua.ua.es/dspace/handle/10045/3223 [Verified 29 October 2012]

Baeza MJ, Vallejo VR (2006) Ecological mechanisms involved in dormancy breakage in Ulex parviflorus seeds. Plant Ecology 183, 191–205.
| CrossRef |

Baeza MJ, De Luis M, Raventòs J, Escarré A (2002) Factors influencing fire behaviour in shrublands of different stand ages and the implications for using prescribed burning to reduce wildfire risk. Journal of Environmental Management 65, 199–208.
| CrossRef | CAS |

Baeza MJ, Valdecantos A, Alloza JA, Vallejo VR (2007) Human disturbance and environmental factors as drivers of long-term post-fire regeneration patterns in Mediterranean forests. Journal of Vegetation Science 18, 243–252.
| CrossRef |

Baeza MJ, Santana VM, Pausas JG, Vallejo VR (2011) Successional trends in standing dead biomass in Mediterranean Basin species. Journal of Vegetation Science 22, 467–474.
| CrossRef |

Bond WJ, van Wilgen BW (1996) ‘Fire and Plants.’ (Chapman & Hall: London)

Bond WJ, Woodward FI, Midgley GF (2005) The global distribution of ecosystems in a world without fire. New Phytologist 165, 525–538.
| CrossRef | CAS |

Bradstock RA, Gill AM (1993) Fire in semi-arid, mallee shrublands: size of flames from discrete fuel arrays and their role in the spread of fire. International Journal of Wildland Fire 3, 3–12.
| CrossRef |

Cheney NP, Gould JS, Catchpole WR (1993) The influence of fuel, weather and fire shape variables on fire-spread in grasslands. International Journal of Wildland Fire 3, 31–44.
| CrossRef |

Cornelissen JHC, Lavorel S, Garnier E, Díaz S, Buchmann N, Gurvich DE, Reich PB, ter Steege H, Morgan HD, van der Heijden MGA, Pausas JG, Poorter H (2003) A handbook of protocols for standardised and easy measurement of plant functional traits worldwide. Australian Journal of Botany 51, 335–380.
| CrossRef |

D’Antonio CM, Vitousek PM (1992) Biological invasions by exotic grasses, the grass/fire cycle, and global change. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 23, 63–87.

De Luis M, Baeza MJ, Raventos J, Gonzalez-Hidalgo JC (2004) Fuel characteristics and fire behaviour in mature Mediterranean gorse shrublands. International Journal of Wildland Fire 13, 79–87.
| CrossRef |

Fernandes P, Rego F (1998) Changes in fuel structure and fire behaviour with heathland aging in Northern Portugal. In ‘Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Fire and Forest Meteorology’, 24 October–2 November 1996, Lorne, Vic., Australia. pp. 433–436. (International Association of Wildland Fire: Farifield, WA)

Gill AM, Zylstra P (2005) Flammability of Australian forests. Australian Forestry 68, 87–93.

Greig-Smith P (1983) ‘Quantitative Plant Ecology.’ (Blackwell: Oxford, UK)

Grigulis K, Lavorel S, Davies ID, Dossantos A, Lloret F, Vilà M (2005) Landscape-scale positive feedbacks between fire and expansion of the large tussock grass, Ampelodesmos mauritanica in Catalan shrublands. Global Change Biology 11, 1042–1053.
| CrossRef |

Hoffmann WA, Adasme R, Haridasan M, de Carvalho MT, Geiger EL, Mireia MAB, Gotsch SG, Franco AC (2009) Tree topkill, not mortality, governs the dynamics of savanna-forest boundaries under frequent fire in central Brazil. Ecology 90, 1326–1337.
| CrossRef |

Huisman J, Olff H, Fresco LFM (1993) A hierarchical set of models for species response analysis. Journal of Vegetation Science 4, 37–46.
| CrossRef |

Menaut JC, Gignoux J, Prado C, Clobert J (1990) Tree community dynamics in a humid savanna of the Cote-d’Ivoire: modelling the effects of fire and competition with grass and neighbours. Journal of Biogeography 17, 471–481.
| CrossRef |

Mermoz M, Kitzberger T, Veblen T (2005) Landscape influences on occurrence and spread of wildfires in Patagonian forests and shrublands. Ecology 86, 2705–2715.
| CrossRef |

Moreira B, Tormo J, Estrelles E, Pausas JG (2010) Disentangling the role of heat and smoke as germination cues in Mediterranean Basin flora. Annals of Botany 105, 627–635.
| CrossRef | CAS |

Odion DC, Moritz MA, DellaSala D (2010) Alternative community states maintained by fire in the Klamath Mountains, USA. Journal of Ecology 98, 96–105.
| CrossRef |

Paula S, Arianoutsou M, Kazanis D, Tavsanoglu Ç, Lloret F, Buhk C, Ojeda F, Luna B, Moreno JM, Rodrigo A, Espelta JM, Palacio S, Fernández-Santos B, Fernandes PM, Pausas JG (2009) Fire-related traits for plant species of the Mediterranean Basin. Ecology 90, 1420
| CrossRef |

Pausas JG, Alessio GA, Moreira B, Corcobado G (2012) Fire enhances flammability in Ulex parviflorus. New Phytologist 193, 18–23.
| CrossRef |

Puentes A, Basanta M (2002) Architecture of Ulex europaeus: changes in the vertical distribution of organs in relation to plant height and season. Journal of Vegetation Science 13, 793–802.

Santana VM, Baeza MJ, Marrs RH, Vallejo VR (2010) Old-field secondary succession in SE Spain: can fire divert it? Plant Ecology 211, 337–349.
| CrossRef |

Santana VM, Baeza MJ, Vallejo VR (2011) Fuel structural traits modulating soil temperatures in different species patches of Mediterranean Basin shrublands. International Journal of Wildland Fire 20, 668–677.
| CrossRef |

Saura-Mas S, Paula S, Pausas JG, Lloret F (2010) Fuel loading and flammability in the Mediterranean Basin woody species with different post-fire regenerative strategies. International Journal of Wildland Fire 19, 783–794.
| CrossRef |

Schwilk DW (2003) Flammability is a niche construction trait: canopy architecture affects fire intensity. American Naturalist 162, 725–733.
| CrossRef |

Schwilk DW, Ackerly DD (2001) Flammability and serotiny as strategies: correlated evolution in pines. Oikos 94, 326–336.
| CrossRef |

Vilà-Cabrera A, Saura-Mas S, Lloret F (2008) Effects of fire frequency on species composition in a Mediterranean shrubland. Ecoscience 15, 519–528.
| CrossRef |

Wilson JB, Agnew ADQ (1992) Positive-feedback switches in plant-communities. Advances in Ecological Research 23, 263–336.
| CrossRef |

Subscriber Login

	Username: Password:

Legal & Privacy | Contact Us | Help