Shrub Communities, Spatial Patterns, and Shrub-Mediated Tree Mortality following Reintroduced Fire in Yosemite National Park, California, USA

Authors

James A. Lutz, Utah State UniversityFollow
Tucker J. Furniss, Utah State University
Sara J. Germain, Utah State UniversityFollow
Kendall M. L. Becker, Utah State UniversityFollow
Erika M. Blomdahl, Utah State UniversityFollow
Sean M. A. Jeronimo, University of Washington
C. Alina Cansler, University of Washington
James A. Freund, University of WashingtonFollow
Mark E. Swanson, Washington State UniversityFollow
Andrew J. Larson, University of MontanaFollow

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Fire Ecology

Volume

13

Issue

1

Publisher

SpringerOpen

Publication Date

4-1-2017

Award Number

US Dept. of Interior, National Park Service P14AC00122; US Dept. of Interior, National Park Service P14AC00197

Funder

US Dept. of Interior, National Park Service

First Page

104

Last Page

126

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Abstract

Shrubs contribute to the forest fuel load; their distribution is important to tree mortality and regeneration, and vertebrate occupancy. We used a method new to fire ecology—extensive continuous mapping of trees and shrub patches within a single large (25.6 ha) study site—to identify changes in shrub area, biomass, and spatial pattern due to fire reintroduction by a backfire following a century of fire exclusion in lower montane forests of the Sierra Nevada, California, USA. We examined whether trees in close proximity to shrubs prior to fire experienced higher mortality rates than trees in areas without shrubs. We calculated shrub biomass using demography subplots and existing allometric equations, and we developed new equations for beaked hazel (Corylus cornuta ssp. californica [A. de Candolle] E. Murray) from full dissection of 50 stems. Fire decreased shrub patch area from 15.1 % to 0.9 %, reduced live shrub biomass from 3.49 Mg ha⁻¹ to 0.27 Mg ha⁻¹, and consumed 4.41 Mg ha⁻¹ of living and dead shrubs. Distinct (non-overlapping) shrub patches decreased from 47 ha⁻¹ to 6 ha⁻¹. The mean distance between shrub patches increased 135 %. Distances between montane chaparral patches increased 285 %, compared to a 54 % increase in distances between riparian shrub patches and an increase of 267 % between generalist shrub patches. Fire-related tree mortality within shrub patches was marginally lower (67.6 % versus 71.8 %), showing a contrasting effect of shrubs on tree mortality between this forest ecosystem and chaparral-dominated ecosystems in which most trees are killed by fire.

Related Content

Lutz, J. A., Lutz, T. J., Germain, S. J., Becker, K. M. L., Blomdahl, E. M., Jeronimo, S. A., Cansier, C. A., Freund, J. A., Swanson, M. E., & Larson, A. J. (2016). Shrub Consumption and Immediate Changes in Shrub Community and Spatial Patterns by Reintroduced Fire in Yosemite National Park, California, USA; Supplemental Information. Utah State University. https://doi.org/10.15142/T3HP4D

Recommended Citation

Lutz, J.A., Furniss, T.J., Germain, S.J. et al. Shrub Communities, Spatial Patterns, and Shrub-Mediated Tree Mortality following Reintroduced Fire in Yosemite National Park, California, USA. fire ecol 13, 104–126 (2017). https://doi.org/10.4996/fireecology.1301104