PARENT SESSION
Oral Session #54: Fire Ecology -- Trees, forests, woodlands.
Presiding: E. Menges
Wednesday, August 7. 8:00 AM to 11:30 AM. Apache Meeting Room, TCC.

Coarse woody debris in fire suppressed and frequently burned old-growth oak stands.

MEIER, ALBERT^*,1, REBERTUS, ALAN², ¹ Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, Kentucky² Northern Michigan University, Marquette, Michigan

ABSTRACT- A number of studies have been conducted to quantify the dynamics of tree mortality and gap formation in the deciduous forests of the eastern and central United States. Few studies have quantified down woody debris in the Central Hardwoods. A growing body of evidence suggests that fires set by American Indians were frequent prior to European settlement, and that these fires controlled vegetation patterns through much of the region. We expected that fire would influence volume of coarse woody debris. AB Savanna near Camdenton, Missouri has a well-documented history of frequent anthropogenic fires in its old-growth oak woodlands. We recorded length and mid-point diameter for down coarse woody debris with diameters greater than 10 cm on 0.1-ha plots. We compared our results with results from fire suppressed old-growth oak forests at Big Spring and Roaring River, Missouri. Big Spring had a mean of 3.2 cubic meters of coarse woody debris per 1000 0.1-ha, Roaring River had 3.5 cubic meters per 0.1-ha, and AB had 0.7 cubic meters per 0.1-ha.

KEY WORDS: fire, coarse woody debris, old growth, savanna