PARENT SESSION
Poster Session #17: Restoration using Fire.
Tuesday, August 6. Presentation from 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM. Exhibit Hall B & C, TCC

Restoring long-unburned Florida oak-saw palmetto scrub.

Schmalzer, Paul^*,1, Foster, Tammy¹, Adrian, Frederic², ¹ Dynamac Corporation, Kennedy Space Center, Florida² Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, Titusville, Florida

ABSTRACT- Florida oak-saw palmetto scrub is a shrub ecosystem maintained by relatively frequent fire. Fire suppression and landscape fragmentation has allowed some scrub to reach a size structure resistant to fire under typical prescribed burning conditions. Without burning, the habitat suitability of scrub for a variety of species declines. Combinations of mechanical cutting and prescribed burning have been used in restoration of scrub on Kennedy Space Center/Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge since 1992. Cutting methods have included Brown tree cutter (3 stands, 17 transects), V-blade (2 stands, 20 transects), K-G blade (3 stands, 16 transects), and roller chopper (2 stands, 9 transects). We monitored vegetation changes using permanent 15 m transects established before treatment and sampled periodically after cutting and burning; we carried out parallel studies of scrub burned periodically without mechanical treatment. Dominant species on all sites were scrub oaks (Quercus chapmanii, Q. geminata, Q. myrtifolia) saw palmetto (Serenoa repens), and ericads (Lyonia spp.). Height growth on cut and burned sites equaled or exceeded growth on sites burned without cutting. Reestablishment of cover of oaks and ericads was similar between sites cut and burned and burned without cutting. Saw palmetto cover was reduced on all mechanically treated sites, and this reduction has persisted 7-8 years postburn. Mechanical cutting should be used as a one-time treatment to return to a shrub vegetation structure that can be maintained thereafter by burning.

KEY WORDS: Florida scrub, prescribed burning, restoration, vegetation