PARENT SESSION
Oral Session # 6: Fire Ecology I: Structure and Demographics
Presiding: R Parmenter
Monday, August 4. 8:00 AM to 11:30 AM, SITCC Meeting Room 105.
The effect of season of fire on the recovery of Florida scrub.
Foster, Tammy*,1, Schmalzer, Paul1, 1 Dynamac Corporation, Kennedy Space Center, FL
ABSTRACT- Florida scrub is a xeromorphic shrubland that is maintained by frequent fires. Historically, these fires occurred during the summer due to lightning ignition. Today, Florida scrub is often managed by the use of prescribed burning. Prescribed burning of scrub has been implemented on Kennedy Space Center/Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge (KSC/MINWR) since 1981, with burns being carried out throughout the year. The impacts of the season of burn on recovery are not known. Long-term monitoring of scrub regeneration has been conducted since the early-1980′s at KSC/MINWR using permanent 15 m line-intercept transects. We obtained data from eight transects that were subjected to a winter burn in 1986 and a summer burn in 1997 and compared the recovery of the stand for the first five years postburn. There was no difference in height growth between the winter and summer burns; both were approximately 85 cm tall five years postburn. Initially, the summer burn had a larger percentage of bare ground, but within a year postburn the amount of bare ground was similar. Total percent cover ( > 0.5m) was lower during the recovery from the 1997 summer burn than from the winter burn, whereas total percent cover ( < 0.5m) was greater. Some differences were found in recovery of the dominant species, e.g., percent cover of Quercus geminata was lower after the summer burn than the winter burn.
Key words: burn, season, vegetation, response