PARENT SESSION
Contributed Oral Session 71: Terrestrial Plant Restoration; Fire Effects
Tuesday, August 9, 1:30 PM - 5:00 PM, Meeting Room 524 B, Level 5, Palais des congrès de Montréal
Fire as a restoration tool: a life form decision framework for predicting plant responses to fire.
Pyke, David*,1, Brooks, Matthew2, D'Antonio, Carla3, 1 U.S. Geological Survey, Corvallis, OR, USA2 U.S. Geological Survey, Henderson, NV, USA3 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Reno, NV, USA
ABSTRACT- Fire has a long association with vegetation management of both wildland and managed environments. Our knowledge of how plants will respond to fires is generally based on observations of managers who have applied fires to particular communities and watched responses of the subsequent communities that develop or survived fires. We believe restoration science and management could benefit from a merging of our knowledge about fires with our knowledge of plant survival mechanisms into a decision tree that predicts the outcome of fires on plants within an ecosystem. The ability of fire to reduce or enhance plant growth and survival will depend on five fire regime components, intensity, season, extent, type and frequency. These components will depend on the combination abiotic (climate, topography and lightening) and biotic (humans as an ignition sources and several descriptors of fuel including load, type, layer position, chemistry, and spatial distribution) drivers of the fire regime. Managers are able to manipulate these fire drivers to achieve vegetation management goals by killing or damaging undesired species while favoring desired species. Vascular plants depend on growth buds (perennating buds), vascular connections for the transport of water and nutrients, and the survival of seeds or propagating units for their existence. Managers can attempt to manipulate fire drivers to either protect these critical plant tissues in species they want to preserve, or target these tissues in plant species they want to control. Life forms based on position of perennating buds relative to the soil surface form the basis of our decision framework for fire as a tool in species manipulations. When fire regime potential is combined with our knowledge of vascular insulation from heat, and of seed and the seed bank position and longevity, managers can anticipate the impact of fire on species in a community. The decision support framework also suggests situations where fire may not be an adequate tool by itself to achieve desired plant communities, but will require additional tools such as herbicide or mechanical treatments to meet vegetation management goals.
Key words: perennating buds, decision support, fire resistance, fire resilence