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Impacts of Wildfire and Forest Management Activities on Forest Understory...
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Impacts of Wildfire and Forest Management Activities on Forest Understory Plant Communities

A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Ecology and Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 June 2020) | Viewed by 23882

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Dave Huffman

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Guest Editor
Ecological Restoration Institute, Northern University Arizona, PO Box 15017, Flagstaff, AZ 86011, USA
Interests: pinyon-juniper woodland ecology; plant population ecology; plant-herbivore interactions; plant responses to fire; restoration of mixed-conifer forests
Dr. Jonathan D. Bakker

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Box 354115, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
Interests: restoration ecology; vegetation dynamics; plant community ecology
Dr. Seth W. Bigelow

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
The Jones Center at Ichauway, 3988 Jones Center Drive, Newton, GA 39870, USA
Interests: forest ecology; spatial ecology; biodiversity; silviculture; fire ecology; adaptive silviculture for climate change
Dr. Paula J. Fornwalt

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
USDA, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, 240 West Prospect Road, Fort Collins, CO 80526, USA
Interests: Plant community ecology; fire ecology; restoration ecology; plant responses to forest management; exotic plant invasions; historical ecology
Dr. Becky K. Kerns

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
USDA, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, Forestry Science Lab, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA
Interests: plant community ecology; fire ecology; plant-herbivore interactions; restoration ecology; exotic plant invasions; prescribed fire; fire and fuel management

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Understory plant communities are critically important for ecosystem function in forests across the globe and directly provide food and products to humans. Understory communities influence soil characteristics and nutrient cycling and provide basic primary production for food webs, forage, and habitat for wildlife. Some forests understory communities contribute a substantial proportion of the overall plant species richness and biodiversity. These functional roles confer resiliency to forest ecosystems following natural and human-caused disturbances. In addition, the understory layer is an important component of the fuels complex and can strongly influence forest fire behavior. Management and fire, in turn, affect understory composition and dynamics, both directly and indirectly. Better understanding and models of feedbacks and interactions between understory communities, management, and fire are needed. Further, understory responses to climate change and other environmental drivers and associated shifts in natural disturbance are poorly understood. This Special Issue of Forests focuses on the impacts of management and fire on forest understories in order to increase the state of knowledge and assist in management and planning for the future.

Dr. Dave Huffman
Dr. Jonathan D. Bakker
Dr. Seth W. Bigelow
Dr. Paula J. Fornwalt
Dr. Becky K. Kerns
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • plant community ecology
  • disturbance ecology
  • ecological restoration
  • climate change interactions
  • ecosystem resilience

Published Papers (8 papers)

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Research

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29 pages, 6335 KiB  
Article
Long-Term Effects of Fuels Treatments, Overstory Structure, and Wildfire on Tree Regeneration in Dry Forests of Central Washington
by Allison K. Rossman, Jonathan D. Bakker, David W. Peterson and Charles B. Halpern
Forests 2020, 11(8), 888; https://doi.org/10.3390/f11080888 - 15 Aug 2020
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2082
Abstract
The long-term effectiveness of dry-forest fuels treatments (restoration thinning and prescribed burning) depends, in part, on the pace at which trees regenerate and recruit into the overstory. Knowledge of the factors that shape post-treatment regeneration and growth is limited by the short timeframes [...] Read more.
The long-term effectiveness of dry-forest fuels treatments (restoration thinning and prescribed burning) depends, in part, on the pace at which trees regenerate and recruit into the overstory. Knowledge of the factors that shape post-treatment regeneration and growth is limited by the short timeframes and simple disturbance histories of past research. Here, we present results of a 15-year fuels-reduction experiment in central Washington, including responses to planned and unplanned disturbances. We explore the changing patterns of Douglas-fir regeneration in 72 permanent plots (0.1 ha) varying in overstory abundance (a function of density and basal area) and disturbance history—the latter including thinning, prescribed burning, and/or wildfire. Plots were measured before treatment (2000/2001), soon afterwards (2004/2005), and more than a decade later (2015). Thinning combined with burning enhanced sapling recruitment (ingrowth) into the overstory, although rates of ingrowth were consistently low and greatly exceeded by mortality. Relationships between seedling frequency (proportion of quadrats within a plot) and overstory abundance shifted from weakly negative before treatment to positive after thinning, to neutral in the longer term. However, these relationships were overshadowed by more recent, higher-severity prescribed fire and wildfire that stimulated seedling establishment while killing advanced regeneration and overstory trees. Our results highlight the dependence of regeneration responses on the history of, and time since, fuels treatment and subsequent disturbance. Managers must be aware of this spatial and temporal complexity and plan for future disturbances that are inevitable but unpredictable in timing and severity. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Wildfire and Forest Management Activities on Forest Understory Plant Communities)
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14 pages, 3624 KiB  
Article
Long-Term Seeding Outcomes in Slash Piles and Skid Trails after Conifer Removal
by Becky K. Kerns, Michelle A. Day and Dana Ikeda
Forests 2020, 11(8), 839; https://doi.org/10.3390/f11080839 - 01 Aug 2020
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1881
Abstract
Conifer removal in interior woodland ecosystems of the western US is a common management treatment used to decrease fire hazard and shift woodlands to more historical states. Woody material is frequently removed by skidding material off site and via slash pile burning. Assessing [...] Read more.
Conifer removal in interior woodland ecosystems of the western US is a common management treatment used to decrease fire hazard and shift woodlands to more historical states. Woody material is frequently removed by skidding material off site and via slash pile burning. Assessing the long-term outcomes of seeding treatments after such ground disturbing activities is critical for informing future management and treatment strategies. Using two designed experiments from a central Oregon juniper woodland, we resampled slash piles and skid trails 8 years after seeding. Our objectives were to assess the long-term vegetation response to conifer removal, ground disturbance, and seeding source (cultivar and local) in slash piles and skid trails. We found that seeded species persisted in the long term, but abundance patterns depended on the species, seed source, and the type of disturbance. In general, there were more robust patterns of persistence after pile burning compared to skid trails. Seeding also suppressed exotic grass cover in the long term, particularly for the local seed source. However, the invasion levels we report are still problematic and may have impacts on biodiversity, forage and fire behavior. Our short-term results were not predictive of longer-term outcomes, but short- and long-term patterns were somewhat predictable based on species life history traits and ecological succession. The use of a mix of species with different life history traits may contribute to seeding success in terms of exotic grass suppression. Lastly, our results suggest that locally adapted seed sources may perform as well or better compared to cultivars. However, more aggressive weed treatments before and after conifer removal activities and wider seeding application may be needed to effectively treat exotic grass populations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Wildfire and Forest Management Activities on Forest Understory Plant Communities)
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17 pages, 3987 KiB  
Article
Limited Effects of Long-Term Repeated Season and Interval of Prescribed Burning on Understory Vegetation Compositional Trajectories and Indicator Species in Ponderosa Pine Forests of Northeastern Oregon, USA
by Harold S. J. Zald, Becky K. Kerns and Michelle A. Day
Forests 2020, 11(8), 834; https://doi.org/10.3390/f11080834 - 01 Aug 2020
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2608
Abstract
Fire exclusion has dramatically altered historically fire adapted forests across western North America. In response, forest managers reduce forest fuels with mechanical thinning and/or prescribed burning to alter fire behavior, with additional objectives of restoring forest composition, structure, and ecosystem processes. There has [...] Read more.
Fire exclusion has dramatically altered historically fire adapted forests across western North America. In response, forest managers reduce forest fuels with mechanical thinning and/or prescribed burning to alter fire behavior, with additional objectives of restoring forest composition, structure, and ecosystem processes. There has been extensive research on the effects of fuel reduction and restoration treatments on trees, fuels, regeneration, and fire behavior; but less is known about how these treatments influence understory vegetation, which contains the majority of vascular plant diversity in many dry conifer forests. Of particular interest is how understory vegetation may respond to the season and interval of prescribed burning. The season and interval of prescribed burning is often determined by operational constraints rather than historical fire regimes, potentially resulting in fire conditions and burn intervals to which native plants are poorly adapted. In this study, we examined how understory vegetation has responded to season and interval of prescribed burning in ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forests in the Blue Mountains of northeastern Oregon, USA. Using over a decade (2002–2015) of understory vegetation data collected in stands with different intervals (5 versus 15 year) and seasons (spring versus fall) of prescribed burning, we quantified how season and interval of prescribed burning has influenced understory vegetation compositional trajectories and indicator species over time. Season of prescribed burning resulted in different understory communities and distinct trajectories of understory composition over time, but interval of burning did not. Indicator species analysis suggests fall burning is facilitating early seral species, with native annual forbs displaying ephemeral responses to frequent burning, while invasive cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) increased in abundance and frequency across all treatments over time. These findings indicate that understory vegetation in these ecosystems are sensitive to seasonality of burning, but the responses are subtle. Our findings suggest season and interval of prescribed burning used in this study do not result in large changes in understory vegetation community composition, a key consideration as land managers increase the pace and scale of prescribed fire in these forests. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Wildfire and Forest Management Activities on Forest Understory Plant Communities)
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19 pages, 6898 KiB  
Article
Slash Pile Burn Scar Restoration: Tradeoffs between Abundance of Non-Native and Native Species
by Ian Sexton, Philip Turk, Lindsay Ringer and Cynthia S. Brown
Forests 2020, 11(8), 813; https://doi.org/10.3390/f11080813 - 28 Jul 2020
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2603
Abstract
The accumulation of live and dead trees and other vegetation in forests across the western United States is producing larger and more severe wildfires. To decrease wildfire severity and increase forest resilience, foresters regularly remove excess fuel by burning woody material in piles. [...] Read more.
The accumulation of live and dead trees and other vegetation in forests across the western United States is producing larger and more severe wildfires. To decrease wildfire severity and increase forest resilience, foresters regularly remove excess fuel by burning woody material in piles. This common practice could also cause persistent ecosystem changes such as the alteration of soil physical and chemical properties due to extreme soil heating, which can favor invasion by non-native plant species. The abundance and species richness of native plant communities may also remain depressed for many years after burning has removed vegetation and diminished propagules in the soil. This adds to the vulnerability of burned areas to the colonization and dominance by invasive species. Research into the use of revegetation techniques following pile burning to suppress invasion is limited. Studies conducted in various woodland types that investigated revegetation of pile burn scars have met with varying success. To assess the effectiveness of restoring pile burn scars in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, we monitored vegetation in 26 scars, each about 5 m in diameter, the growing season after burning. Later that summer, we selected 14 scars for restoration that included soil scarification, seed addition, and pine duff mulch cover. We monitored the scars for four years, pre-restoration, and three years post-restoration and found that the cover of seeded species exceeded the surrounding unburned areas and unseeded controls. The restoration seeding suppressed cover of non-native species as well as native species that were not seeded during restoration. Our results suggest that restoration of pile burn scars could be a useful tool to retard the establishment of invasive plant species when there are pre-existing infestations near scars. However, this must be weighed against the simultaneous suppression of native species recruitment. Monitoring for periods more than three years will help us understand how long the suppression of native and non-native species by restoration species may persist. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Wildfire and Forest Management Activities on Forest Understory Plant Communities)
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20 pages, 3639 KiB  
Article
Effectiveness of Restoration Treatments for Reducing Fuels and Increasing Understory Diversity in Shrubby Mixed-Conifer Forests of the Southern Rocky Mountains, USA
by Julie E. Korb, Michael T. Stoddard and David W. Huffman
Forests 2020, 11(5), 508; https://doi.org/10.3390/f11050508 - 01 May 2020
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 3610
Abstract
Exclusion of natural surface fires in warm/dry mixed-conifer forests of the western U.S. has increased potential for stand-replacing crown fires and reduced resilience of these systems to other disturbances, such as drought and insect attack. Tree thinning and the application of prescribed fire [...] Read more.
Exclusion of natural surface fires in warm/dry mixed-conifer forests of the western U.S. has increased potential for stand-replacing crown fires and reduced resilience of these systems to other disturbances, such as drought and insect attack. Tree thinning and the application of prescribed fire are commonly used to restore more resilient ecological conditions, but currently, there is a lack of long-term data with which to evaluate restoration treatment effectiveness in forest types where resprouting shrubs dominate understory communities. At a mixed-conifer site in southwestern Colorado, we compared forest structure and understory vegetation responses to three restoration treatments (thin/burn, burn, and control) over 10 years in a completely randomized and replicated experiment. Forest density, canopy cover, and crown fuel loads were consistently lower, and crown base height was higher, in thin/burn than burn or controls, but the effects diminished over time. Ten years following treatment, >99% of all plant species within both treatments and the control were native in origin. There were no differences between treatments in understory richness, diversity, cover, or surface fuels, but graminoid cover more than doubled in all treatments over the 15-year monitoring period. Similarly, there was more than a 250% increase post-treatment in shrub density, with the greatest increases in the thin/burn treatment. In addition, we saw an increase in the average shrub height for both treatments and the control, with shrub stems >80 cm becoming the dominant size class in the thin/burn treatment. Conifer seedling density was significantly lower in thin/burn compared with burn and control treatments after 10 years. Taken together, these conditions create challenges for managers aiming to reestablish natural fire patterns and sustain mixed-conifer forests. To limit the dominance of resprouting shrubs and facilitate conifer regeneration after overstory thinning and prescribed fire, managers may need to consider new or more intensive approaches to forest restoration, particularly given current and projected climate change. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Wildfire and Forest Management Activities on Forest Understory Plant Communities)
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14 pages, 3103 KiB  
Article
Soil Available Phosphorus Loss Caused by Periodical Understory Management Reduce Understory Plant Diversity in a Northern Subtropical Pinus massoniana Plantation Chronosequence
by Dong Dai, Ashfaq Ali, Xin Huang, Mingjun Teng, Changguang Wu, Zhixiang Zhou and Yu Liu
Forests 2020, 11(2), 231; https://doi.org/10.3390/f11020231 - 19 Feb 2020
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 3118
Abstract
Clearing of understory plants is a common management method in plantation forests, but its long-term impact on soil properties and understory plant diversity is still poorly understood. In order to uncover the potential relationship between understory diversity and soil properties, we categorized understory [...] Read more.
Clearing of understory plants is a common management method in plantation forests, but its long-term impact on soil properties and understory plant diversity is still poorly understood. In order to uncover the potential relationship between understory diversity and soil properties, we categorized understory plants into herbs and shrubs, and took soil depth into consideration. We measured the soil variables and investigated the understory plant diversity in four stand age-classes (9-year-old for young, 18-year-old for intermediate, 28-year-old for near-mature, and 48-year-old for mature) in a Pinus massoniana plantation. We aimed to examine how the diversity of herbs and shrubs changed with stand succession and to determine which of the three soil depths (0–10 cm, 10–20 cm, 20–40 cm) had the strongest explanation for the understory plant diversity. Furthermore, structural equation modeling (SEM) was performed to assess the direct and indirect effect of understory clearing and stand age on understory diversity. We found that understory clearing influenced the trend of diversity of herbs and shrubs with stand age, and understory diversity showed a strong correlation with soil physical properties in all three soil layers. The soil properties in the 10–20 cm soil layer related with the diversity of herbs and shrubs most, while the 20–40 cm soil layer properties related with them the least. Understory clearing reduced soil available phosphorus (AP). Understory clearing and stand age were found to benefit understory plant diversity directly and decreased the understory diversity indirectly via AP. Consequently, to improve our understanding of the impact of understory clearing and stand age on biodiversity, we should take into account its direct and indirect effects. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Wildfire and Forest Management Activities on Forest Understory Plant Communities)
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19 pages, 1888 KiB  
Article
The Combined Role of Retention Pattern and Post-Harvest Site Preparation in Regulating Plant Functional Diversity: A Case Study in Boreal Forest Ecosystems
by Liping Wei, Nicole J. Fenton, Benoit Lafleur and Yves Bergeron
Forests 2019, 10(11), 1006; https://doi.org/10.3390/f10111006 - 11 Nov 2019
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2729
Abstract
Changes in the light availability in forests generated by diversified retention patterns (e.g., clear cut, partial harvest) have been shown to strongly filter the plant species present. Modified soil microsite conditions due to post-harvest site preparation (e.g., mechanical site preparation, prescribed fire) might [...] Read more.
Changes in the light availability in forests generated by diversified retention patterns (e.g., clear cut, partial harvest) have been shown to strongly filter the plant species present. Modified soil microsite conditions due to post-harvest site preparation (e.g., mechanical site preparation, prescribed fire) might also be an important determinant of plant diversity. The objective here was to detect how retention pattern and post-harvest site preparation act as filters that explain the understory functional diversity in boreal forests. We also assessed whether these effects were dependent on forest attributes (stand type, time since fire, and time since harvest). We retrieved data from seven different studies within 101 sites in boreal forests in Eastern Canada. Our data included forests harvested with two retention patterns: careful logging and clear cut, plus unharvested control forests. Three post-harvest site preparation techniques were applied: plow or disk trenching after careful logging, and prescribed fire after clear cut. We collected trait data (10 traits) representing plant morphology, regeneration strategy, or resource utilization for common species. Our results demonstrated significant variation in functional diversity after harvest. The combined effect of retention pattern and site preparation was the most important factor explaining understory diversity compared to retention pattern only and forest attributes. According to RLQ analysis, harvested forests with site preparation favored traits reflecting resistance or resilience ability after disturbance (clonal guerilla species, geophytes, and species with higher seed weight). Yet harvested forests without site preparation mainly affected understory plant species via their light requirements. Forest attributes did not play significant roles in affecting the relationship between site preparation and functional diversity or traits. Our results indicated the importance of the compounding effects of light variation and soil disturbance in filtering understory diversity and composition in boreal forests. Whether these results are also valid for other ecosystems still needs to be demonstrated. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Wildfire and Forest Management Activities on Forest Understory Plant Communities)
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Review

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17 pages, 1005 KiB  
Review
Forest Understorey Vegetation: Colonization and the Availability and Heterogeneity of Resources
by Xiangping Su, Minhuang Wang, Zhiqun Huang, Songling Fu and Han Y.H. Chen
Forests 2019, 10(11), 944; https://doi.org/10.3390/f10110944 - 24 Oct 2019
Cited by 41 | Viewed by 4731
Abstract
Understorey vegetation comprises a major portion of plant diversity and contributes greatly to nutrient cycling and energy flow. This review examines the mechanisms involved in the response of understorey vegetation to stand development and the overstorey canopy following disturbances. The overall abundance and [...] Read more.
Understorey vegetation comprises a major portion of plant diversity and contributes greatly to nutrient cycling and energy flow. This review examines the mechanisms involved in the response of understorey vegetation to stand development and the overstorey canopy following disturbances. The overall abundance and diversity of the understorey is enhanced with the availability and heterogeneity of light, soil nutrients, soil moisture, and substrates. Vascular plants are positively impacted by the availability and heterogeneity of light and soil nutrients, whereas non-vascular vegetation is more strongly influenced by colonization time, soil moisture, and substrates, and is decreased with a higher proportion of broadleaf overstorey. The availability of resources is a prominent driver toward the abundance and diversity of understorey vegetation, from the stand initiation to stem exclusion stage under a single-species dominated overstorey. However, resource heterogeneity dominates at the later stages of succession under a mixed overstorey. Climate and site conditions modify resource availability and heterogeneity in the understorey layer, but the extent of their influences requires more investigation. Forest management practices (clearcutting and partial harvesting) tend to increase light availability and heterogeneity, which facilitates the abundance and diversity of understorey vascular plants; however, these factors reduce the occurrence of non-vascular plants. Nevertheless, in the landscape context, anthropogenic disturbances homogenize environmental conditions and reduce beta-diversity, as well, the long-term effects of anthropogenic disturbances on understorey vegetation remain unclear, particularly compared with those in primary forests. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Wildfire and Forest Management Activities on Forest Understory Plant Communities)
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