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- Title
Prescribed fire and changes in annual precipitation alter biocrust cover in a coastal grassland.
- Authors
PALMER, BRIANNE; LAWSON, DAWN; LIPSON, DAVID A.
- Abstract
Prescribed fires are often used as a management tool in grasslands to promote the growth of desired plant species. These fires also impact other ecological communities where they occur. One ecological community that is often overlooked regarding fire is biological soil crusts (biocrusts). Biocrusts contain an assemblage of cyanobacteria, lichens, and bryophytes living on the soil surface and are important for nutrient cycling and soil stability. Here, we used prescribed burns in a California coastal grassland on San Clemente Island (SCI) to understand how fire impacts biocrust cover. Two sites were burned in a prescribed fire in 2012 and then again in 2017, and one site was burned in a wildfire in 2012 and a prescribed fire in 2017. We compared the percent cover of biocrusts in the burned and unburned plots in 2018 and 2019. However, precipitation differed drastically between sampling years; therefore, we also assessed the role of precipitation in moderating biocrust cover in the burned and unburned plots. In 2018 and 2019, one and two years after the last prescribed fire, the burned plots had more cyanobacterial biocrust cover than the controls. Annual precipitation had a negative effect on cyanobacterial biocrust cover, though lichen- and bryophyte-dominated biocrusts increased with increasing precipitation. The abundance of cyanobacterial biocrusts in the burned plots suggests either a level of recovery after the fire or the ability of biocrusts to withstand a grassland fire, though the effect is mediated by precipitation.
- Subjects
SAN Clemente (Calif.); CALIFORNIA; PRESCRIBED burning; FIRE management; CRUST vegetation; BIOTIC communities; GRASSLANDS; GRASSLAND fires
- Publication
Western North American Naturalist, 2023, Vol 83, Issue 3, p325
- ISSN
1527-0904
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3398/064.083.0303