Diversity patterns of plant functional types in relation to fire regime and previous land use in Mediterranean woodlands

Abstract

Abstract. We explore patterns of diversity of plant functional types (PFTs) in Mediterranean communities subjected to landscape‐scale fire disturbances in a mosaic of uncultivated and old fields stands. We use regenerative and growth form attributes to establish two sets of PFTs of perennial species living in shrublands and pine forests of NE Spain. We test the following hypotheses: 1. Fire frequency decreases regenerative PFTs diversity by negatively selecting attributes with low regenerative efficiency. 2. Fire history has more influence on regenerative than on growth form PFTs. 3. The lowest diversity of growth form PFTs will be in old fields without recent fires.We surveyed stands of different combinations of fire and land use histories. Fire history included areas without fires in the last twenty years (unburned), sites burned in 1982 (1‐burned), and sites burned in 1982 and 1994 (2‐burned). Land use histories considered terraced old fields, and uncultivated stands on stony soils. We analysed patterns of PFT abundance and diversity at the stand level, and across the landscape (among stands absolute deviations from sample medians of the relative cover of PFTs).At the stand level, fire had more influence on the diversity patterns of regenerative PFTs than on growth form PFTs. Fire decreased the diversity of regenerative PFTs, due to the elimination of the species without effective mechanisms to post‐fire regeneration. This effect was not observed across the landscape, but seeders showed more variation in stands with longer history without fire. Land use contributed to explain the diversity patterns of growth form PFT (i.e. the number of growth form PFTs was lower in uncultivated, unburned sites), but it did not influence regenerative PFTs diversity. Patterns of PFTs diversity reflect the response to ecological processes operating at the landscape level. Overall, regenerative and growth form PFTs appear to be more sensitive to the fire history than to the past land use.