Effect of fuel treatments and backfiring on the recovery of an obligate seeder-dominated heathland

Cristina Fernández Filgueira,José A Vega Hidalgo

doi:10.5424/fs/2016253-09119

Abstract

Aim of study: To evaluate how a plant community responded to a backfire that occurred four years after application of different types of fuel-reduction treatments.Area of study: Erica umbellata Loefl. (L.)-dominated heathland in Galicia (NW Spain).Materials and Methods: Shrub cover surveys in 16 experimental plots from 2006 to 2014. Fuel reduction treatments (prescribed burning, clearing and mastication) were applied in the spring of 2006 and the area was burned by a wildfire in the summer of 2010.Main results: Shrub total cover recovered quickly after the backfire in both the treated and untreated areas, and the pre-treatment values were reached four years after the fire. Post-wildfire resprouting species cover recovery was not affected by fuel treatments. As a contrast, Erica umbellata cover reached levels similar to those in the untreated plots only in the areas treated by prescribed burning. After the wildfire, grasses cover recovery was greater in the treated than in the untreated areas and the effect lasted until the end of the study.Research highlights: Prescribed fire and backfire was favourable for Erica umbellata regeneration compared to clearing and mastication.Keywords: prescribed burning; clearing; mechanical shredding; Erica; wildfire.

Highlights

Shrub communities are valuable ecosystems that are protected under the Spanish Natura 2000 network, being the conservation and maintenance of these ecosystems strongly linked to a particular degree of management (Muñoz et al, 2012b, 2014)
Research on the effects of fuel treatments on shubland communities has increased in recent years (e.g. Calvo et al, 2005; Fernández & Vega, 2014, 2016; Fernández et al, 2015), still remains the uncertaincy on how a wildfire combined with fuel treatment could affect the regeneration of an obligate seeder species
We investigated how a plant community dominated by Erica umbellata Loefl. (L.) responded to a backfire that occurred four years after application of different types of fuel-reduction treatments

Summary

Introduction

Shrub communities are valuable ecosystems that are protected under the Spanish Natura 2000 network, being the conservation and maintenance of these ecosystems strongly linked to a particular degree of management (Muñoz et al, 2012b, 2014). In Galicia (NW Spain), fuel reduction treatments are used in those communities to reduce the risk of high-severity wildfire and to meet other ecological and socioeconomic objectives (Vega et al, 2001). In the particular case of heathland communities, they are considered to be endangered by both atmospheric nutrient deposition and natural succession and that a high-intensity management is necessary for their conservation. The aim of the study was to detect any differences in shrub recovery in relation to fuel treatment (i.e. differences between treated and untreated areas or between types of treatment)

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion