Effect of spring grass fires on vegetation patterns and soil quality in abandoned agricultural lands at local and landscape scales in Central European Russia

Larisa G Khanina,Maxim V Bobrovsky,Michael S Romanov,Vadim E Smirnov

doi:10.1186/s13717-018-0150-8

Abstract

IntroductionAbandonment of agricultural land is often happening all over the world and widespread in Russia. Such lands are subject to successional changes in vegetation and it seems necessary to provide effective methods for a sustainable ecosystem management of those lands. However, factors which determine successional processes, especially fires, have not been studied in detail. The aim of this article is to reveal how spring grass fires affect the abandoned arable lands in the study area at the landscape and local scales.MethodsA region of 265.5 km2 located in the south of Moscow was studied. At the landscape scale, we analyzed the spatial characteristics of the area in relation with a 30-year history of spring fire events extracted from the Landsat archive, and climatic data. Logistic regression was used. At the local scale, we sampled soil and vegetation at two sites and in three biotopes at each site: mature forest and two neighboring biotopes affected and unaffected by fire. Plant species diversity, soil quality, and relationship between soil and vegetation were assessed by ANOVA, v test, NMDS, and dbRDA.ResultsAbandoned lands covered 39% of the study area and not less than 72% of these were affected by grass fires, happening mainly between 1998 and 2014. Man causes the ignition of the field layer accidentally, but the area over which the fire spreads is determined by climatic factors and the presence of flammable material (dry grass and litter) for burning. High March temperatures and low precipitation values in April increase the inflammability of dry grasses which are abundant on the former fields. As a result, burnt areas are steadily expanding in abandoned lands where trees are scarce. On abandoned lands that were either affected or unaffected by fires, two different plant communities developed, respectively: grassy vegetation mainly dominated by Calamagrostis epigeios and young forest of pioneer trees with high crown coverage. Practically all soil variables were statistically different in three biotopes at the research sites. Plant species composition was best explained by six soil variables: P2O5, C/N, pH, K, SOC, and N values.ConclusionsWe showed the key role of grass fires in the formation of differences in soil and vegetation during the successional recovery of abandoned lands at the local and landscape scales.

Highlights

Abandonment of agricultural land is often happening all over the world and widespread in Russia
We showed the key role of grass fires in the formation of differences in soil and vegetation during the successional recovery of abandoned lands at the local and landscape scales
The largest proportion of the study area is occupied by abandoned agricultural lands: in total, it accounts for 39% of the area

Summary

Introduction

Abandonment of agricultural land is often happening all over the world and widespread in Russia Such lands are subject to successional changes in vegetation and it seems necessary to provide effective methods for a sustainable ecosystem management of those lands. The aim of this article is to reveal how spring grass fires affect the abandoned arable lands in the study area at the landscape and local scales. Many investigations have been devoted to the dynamics of soil and vegetation on abandoned lands, features of the spatial structure of their vegetation, changes in their biodiversity, in carbon and nitrogen budgets, and to peculiarities of carbon sequestration at different stages of forest recovery (Gough and Marrs 1990; Silver et al 2000; Baniya et al 2009; Tokavchuk 2010; Zhang et al 2010a; De Frenne et al 2011; Heikkinen et al 2014; Hou and Fu 2014; Kurganova et al 2014; Nyawira et al 2016; Arévalo et al 2017; Baeva et al 2017; Telesnina et al 2017; Kalinina et al 2018). It has been shown that all these parameters, in various combinations, define the trajectories of vegetation succession and features of vegetation recovery on the abandoned lands (Baniya et al 2009; Baeten et al 2010; De Frenne et al 2011; Munroe et al 2013; Hou et al 2014; Plieninger et al 2014; Kou et al 2016; Stuble et al 2017)

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