Effects of fire on the vegetation of Siberian taiga predominated by Larixdahurica

Abstract

In the summer of 1988, a vegetation survey of the Siberian taiga was conducted in a discontinuous permafrost zone of northern China where a destructive fire had occurred in the spring of 1987. The dominant forest cover of this area was larch, with spruce forests occurring in wet valleys and pine forests on steep, dry slopes. The vertical structure of forests showed that the spruce forests were preceded by larch forests; however, most of the larch forests were self-renewable probably because their habitats were too dry for spruce trees to compete. In larch forests, the 1987 fire seriously damaged perennial herbs; in spruce forests, however, most of the herbaceous plants were protected by wet conditions of their habitats, except feather mosses, which could not survive in the habitat opened by fire. Many plants of the burnt habitats recovered vegetatively; in particular, the burnt stems of birch trees frequently sprouted many shoots and consequently appeared to be contributing to the rapid reestablishment of larch, which is generally preceded by birch trees in ecological succession. Pine forests were not self-renewable; however, they seemed independent of the normal course of succession by dominating dry habitats where their competitors were not successful.