Features of the Stand and Deadwood in Postfire Aspen and Birch Forests in Northern Urals

Abstract

By now, most of the forests in the European part of Russia have been transformed by drastic fires and clear cutting. Significant areas of primary dark coniferous forests in the Northern Urals have been replaced by either birch or aspen stands. These communities pass different stages of secondary succession. They remain understudied despite their wide occurrence. We consider the composition and structure of the tree story and deadwood in two postfire communities (80- and 120-years old). Both fires were initiated from the slash-and-burn cultivation, as has been the practice up to the mid-20th century. The composition of the stands in these communities indicates the gradual replacement of early succession tree species—aspen and willow—by late succession spruce and fir. Weibull function was applied to fit the distribution of diameters of the trees. We show that these communities do not differ by most indicators of stand and deadwood structures and characterize the same successional stage.