Abstract
Long-term ecological studies are critical for providing key insights in ecology, environmental change, natural resource management and biodiversity conservation. However, island fire ecology is poorly understood. No previous studies are available that analyze vegetative changes in burned and unburned dry forest remnants on Wa’ahila Ridge, Hawai’i. This study investigates vegetation succession from 2008 to 2015, following a fire in 2007 which caused significant differences in species richness, plant density, and the frequency of woody, herb, grass, and lichens between burned and unburned sites. These findings infer that introduced plants have better competitive ability to occupy open canopy lands than native plants after fire. This study also illustrates the essential management need to prevent alien plant invasion, and to restore the native vegetation in lowland areas of the Hawaiian Islands by removing invasive species out-planting native plants after fire.
Highlights
Fire has a significant influence on global ecosystems (Pyne et al 1996, Robertson et al 2015)
The environment surrounding the burned area was already dominated by invasive species which dominate the seed bank and few native species existed in the vicinity to contribute to the seed bank
Alien plants invasions in native ecosystems have become a topic of great concern in recent years, in isolated island ecosystems such as the Hawaiian Islands
Summary
Fire has a significant influence on global ecosystems (Pyne et al 1996, Robertson et al 2015). Fire influences global vegetation patterns, shapes species characteristics, and reduces the plant biomass (Riano et al 2002, Bond et al 2005). Some plants have developed traits to cope with recurrent fires as fire intolerant species
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