Fire-adapted Plant Research Articles

Re-introducing fire at the urban/wild-land interface: planning for success

The application of fire in the southern United States continues to increase in complexity due to urban sprawl, air quality issues and regulatory constraints. Many sites suffer from unnaturally high fuel accumulations dueto decades of fire exclusion. The loss of habitat to urbanization and successional changes resulting from the absence of fire increases the importance of restoring and maintaining those remaining acres. The wild-land/urban interface case study we discuss herein includes several fire-adapted plant communities ranging in required fire regime from frequent low-intensity fires to infrequent high-intensity stand replacement fires. This area has experienced extended fire-free periods and includes tightly packed homes in subdivisions developed with no consideration of the potential fOr wild-land fire. Additional smoke-sensitive areas include schools and heavily travelled highways. Such worst-case scenarios exponentially increase the challenges/risks facing fire managers. This case study thus illustrates many of the complex societal issues and technical challenges facing fire managers when planning and conducting restoration burns in the wild-land/urban interface. In fact, it reinforces the notion that, when burning in the wild-land/urban interface, executing the burn often requires less effort than the planning, co-operation and co-ordination necessary prior to ignition.

Where there's smoke... There's Germination?

Seeds of many fire-adapted plants are very difficult to germinate, and some species have been impossible to propagate by seed. Recent research has shown that fumigating seeds with smoke or soaking them in smoke solutions improves germination of many species. The exact physiological mechanism for this response is unknown but using smoke as a pre-sowing seed treatment holds considerable promise for propagating plants for restoration of fire-adapted communities. In particular, smoke treatments can be used to germinate seeds of recalcitrant species. This paper reviews the current literature on smoke treatment of seeds with the purpose of encouraging these treatments on other species.

Nitrogen Oxide Pollution May Spark Seeds' Growth

Two ecologists have learned that the seeds of a common California wildflower can be prompted to germinate by exposure to nitrogen oxides, gases produced by both natural wildfires and motor vehicles and power plants. The finding, reported on page 1248, helps explain why the flower springs up so quickly after brush fires. It also raises a provocative question: Could nitrogen oxides in air pollution be fooling the seeds of this and other fire-adapted plants into germinating when conditions are deadly to the seedlings?

Die Ontwikkeling van Bergveldbestuur in Suid-Africa

SUMMARY The development of vegetation management in the humid mountain catchments of South Africa is described. The vegetation comprises grass and fynbos veldtypes with scatterd forest remnants and is of little agricultural value. Veld management by early white pasturalists in South Africa was based on veld-burning as used by aboriginal tribes. Some of the travellers in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries observed that fire influenced the development of vegetation types, but noted that grazing combined with burning was causing the veld to deteriorate. Early legislation for control of veld-fires was aimed chiefly at protecting crops and buildings. In the latter half of the nineteenth century veld-fires were consistently described as destructive. This opinion, based on observations of the combined effects of fire and unwise grazing, became entrenched in the first half of the twentieth century. It influenced official policy and legislation and determined the conservation measures applied in mountain veld. Forest Acts have placed large areas of mountain catchments in the hands of the Department of Forestry. Control of privately owned catchments was, partly, the responsibility of the Forestry Department in terms of the Forest and Veld Conservation Act of 1941, but it passed to the Department of Agriculture after promulgation of the Soil Conservation Act in 1946, until it reverted to Forestry with the passage of the Mountain Catchment Act of 1970. The reports of various committees and commissions in the second quarter of the twentieth century indicate considerable interest in the conservation of catchments and mountain veld. The catchment land owned by the Department of Forestry was augmented and consolidated. General investigations of management problems were frequent, and ideas on management became established. These ideas were based largely on observations of deterioration in catchment areas and its causes. Management of mountain veld as prescribed in official policies was ecologically negative and aimed chiefly at protection against fire and grazing. Veld-fire was seldom dissociated from pasturage. Limited planning only was applied. Experience gained in applying extensive, total, fire protection, favoured by the Fire Protection Committees, indicated a need to change the policy. This was supported by observations of the effects of fire in fynbos and the results of pasture research in grassland. Controlled burning was approved by the Department of Forestry in 1948 in the Southern Cape, though mainly as a measure for protection of forests and plantations. Fire has since been used tentatively as a measure for rehabilitation of rare fire-adapted plant species. A policy of controlled burning could not be fully implemented because of uncertainty about burning rotation and season, but such a policy was formally adopted by the Department in 1968 and guidelines on where, when and how frequently to burn were laid down. The Department of Forestry is now poised to initiate management of the considerable areas of mountain veld on State forest and private lands, and investigations for drafting plans are in progress. Management cannot, however, await the results of the long-term veld management research, but must proceed by using available knowledge. Management plans must be conservative and aimed largely at checking deterioration in catchments. Purposeful management for specific aims must await thorough investigation of mountain veld ecosystems. The immense tasks of ecosystem research and multiple purpose management for nature conservation, open-air-recreation, timber production and water conservation in the mountain veld, are seriously hampered by man-power shortages and limited facilities. Adequately trained staff is difficult to recruit and the optimum use must be made of limited staff by modernising and automating observation, processing and analysis of data. The voluminous, highly-accurate and reliable data needed could be handled only by making full use of electronic apparatus and in no other way!