The Effects of Fire Severity and Site Moisture on Species Composition and Functional Properties of Black Spruce Forests in Interior Alaska

Download or read book The Effects of Fire Severity and Site Moisture on Species Composition and Functional Properties of Black Spruce Forests in Interior Alaska written by Emily Louise Bernhardt and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In interior Alaska black spruce forest succession and vegetation properties are tightly linked to fire disturbance, partly due to the functional properties of species. Climatically induced changes in the fire regime could negatively affect some functional groups and potentially lower the functional diversity of stands through changes in fire severity and site moisture. In addition, there is little information regarding the relationship between pre- and post-fire community composition in black spruce communities of interior Alaska. To contribute to our knowledge regarding post-fire plant community dynamics, I investigated how post-fire community properties in relation to fire severity and site moisture: 1) species composition, in which pre- and post- fire community composition was compared to determine changes in species richness and functional diversity and 2) the functional traits of species. Pre- fire species composition in black spruce forests was dominated by late successional understory species and was most similar in species composition to low severity burned sites (regardless of stand age). Site moisture did not appear to affect the change in species composition post-fire in the first two years following fire. Functional groups that showed significant changes post-fire were bryophytes, lichen and evergreen shrubs. When each species was deconstructed into a set of functional traits, I observed that these traits were tightly linked to fire severity. These results have large implications under projected climate scenarios that predict increasing fire extent and severity in the boreal forest because high severity fire changes the species composition and associated functional traits of black spruce post-fire communities in interior Alaska"--Leaf iii.