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Oak forests throughout the southern Appalachians have been historically maintained in a regime of frequent tire. Frequent fire over an indefinite time period favors oak establishment by reducing understory and midstory competition from tire-intolerant species and by creating preferred conditions for acorn caching by squirrels and bluejays. Fire also reduces populations of insects that prey on acorns and young oak seedlings. Once established in the understory, oaks have a tenacious ability to resprout when tops have been killed repeatedly by tire. The ability to continually resprout when numbers of other sprouting hardwoods have been reduced by fire allows oak to accumulate in the advance regeneration pool and dominate the next stand when suitable conditions prevail. Intense fires in logging debris also favor establishment and development of high quality oak-dominated stands. Tentative guidelines for the silvicultural use of fire to regenerate oak are discussed.
Cataloging Information
- Appalachian Mountains
- bark
- biomass
- broadcast burning
- burning intervals
- clearcutting
- competition
- cover type conversion
- distribution
- disturbance
- fire dependent species
- fire exclusion
- fire injuries (plants)
- fire intensity
- fire regimes
- fire resistant plants
- forest management
- hardwoods
- insect ecology
- insects
- logging
- low intensity burns
- mast
- mesic soils
- mortality
- oak regeneration
- overstory
- pine
- plant growth
- plant species diversity
- population density
- predation
- Quercus
- regeneration
- season of fire
- seed germination
- seedlings
- seeds
- site treatments
- slash
- southern Appalachian Mountains
- sprouting
- statistical analysis
- understory burning
- understory vegetation
- wildfires
- wildlife food plants
- wildlife habitat management
This bibliographic record was either created or modified by Tall Timbers and is provided without charge to promote research and education in Fire Ecology. The E.V. Komarek Fire Ecology Database is the intellectual property of Tall Timbers.