Resource Catalog
Document
We used a long-term experiment with four different fire frequencies, annual burns (B1), biennial burns (B2), burn every 4 yr (B4), and no burn (BC) over a 27-yr period. We quantified temporal changes in vegetation dynamics, aboveground and belowground carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) pools, and we examined the cumulative effects of fires on N cycling in a nutrient-poor, old field grassland at Cedar Creek, MN. Compared with fires in fertile grasslands with high productivity, fire in this nutrient-poor and low-productivity old field grassland caused only minor shifts in plant functional groups and did not change net primary productivity (NPP) or N cycling rates. We also found that fire frequency did not affect ecosystem C pools or N pools, and the soil C was accumulating at 28 times of the rate of N accumulation for the period 2000 to 2010. This N accumulation in the soil, combined with the low-productivity and the dominant C4 grasses, which have relative low litter N concentration and thereby low fire-induced N losses, makes this successional grassland resistant to fire-induced N cycling and C and N pool changes for at least decades after agricultural abandonment.
Cataloging Information
- carbon
- carbon cycling
- fire frequency
- fire management
- fire resistant plants
- grassland
- Minnesota
- net primary productivity
- nitrogen
- nitrogen cycling
- NPP - net primary production
- nutrient cycling
- prairie
- range management
- soil organic matter
- SOM - soil organic matter
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.