Document

Title

Forest floor fuel dynamics in mixed-oak forests of south-eastern Ohio
Document Type: Journal Article
Author(s): John B. Graham; Brian C. McCarthy
Publication Year: 2006

Cataloging Information

Keyword(s):
  • central Appalachian Mountains
  • CWD - coarse woody debris
  • deciduous forests
  • decomposition
  • disturbance
  • duff
  • FFS - Fire and Fire Surrogate Study
  • fire management
  • fire regimes
  • forest management
  • fuel accumulation
  • fuel loading
  • fuel management
  • fuel treatments
  • hardwood forest
  • heavy fuels
  • litter
  • oak
  • Ohio
  • Quercus
  • silviculture
  • surface fuels
  • thinning
  • woody fuels
Topic(s):
Region(s):
Partner Site(s):
JFSP Project Number(s):
99-S-01
Record Maintained By:
FRAMES Staff; https://www.frames.gov/contact
TTRS Staff; https://talltimbers.org/contact-us
Record Last Modified: June 1, 2018
FRAMES Record Number: 226
Tall Timbers Record Number: 20934
TTRS Location Status: In-file
TTRS Call Number: Journals-I
TTRS Abstract Status: Okay, Fair use, Reproduced by permission

This bibliographic record was either created or modified by the Tall Timbers Research Station and Land Conservancy 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 the Tall Timbers Research Station and Land Conservancy.

Description

Silvicultural treatments alter fuel dynamics in forested systems, which may alter fire regime. Effects of thinning and prescribed fire on forest-floor fuelswere studied in mixed-oak forests of south-eastern Ohio to examine fuel dynamics over time. Fuel characteristics were measured before, immediately after, and 3 years following fire and thinning treatments along 20-m transects (n=432) following Brown's planar intersect method. Measurements were taken to determine litter, duff, 1-h, 10-h, 100-h, and 1000-h sound (1000S) or rotten (1000R) fuel mass. Coarse woody debris (CWD) was sampled on 432 additional 80-m^2 belt-transects. Repeated-measures analysis of variance with post-hoc Bonferonni comparisons was used to analyse the change in the fuels over time. The specific effects of silvicultural treatments varied over time with changes in larger, sound fuels (1000S and CWD) persisting longer than changes to finer (litter, duff, 1-h, 10-h, and 100-h) or less-sound (1000R) fuels, which appear to be moretransient. Unlike in western North America where fuels accumulate over time, decomposition and productivity appear comparable in eastern mixed-oak forests. Aside from their impact on decomposition or productivity rates, silvicultural treatments appear to have little impact on fine-fuel loading in these systems.

Online Link(s):
Link to this document (304 KB; full text; pdf)
Citation:
Graham, John B.; McCarthy, Brian C. 2006. Forest floor fuel dynamics in mixed-oak forests of south-eastern Ohio. International Journal of Wildland Fire 15(4):479-488.