Plant responses to fire in a Mexican arid shrubland
- PDF / 1,554,291 Bytes
- 9 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 64 Downloads / 178 Views
ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Fire Ecology
Open Access
Plant responses to fire in a Mexican arid shrubland Dante Arturo Rodríguez-Trejo1* , Juli G. Pausas2 , and Andrés Gelacio Miranda-Moreno1
Abstract Background: Fire responses of species in arid environments have only been scarcely studied. We studied four species (Dasyliron lucidum Zucc., Juniperus deppeana Steud., Echinocactus platyacanthus Link & Otto, and Agave potatorum Zucc.) in the Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Biosphere Reserve, Mexico. The objectives were to describe and quantify survival and resprouting, as well as the factors determining them, for the selected species. Six months after a 330 ha wildfire in 2014, 32 plots were established on three transects. Forest dasometric and fire severity variables were recorded. Logistic regression was utilized to obtain mortality and resprouting probability models, as well as linear regression to detect relationships among post- and pre-fire variables. Results: All species had high survival rates (74.5 to 97.7%). All surviving D. lucidum individuals resprouted apically. For J. deppeana, the probability of mortality was directly related to fire scar height on the trunk and inversely related to its diameter, whereas the probability of crown recovery was inversely related to the proportion of the tree height scorch. For E. platyacanthus, necrosed height was directly related to plant height. There was a positive relationship between basal area and the emission of new leaves for the A. potatorum. Conclusions: In the different species, several traits that allowed high fire survival rates were observed (e.g., thick cortex or bark, fleshy non-flammable leaves, flammable leaves that reduce fire intensity, high volume to surface ratio). Many of these were primarily linked to drought resistance. All species gain fire resistance or tolerance as they increase in size. We concluded that the studied arid ecosystem of Mexico can withstand an altered or a base fire regime. Keywords: arid zones, fire ecology, fire traits, Mexico
Resumen Antecedentes: Las respuestas al fuego de especies en ambientes semiáridos han sido poco investigadas. Nosotros estudiamos cuatro especies (Dasyliron lucidum Zucc., Juniperus deppeana Steud., Echinocactus platyacanthus Link & Otto, y Agave potatorum Zucc.) en la Reserva de la Biosfera Tehuacán-Cuicatlán, México. Los objetivos fueron describir y cuantificar la supervivencia y el rebrote, así como los factores que las determinan, para las especies seleccionadas. Seis meses después de un incendio de 330 ha en 2014, se establecieron 32 sitios sobre tres transectos. Se registraron variables dasométricas y de severidad del fuego. Se usó regresión logística para obtener modelos probabilísticos de mortalidad y rebrote, así como regresión lineal para detectar relaciones entre las variables previas y posteriores al fuego. (Continued on next page)
* Correspondence: [email protected] 1 División de Ciencias Forestales, Universidad Autónoma Chapingo, km. 38.5 carretera México-Texcoco, C.P. 56230, Chapingo, Estado de México, Me
Data Loading...
