Research Articles
Chihuahuan Desert Grassland Responds Similarly to Fall, Spring, and Summer Fires During Prolonged Drought

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Abstract

Land managers frequently use prescribed burning to help maintain grassland communities. Semiarid grassland dynamics following fire are linked to precipitation, with increasing soil moisture accelerating the rate of recovery. Prescribed fires are typically scheduled to follow natural fire regimes, but burning outside the natural fire season could be equally effective and more convenient for managers, depending on their management objectives. We conducted a field experiment in desert grassland to determine if fire seasonality influenced plant community recovery. Experimental burn treatments occurred in fall, spring, and summer in replicate 0.24-ha plots to determine if fire seasonality affected the rate of recovery of an ungrazed Chihuahuan Desert grassland in central New Mexico. Plant communities were surveyed seasonally for 5 yr after the burns. Grassland community structure responded to fire but not fire seasonality. Grass cover in all burned treatments remained lower than unburned controls for 3 yr after the burns. Community change through time was largely influenced by low rainfall, as grass cover in burned and unburned communities converged during a year with severe drought. In conclusion, fire seasonality did not influence rate of community recovery, but extended drought was possibly more influential than fire on grassland dynamics.

Section snippets

INTRODUCTION

Grasses are a critical component of rangeland function. Both natural phenomena and poor management practices can compromise grassland integrity, and maintaining semiarid grassland vegetation remains a challenge for rangeland managers. Fire frequently shapes and maintains grass-dominated communities (Pausas and Ribeiro 2013) and is often used as a management tool due to its affordability, effectiveness, and speed of treatment (Teague et al. 2001, 2008). Prescribed fires are effective in mesic

Study Site

This research was conducted on the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge (SNWR) located in central New Mexico (lat 34.33°N, long 106.83°W). Mean (± 1 SE) annual precipitation is 240 (± 14) mm, with roughly 60% falling during the summer monsoon season from July to September. Regional precipitation patterns in this area result in two growing seasons: a spring season following winter melt and a late-summer season aligned with monsoon precipitation. Perennial grasses form the majority of aboveground

RESULTS

Above-average monsoon precipitation in 2006 stimulated grass production (Ladwig et al. 2012), increasing fuel loads prior to the experimental burns. Annual precipitation was also above-average in 2007, the year of the fall experimental burns. During all recovery years, annual precipitation was below average (Fig. 1). Monsoon season precipitation was also below average from 2009 to 2012, with only half the average amount of monsoon rainfall occurring in 2010 and 2011.

In the year after fire, fall

DISCUSSION

Fire alters plant communities, lowering grass cover and increasing forb cover regardless of when the burn occurred. In water-stressed systems, grass cover frequently decreases during the first year postfire (Scheintaub et al. 2009), increasing resource availability for forbs. Also, forb abundance increased in a B. eriopoda removal experiment, suggesting a general competitive interaction between these dominant grasses and forbs (Peters and Yao 2012). Indeed, forb cover peaked initially following

IMPLICATIONS

This experiment was conducted to determine if fires during the nontraditional burn season (spring and fall) have a different influence on community recovery than traditional summer fires. In general, fire seasonality did not influence plant communities. Burned plots, regardless of seasonal timing, experienced decreased grass cover and increased compositional variation for several years following the fire. Community response to fire was also presumably influenced by several years of drought that

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank the US Fish and Wildlife burn crew, Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge for allowing us to conduct this research on their land, A. Swann for data collection, S. Koerner and J. Mulhouse for helpful comments on earlier versions, and Sevilleta LTER staff for logistical and data support.

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    Research was funded in part by an NSF grant to the University of New Mexico for Long-Term Ecological Research and by a grant from the USDA Forest Service National Fire Plan.

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