• FIRE ECOLOGY AND ADAPTATIONS
• POSTFIRE REGENERATION STRATEGY

FIRE ECOLOGY AND ADAPTATIONS:

Little information is available in the literature that addresses onespike oatgrass adaptations to fire.

Historically, Sandberg bluegrass-onespike oatgrass plant associations in the Columbia River Basin had such low biomass that they typically did not carry fire, and have probably rarely burned [1].

Johnson and Simon [22] state that onespike oatgrass is 'probably' resistant to fire based on its high moisture content throughout summer, and may in fact respond favorably to burning. However, burning of frost-heaved onespike oatgrass may cause damage due to exposure of the root crown to heat. They also state that fire does not spread well in Sandberg bluegrass-onespike oatgrass plant associations of the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest due to insufficient fuel availability and high rock cover.

In the Pacific Northwest, other oatgrass species have been described as moderately resistant to fire [41].

Fire regimes for plant communities and ecosystems in which onespike oatgrass occurs are summarized below. For further information regarding fire regimes and fire ecology of areas where onespike oatgrass is found, see the 'Fire Ecology and Adaptations' section of the FEIS species summary for the dominant plant species.

Community or Ecosystem	Dominant species	Fire return interval range (mean)
Pacific ponderosa pine	Pinus ponderosa var. ponderosa	1-47 years
Rocky Mountain ponderosa pine	Pinus ponderosa var. scopulorum	2-10 years
Colorado pinyon-juniper spp.	P. edulis	10-49 years
basin big sagebrush	Artemisia tridentata var. tridentata	12-43 years
mountain big sagebrush	A. t. var. vaseyana	5-15 years
Wyoming big sagebrush	A. t. var. wyomensis	10-70 years (40)
mountain grasslands	Pseudoroegneria spicata	3-40 years (10)

POSTFIRE REGENERATION STRATEGY:

Caudex, growing points in soil

Related categories for SPECIES: Danthonia unispicata | Onespike Oatgrass