• IMMEDIATE FIRE EFFECT ON PLANT
• DISCUSSION AND QUALIFICATION OF FIRE EFFECT
• PLANT RESPONSE TO FIRE
• DISCUSSION AND QUALIFICATION OF PLANT RESPONSE
• FIRE MANAGEMENT CONSIDERATIONS

IMMEDIATE FIRE EFFECT ON PLANT:

Mat muhly is top-killed by fire. It is a warm-season species, so the period of green-up and highest susceptibility to fire injury maybe late spring and early summer [28].

DISCUSSION AND QUALIFICATION OF FIRE EFFECT:

No entry

PLANT RESPONSE TO FIRE:

It usually takes 5 to 10 years for mat muhly to recover to prefire frequency or coverage after fire [2,42]. On a grassland in quaking aspen parkland in east-central Alberta, annual early spring burning increased the percentage of seedheads present and seedhead density for mat muhly [1,2], though the increases were not statistically significant. Mat muhly was classed as an "increaser." Percent cover was 0.9 on unburned plots and 1.3 on burned plots. The difference was significant at p<0.01 [2]. A prescribed spring burn on a undisturbed northwestern Minnesota prairie stimulated flowering in mat muhly [30]. After a spring fire on a blue juniper-blue grama rangeland in New Mexico, the abundance of mat muhly did not change, perhaps because there was not much of it present on the site [15].

On a montane Sierra Nevada meadow, changes in mat muhly cover did not differ significantly between burned and unburned plots (p=0.44). The mean change in mat muhly percent cover from 1987 to 1988 (postfire) was as follows (s.e. in parentheses) [7]:

    
      Burned plots(n=8)    Unburned plots(n=11)    
	     
      0.28 (0.56)          1.00 (0.71)               

      Burned plots(n=8)    Unburned plots(n=11)
	  
      3.80 (2.0)           0.25 (0.25)                       

DISCUSSION AND QUALIFICATION OF PLANT RESPONSE:

No entry

FIRE MANAGEMENT CONSIDERATIONS:

Mat muhly is "resistant" to fire-caused mortality [42]. It may be more vulnerable in late spring and early summer than at other times of the year [28].

Related categories for SPECIES: Muhlenbergia richardsonis | Mat Muhly