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You are here >1Up Info > Wildlife, Animals, and Plants > Plant Species > Shrub > SPECIES: Acer glabrum | Rocky Mountain Maple
 

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FIRE EFFECTS

SPECIES: Acer glabrum | Rocky Mountain Maple

IMMEDIATE FIRE EFFECT ON PLANT:


Though top-killed by fire, Rocky Mountain maple generally has low susceptibility to fire due to its ability to survive via resprouting from the root crown [229,301,305,325]. Rocky Mountain maple may remain on sites where most of the understory vegetation is removed by fire [29]. However, after moderate to severe fire, survival of Rocky Mountain maple may be substantially reduced [43,44,62,132]. Generally, it is only temporarily reduced by fire because often the root crowns are so large that some buds always survive [230].

DISCUSSION AND QUALIFICATION OF FIRE EFFECT:


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PLANT RESPONSE TO FIRE:


Rocky Mountain maple is generally favored by fire, recovering and increasing by resprouting vigorously from the root crown [44,71,132,178,182,185,193,224,229,264,288,303,325]. Resprouting of Rocky Mountain maple was observed 1 year after a severe fire in northern Montana [154].  After a severe crown fire in Idaho, Rocky Mountain maple resprouted within the first growing season [293]. The greatest resprouting response, however, is observed following light severity fires, with the least response occurring after a high severity burn [86]. Following a broadcast burn in Idaho, Rocky Mountain maple regenerated its entire preburn crown volume in the first postburn year [339]. Following fire, Rocky Mountain maple may grow 4 to 5 feet (1.2-1.5 m) in 3 years [86]. Rocky Mountain maple usually increases following fire, though survival and response may be reduced by severe fire [43,44,288,300].

Rocky Mountain maple also colonizes sites after fire via wind-dispersed seed [288].

DISCUSSION AND QUALIFICATION OF PLANT RESPONSE:


Stickney [299] found Rocky Mountain maple to be sensitive to fire, with low survival, slow redevelopment, and slow recovery of percent cover on sites in Montana burned by wildfire and on broadcast burned sites.

FIRE MANAGEMENT CONSIDERATIONS:


Rocky Mountain maple was a principal component of slowly recovering open sites in western Montana after stand-replacing fire and broadcast burning [299]. It is highly competitive with tree species after burning [86,281]. Fire results in a substantial increase in Rocky Mountain maple sprouts [295].

Prescribed fire may initially reduce the percent cover of Rocky Mountain maple substantially, though in several years it is expected to approach or surpass pretreatment coverage [285]. Percent cover of Rocky Mountain maple may increase dramatically over preburn levels within 5 years of burning, however, variable results may be expected [62].

Rocky Mountain maple may experience an increase in crown volume following disturbance, resprouting more after burning than after logging treatments [56]. Within 3 years, crown diameters of Rocky Mountain maple may be equal to or greater than diameter prior to burning [180]. However, other studies have found that 2 years after burning, Rocky Mountain maple only recovered 8% of its prefire crown volume, and proportion of total shrub volume had decreased from 80% prefire to 14% postfire [193]. Three out of 4 harvest and burning treatments in Montana were found to effectively reduce Rocky Mountain maple shrub volume, though it began increasing again after 2 years posttreatment. The 4th treatment (no burning) left more individuals intact and they subsequently demonstrated less sprouting and Rocky mountain maple experienced no dramatic decline or increase in shrub volume [274]. After prescribed burning in Idaho, Rocky Mountain maple averaged 120 sprouts per plant; fall burning produced fewer but longer sprouts than spring burning [182]. Mean heights for Rocky Mountain maple were found to be greater on logged/broadcast burned sites than on logged or logged/piled/burned sites in Idaho [233].

Prescribed burning is used to maintain seral shrubfields and provide winter range for elk by retarding conifer dominance, decreasing the height of browse plants, increasing browse quality and palatability, and stimulating forage plants to regenerate from seed [179,180,212,240,288]. However, Rocky Mountain maple quickly grows out of reach of browsing animals due to its rapid regrowth after fire [139,180,326]. Miller and others [212] found that low-temperature fires might encourage excessive growth with leaders exceeding 6.5 feet (2 m) in a single growing season. Severe burns that actually damage Rocky Mountain maple and stunt leader growth may be better utilized to reduce leader heights to a usable level of 1.6 feet (.5 m) or less. Prescribed fire effectively improves forage availability in the short-term [25,56,193,195,326,331], and has been found to reduce height of Rocky Mountain maple from 7 to 16 feet (2.1-4.9 m) before fire to less than 7 feet (2.1 m) after fire [198]. Asherin [25] found that by the end of the 3rd postfire growing season, Rocky Mountain maple height exceeded 8 feet (2.4 m). Four years after burning in Idaho shrubfields, 80% of twig production remained within reach of elk [181,182]. Repeated burns at 10 to 15 year intervals are expected to maintain Rocky Mountain maple availability [181,182,184,288]; however, it is often difficult to re-establish trees on these sites in the future [288]. Broadcast burning of clearcuts in the northern Rockies may produce these seral shrubfields [162,281,338]; in 1 study, shrub-dominant vegetation occurred by the 8th postfire year [338]. Rocky Mountain maple was present within 4 years on another lightly burned clearcut [126].

After burning, browse production may be higher than prefire production initially [56,183], but annual production was observed to taper off by the 10th year, falling below prefire browse production [183]. Both spring and fall burning appear to increase Rocky Mountain maple palatability, based on heavy use in burned areas and browsing of larger twigs [180]. Crude protein levels may be higher in Rocky Mountain maple for up to 4 years following fire [240].

Injury due to fire may increase Rocky Mountain maple susceptibility to infection by parasitic Cytospora species [78].

Related categories for SPECIES: Acer glabrum | Rocky Mountain Maple

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Information Courtesy: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory. Fire Effects Information System

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