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Wildlife, Animals, and Plants |
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FIRE ECOLOGY
FIRE ECOLOGY OR ADAPTATIONS:Pond pine has adaptations that not only allow it to exist, but to thrive in frequent fire regimes [34,76]. Requirements for fire adapted species such as pond pine are (1) bare mineral or exposed substrate for seed germination, (2) removal of toxic or allelopathic chemicals or disease-causing conditions, (3) reproductive structures requiring fire to disperse propagules, and (4) ability to vegetatively reproduce by root suckering, stump sprouts or epicormic stems [54]. Pond pine readily sprouts after fire, both from root collar and stem, and is one of the conifers most able to endure fire defoliation [10,32,70] because it also produces epicormic branches [60]. Other characteristics of pond pine that contribute to its fire resistance include: medium-thick basal bark; moderate-to-high and open crown; moderately open stands; and medium rooting habit [10,19]. Many southeastern habitats have fire regimes with frequent fire. Fires recurring at intervals of 20 to 40 years have long been recognized as an integral part of the ecology of pocosins dominated by pond pine [87]. The high incidence of fires in longleaf pine communities, which often contain pond pine, is related to their high flammability, a consequence of the volatile oils and resins in longleaf pine needles and wiregrass that is common in the understory. However, human fire suppression has reduced the high natural occurrence of fire in this habitat. Noss [55] stated that an immediate priority for longleaf sites is to reestablish the natural regime of summer fires. Wet pine forests, which include pond pine, depend on fire for their continued existence [25]. Pond pine can be found in wet savannahs in North Carolina that are dependent on fire to eliminate encroaching forests and to remove grass and sedge foliage that casts a heavy shade and can lead to a loss of smaller grasses and forbs which grow between pine clumps [80]. Pond pine communities are wet and nutrient-poor and are most susceptible to fires during droughts that allow the organic soils to dry. The large amount of fuel produced by the understory makes fires severe. However, all dominant species sprout readily and the shrub layer grows to its former height in just a few years. In the wetter, shrub-dominated slash pine and pond pine wetlands, presettlement fire frequency was probably 10 to 30 years. Frequency in these types depends on occurrence of drought conditions sufficient to increase the flammability of the understory to where it will burn readily. Such fires are intense and usually burn all aboveground vegetation, especially in pond pine woodlands [25]. Burning may be severe in both swamps and marshes during prolonged periods of low rainfall. In fresh-water marshes, in which pond pine occurs, fires cause little damage when surface water is present, but may destroy all the marsh dominants as well as the component animal life, such as beaver and muskrat, during drought years when the water table is well below the marsh surface [57]. The following table is a summary of the fire frequency of nonalluvial wetland communities of the southeastern United States in which pond pine is a canopy dominant [72].
To learn more about fire regimes and fire ecology of communities where pond pine occurs with other dominants, refer to the FEIS summary for the dominant species.
POSTFIRE REGENERATION STRATEGY [69]:Tree with adventitious bud/root crown/soboliferous species root sucker Crown residual colonizer (on-site, initial community)
Related categories for SPECIES: Pinus serotina | Pond Pine |
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