What are the Divers of Oak Regeneration after Fire Events?
Franklin J, Hughes K, Schweitzer J. 2024. What are the Divers of Oak Regeneration after Fire Events?. National Park Service. University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee
CONCLUSIONS: Overall, we found that wildfire in Great Smoky Mountain National Park altered both the diversity and composition of soil bacterial, archeal and fungal communities in soil after fire. We found that soil burn severity also increased Quercus belowground biomass and foliar chlorophyll content, when controlling for site variation. In contrast to our hypotheses, Quercus seedlings grew 70% faster when grown with a Pinus seedling. They also allocated more biomass belowground, perhaps to reduce competition for limiting nutrients with a Pinus seedling. The soil microbiome did not interact with plant neighbor to impact plant growth. These data overall suggest that while fire disturbance can have substantial changes on the bacterial and fungal communities to alter plant traits which can enhance photosynthetic capacity and allocation to roots, plant-plant interactions, such as competition for limiting resources may have a larger impact on growth rates and biomass allocation. These data with seedlings suggest that Quercus seedlings may not be at a competitive disadvantage with Pinus seedlings at early stages of growth, although long-term effects are unknown.
- Type
- Unpublished Report
- Authors
- Franklin, Jennifer; Hughes, Karen; Schweitzer, Jennifer
- Date of Issue
- 2024-01
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- GRSM
- Keywords
- Chimney Tops II Fire, ectomycorrhizal fungi, GRSM-02049, Quercus, seedling regeneration, soil microorganisms, vascular plants, wildfire