Integrating demography and fire management: an example from Florida scrub
Eric S. MengesArchbold Biological Station, PO Box 2057, Lake Placid, FL 33862, USA. Email: emenges@archbold-station.org
Australian Journal of Botany 55(3) 261-272 https://doi.org/10.1071/BT06020
Submitted: 4 February 2006 Accepted: 13 June 2006 Published: 18 May 2007
Abstract
In this work, I have used life-history and demographic data to define fire return intervals for several types of Florida scrub, a xeric shrubland where fire is the dominant ecological disturbance but where fire suppression is a major issue. The datasets combine chronosequence and longitudinal approaches at community and population levels. Resprouting shrubs, which dominate most types of Florida scrub, recover rapidly after fires (although their limits under frequent fires are not well known) and also increasingly dominate long-unburned areas. These dominant shrubs can prosper over a range of fire return intervals. Obligate-seeding scrub plants, which often have persistent seed banks, can be eliminated by frequent fire but often decline with infrequent fire. Population viability analyses of habitat specialists offer more precision in suggesting ranges of appropriate fire return intervals. For two types of Florida scrub (rosemary scrub and oak–hickory scrub), plant-population viability analyses narrow the interval and suggest more frequent fires than do previous recommendations, at intervals of 15–30 and 5–12 years, respectively. Variation in fire regimes in time and space (pyrodiversity) is recommended as a bet-hedging fire-management strategy and to allow co-existence of species with disparate life histories.
Acknowledgements
I thank Carl Weekley, Marcia Rickey, Pedro Quintana-Ascencio, numerous collaborators, research assistants, graduate students and interns in my laboratory who have worked with me during the past 18 years, as well as Hilary Swain, Kevin Main and other staff at Archbold Biological Station who have facilitated and supported this research. This paper was improved by comments from Warren Abrahamson, Pedro Quintana-Ascencio, Beth Richards, and Carl Weekley and by discussions on fire management with David Keith. Funding for this research has come from the National Science Foundation (DEB98-15370), The Nature Conservancy, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Florida Division of Plant Industry, Florida Division of Forestry (Plant Conservation Program), US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Garden Club of America.
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