Article
 

The Effects of Disturbance History on Ground-Layer Plant Community Composition in British Columbia

Público Deposited

Conteúdo disponível para baixar

Baixar PDF
https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/articles/02870x50q

Descriptions

Attribute NameValues
Creator
Abstract
  • Plant communities are sensitive to perturbations and may display alternative recovery pathways depending on disturbance history. In sub-boreal lodgepole pine forests of central interior British Columbia, Canada, fire and logging are two widespread landscape disturbances that overlap in many regions. We asked whether cumulative, short-interval disturbance from logging and fire resulted in different ground-layer plant communities than resulted from fire alone. Using field-collected data, we compared the taxonomic composition and functional traits of 3-year old plant communities that were either harvested 6-to-13 years prior, or not harvested prior to being burned in a large stand-replacing fire. The taxonomic composition diverged between the two treatments, driven primarily by differences in a few key indicator species such as Petasites frigidus and Vaccinium membranaceum. Analysis of individual species’ morphological traits indicated that only a few species vary in size in relation to disturbance history. Our data suggest that a history of forest harvest leaves a subtle footprint on post-fire ground-layer plant communities at early stages of succession.
  • Keywords: multiple disturbance effects, wildfire, understory species composition, forest harvest, clearcut logging, plant functional traits, disturbance history
Resource Type
DOI
Date Available
Date Issued
Citation
  • Ton, M., & Krawchuk, M. A. (2016). The Effects of Disturbance History on Ground-Layer Plant Community Composition in British Columbia. Forests, 7(5), 109. doi:10.3390/f7050109
Journal Title
Journal Volume
  • 7
Journal Issue/Number
  • 5
Declaração de direitos
Funding Statement (additional comments about funding)
  • This project received funding from Simon Fraser University, the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions graduate fellowship to Michael Ton, and The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (DG 418376 to MAK).
Publisher
Peer Reviewed
Language
Replaces

Relações

Parents:

This work has no parents.

Itens

Miniatura Título Data de carga Acesso Ações
file details TonEffectsofDisturbanceHistory.pdf 2017-07-25 Público Baixar