Do wildfires promote woody species invasion in a fire-adapted ecosystem? Post-fire resprouting of native and non-native woody plants in central Argentina.

HERRERO, M L; TORRES, R C; RENISON, D

ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

SPRINGER

Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2016 vol. 57 p. 308 - 317

0364-152X

Fires have been used to control the expansion of non-nativespecies with mixed results. We tested whether fires could be especially usefulin a fire adapted ecosystems where the native plants are tolerant to fires andnon-native plants have been introduced from many regions of the world. Wecompared the post-fire resprouting response of native and non-native species inburnt areas of Chaco Serrano forest in the mountains of central Argentina whichis assumed to be pre-adapted to fires. Specifically, we evaluated in native andnon-native groups and among species the (1) post-fire survival, (2) type ofresprouts, (3) growth of resprouts. (4) We also determined the effect ofpre-fire size of the plants and the rockiness of the microsite on survival andgrowth of resprouts. Our main results show that one year after the fire,non-native species presented similar mean values but more variability in theirresponses to fire in comparison with native species, in terms of survival andtype of resprouts, while the growth of resprouts had similar mean values andvariability in both groups. Our study suggests that the use of fires would notbe a generalized successful strategy to combat non-native tree species even in ourfire adapted ecosystem. Control methods which target non-native plants withoutdamaging native species should be pursued.