Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Hanson, Chad T.
• Chi, Tonja Y.
• Baker, Bryant C.
• Khosla, Maya
• Dorsey, Michael K.

Titel

Postfire reproduction of a serotinous conifer, the giant sequoia, in the Nelder Grove, California

Ist Teil von

• Ecology and evolution, 2024-04, Vol.14 (4), p.e11213-n/a

Ort / Verlag

England: John Wiley & Sons, Inc

Erscheinungsjahr

2024

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Wiley Online Library Journals

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The giant sequoia, a serotinous conifer naturally occurring in mixed‐conifer forests of the southern and central Sierra Nevada, California, USA, is the world's largest tree species. Giant sequoia reproduction has been severely lacking over the past century, due to fire exclusion, creating a significant conservation threat. Previous research on postfire sequoia reproduction in high‐severity fire areas, relative to low‐ and moderate‐severity areas, is limited. At 6 years postfire, we investigated giant sequoia reproduction in a high‐severity fire area, and nearby low‐/mixed‐severity fire areas, in the Nelder Grove, which burned in 2017 in the Railroad fire. Postfire giant sequoia reproduction was positively correlated with fire severity in terms of density, height (growth), and proportion (relative to other conifer species), and sequoia seedling/sapling density was positively correlated with percent shrub cover. There was no correlation between distance to live sequoia seed source and density of sequoia reproduction. More research is needed in other mixed‐severity fire areas, with larger high‐severity fire patches, to determine whether a similar postfire response occurs elsewhere. We conducted a rare field investigation of natural postfire giant sequoia reproduction in a large high‐severity fire patch, hundreds of meters from live sequoias, and adjacent lower‐severity areas. Sequoia reproduction density, height growth, and proportion (dominance relative to other conifers) were positively correlated with fire severity, and sequoia seedling/sapling density was also positively correlated with percent shrub cover. There was no correlation with proximity to live sequoias.