Effects of spring prescribed burning and wildfires on watershed nitrogen dynamics of central Idaho headwater areas

The temporal distribution of water-soluble nutrients from high mountain soils following a wildfire within legume scrubland of Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

“…In wetter environments, however, pre-and post-fire soil nitrate levels are usually much lower. Stephan et al (2012) found increases in soil nitrates either after prescribed burnings and wildfires in central Idaho (under rainfall rates of 660-1230 mm yr − 1 ), where the base concentration of this anion was below the detection limit (0.02 mgNO 3 − -N kg − 1 ), and increases up to 0.8 and 9.4 mgNO 3 − -N kg −1 one year after prescribed burning and wildfire, respectively. Prieto Fernández et al (2004) failed to detect nitrates in burned soils from central Galicia one year following a wildfire.…”

Post-fire erosion control mulches alter belowground processes and nitrate reductase activity of a perennial forb, heartleaf arnica (Arnica cordifolia)

“…Wildfire can result in large losses of N from forest ecosystems (Carreira et al 1994;Turner et al 2007;Stephan et al 2012), increasing N limitation of primary productivity. In the long term, mulching may sequester N through erosion reduction or immobilization, or increase N inputs via biological nitrogen fixation, and lead to higher post-fire N pools, ultimately increasing ecosystem N compared to similarly burned but unmulched areas.…”

“…Because temperate conifer forests are usually nitrogen (N)-limited (Hunt et al 1988), regenerating vegetation may benefit from the ephemeral pulse of soil soluble N that often results from wildfire (Hart et al 2005;Rodríguez et al 2009;Stephan et al 2012). Surface mulches may increase substrate for N mineralization by preventing erosional losses of organic matter or by serving as a substrate itself.…”

Indicators of burn severity at extended temporal scales: a decade of ecosystem response in mixed-conifer forests of western Montana

“…The surge of new vegetation growth in the first year may seem incongruent with the initial burn severity classification due to a boost in plant-available nitrogen (Stephan et al 2012) and nutrients remaining in the ash layer (Neary et al 1999); thus, it is important to monitor vegetation and soil recovery characteristics over time (Sankey et al 2013;Berryman et al 2014). The resilience of the ecosystem to the fire disturbance depends on specific conditions of the pre-fire environment such as vegetation type and density, and forest health such as drought or insect kill, taken into consideration with the scale and intensity of effects of the fire on the vegetation and soil (Idris et al 2005;Schoennagel et al 2008;Bowman et al 2009;Perry et al 2011).…”