Post fire succession in Tegal Panjang Grassland, Mount Papandayan, West Java, Indonesia

Abstract

Abstract. Sulistyawati E, Fitriana S. 2017. Post fire succession in Tegal Panjang Grassland, Mount Papandayan, West Java, Indonesia. Biodiversitas 18: 1226-1233. Tegal Panjang is a grassland area surrounded by rainforest consisting of vegetation patches formed by fires occurring at different times. This condition presents a unique environmental setting allowing the study of vegetation succession after fire disturbance. The objectives of this research were (i) to determine the pattern of vegetative development and changes in environment conditions in post-fire grassland on five sites having different ages (6 months, 1 year, 2 years, 5 years and more than 10 year) and (ii) to examine whether post-fire succession in grassland allows the establishment of tree seedling. Measurements were conducted for vegetation composition, aboveground biomass and edaphic factors (soil pH, water content, bulk density and organic content) in each site. The pattern of vegetation development in the course of succession in Tegal Panjang grassland is marked by increasing biomass and height of the vegetation as the stand ages but with a slow rate of species diversification. No tree saplings were found in all sites despite its close distance to the forest. Recruitment limitation associated with repeated fire disturbance may explain the absence of tree saplings in the grassland.

Species composition and richness of viable seed bank after fire events in Mount Ciremai National Park and Kuningan Botanic Gardens, West Java, Indonesia

“…The Google Earth ( 2019) map was the base map used to determine the collection plot of soil samples as a grid with a distance between points 200 x 200 m. To prevent the side effect of seed rain from the nearby forest, the observed plots were distributed using stratified random sampling method by locating plots on five sites based on perpendicular distance from the forest edge of 25 m (Benoit et al 1989;Daïnou et al 2011;Galloway et al 2017;Sulistyawati and Fitriana 2017). The placement of soil sampling also took into account the elevation gradients to represent all elevations (Luo et al 2017).…”

Plant diversity and composition at three Imperata grasslands in Bogor, Katingan, and Kupang, Indonesia

“…In the succession stage of Imperata grasslands in East Kalimantan, the dominant species other than I. cylindrica are Nephrolepis biserrata, Bridelia glauca, Fordia splendidissima, and Scleria terrestris (Yassir and Arbainsyah 2014). Whereas on a succession vegetation 6 months after a fire in West Java, the dominant species other than I. cylindrica are Gonostegia hirta, Plectranthus teysmannii, Pteridium aquilinum, Eragrostis nigra, and Pteridium aquilinum (Sulistyawati and Fitriana 2017). The success of a species to dominate an area is influenced by its adaptability to physical environmental factors, such as air temperature, light and humidity, biotic factors such as interactions among species, competition, and parasitism, and chemical factors such as availability of water, oxygen, pH, and nutrients in the soil (Krebs 1994).…”

“…Some previous research on Imperata grasslands in relation to plant diversity include decreased plant species diversity due to the invasion of Imperata in the USA (Brewer 2008), the species diversity of Imperata grassland in India (Astapati and Das 2012), plant species diversity at the initial succession stage in the Imperata grassland of East Kalimantan, Indonesia (Yassir and Arbainsyah 2014), and plant species diversity in post-fire succession in the Tegal Panjang grassland, Mount Papandayan (Sulistyawati and Fitriana 2017). The fact that certain plant species are able to compete and live together with I. cylindrica as mentioned in above studies can provide information on how the diversity and structure of native plants in the Imperata grasslands can be increased and restored.…”