Remnants of the “Grande Savane?” Insights from Soil Organic Matter at Two Sites in the Deep River Triassic Basin of North Carolina

Krings, Alexander; Szakacs, Alexandria D.; Hyland, Ethan G.

doi:10.2179/0008-7475.87.2.244

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Pine savannas and prairies that historically dominated the Coastal Plain of the southeastern United States prior to European colonization experienced some of the most frequent fires on the continent, with typical fire return intervals of 2 years or less (Guyette et al, 2012 ). Today, prescribed fire is required for maintaining these herb‐dominated communities representative of increasingly threatened “old‐growth grasslands” throughout the world (Bond & Parr, 2010 ; Krings et al, 2023 ; Veldman et al, 2015 ). Although there is evidence that fires across the region were historically concentrated during the late spring and summer months, coinciding with the period of greatest lightning activity, prescribed burns are now most commonly applied during the winter or spring months to moderate fire severity, take advantage of stronger and more directional winds, and to promote fire spread in less flammable post‐agricultural (partially restored) pine savannas (Palmer & Sisson, 2017 ; Ryan et al, 2013 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of season of fire on bee‐flower interaction diversity in a fire‐maintained pine savanna

Ulyshen,

Robertson,

Horn

et al. 2023

Ecology and Evolution

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Whereas the Coastal Plain of the southeastern United States historically experienced fire primarily during the mid‐summer lightning season, managers today typically apply prescribed fire during the late winter or early spring months. The ecological implications of this discrepancy remain poorly understood, especially with regard to pollinators and their interactions with flowers. In a replicated field experiment, we compared the abundance and richness of bees and bee–flower interactions among pine savanna plots in Florida that were burned either during the winter, spring, summer, or fall. We netted 92 bee species from 77 species of flowers, representing 435 unique bee–flower interactions in total. When analyzing the results from each month separately, we detected significant short‐term reductions in the number of bees and bee–flower interactions following fires regardless of season. Although bee abundance and richness did not differ over the entire season, bee–flower interaction richness was significantly higher overall in spring and summer plots than in fall plots and the composition of both bees and bee–flower interactions differed significantly among treatments. Several bee–flower interactions were significantly associated with one or more of the treatments. Some of these associations could be attributed to differences in flowering phenology among treatments. Taken together, our findings suggest that season of fire has modest but potentially important implications for interactions between bees and flowers in southeastern pine ecosystems. Because most flowering plants within our study region are pollinated by a variety of bees and other insects, and most bees endemic to the region are polylectic, season of fire may not be very important to either group overall. However, the timing of fire may be more important to particular species including certain flower specialists and fire‐sensitive taxa such as butterflies. Future research targeting such species would be of interest.

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