Strong legacy of agricultural land use on soils and understory plant communities in longleaf pine woodlands

Brudvig, Lars A.; Grman, Emily; Habeck, Christopher W.; Orrock, John L.; Ledvina, Joseph A.

doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2013.09.053

Cited by 94 publications

(157 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…These results reinforce the importance of frequent prescribed fires for management of longleaf pine woodlands [8], [13], because of its positive influence on understory plant communities [15], [17]. Our results further highlight the role of agricultural legacies in the degradation of longleaf pine plant communities [14]–[16]. The pronounced deviation of fire suppressed and post-agricultural plant communities from reference conditions (Figure 4) suggests that sites supporting these degraded conditions may require the greatest efforts to restore.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 79%

Land-Use History and Contemporary Management Inform an Ecological Reference Model for Longleaf Pine Woodland Understory Plant Communities

et al. 2014

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Ecological restoration is frequently guided by reference conditions describing a successfully restored ecosystem; however, the causes and magnitude of ecosystem degradation vary, making simple knowledge of reference conditions insufficient for prioritizing and guiding restoration. Ecological reference models provide further guidance by quantifying reference conditions, as well as conditions at degraded states that deviate from reference conditions. Many reference models remain qualitative, however, limiting their utility. We quantified and evaluated a reference model for southeastern U.S. longleaf pine woodland understory plant communities. We used regression trees to classify 232 longleaf pine woodland sites at three locations along the Atlantic coastal plain based on relationships between understory plant community composition, soils (which broadly structure these communities), and factors associated with understory degradation, including fire frequency, agricultural history, and tree basal area. To understand the spatial generality of this model, we classified all sites together and for each of three study locations separately. Both the regional and location-specific models produced quantifiable degradation gradients–i.e., progressive deviation from conditions at 38 reference sites, based on understory species composition, diversity and total cover, litter depth, and other attributes. Regionally, fire suppression was the most important degrading factor, followed by agricultural history, but at individual locations, agricultural history or tree basal area was most important. At one location, the influence of a degrading factor depended on soil attributes. We suggest that our regional model can help prioritize longleaf pine woodland restoration across our study region; however, due to substantial landscape-to-landscape variation, local management decisions should take into account additional factors (e.g., soil attributes). Our study demonstrates the utility of quantifying degraded states and provides a series of hypotheses for future experimental restoration work. More broadly, our work provides a framework for developing and evaluating reference models that incorporate multiple, interactive anthropogenic drivers of ecosystem degradation.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 79%

Land-Use History and Contemporary Management Inform an Ecological Reference Model for Longleaf Pine Woodland Understory Plant Communities

et al. 2014

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“…One reason for this is certainly the additive effects of drivers on environmental variables, as evidenced by topsoil nutrient content: first, past deforestations occurred more frequently on nutrient-richer soils (Wulf, 2003;Flinn & Vellend, 2005;Brudvig et al, 2013), thus reforestation tend to occupy soils with higher nutrient content (Appendix S8). It was also difficult to determine what traits were exclusively related to past land use effect or distance to present edge effect.…”

Section: The Different Underlying Mechanisms Are Difficult To Disentamentioning

confidence: 99%

Past landscape explains forest periphery‐to‐core gradient of understorey plant communities in a reforestation context

Bergès¹,

Avon²,

Arnaudet

et al. 2015

Diversity and Distributions

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Aim To disentangle whether long-range periphery-to-core gradient of forest understorey plants could be attributed to past forest landscape and/or to current environmental filtering processes. We investigated (1) whether species response to past land use (ancient versus recent forest) was consistent with species response to distance to present forest edge (core versus periphery) (2) what life-history traits explained plant response to distance to present edge and past land use (3) whether distance to past forest edge explained current species distribution better than distance to present forest edge.Location Temperate forests in the northern half of France (80,000 km²).Methods Local climate, soil and stand characteristics, past land use, and present and past landscape metrics were collected on 11,936 plots using National Forest Inventory data and historical maps from 1831. Logistic regressions were applied to determine the response patterns of 181 species to present and past landscape, while controlling for local habitat quality (soil, climate and stand).Results Species response to distance to present edge very well matched response to past land use. Plant traits related to colonization capacity explained species response to present edge and past land use. The spatial distribution of 42 species was better explained by distance to forest edge in 1831, 37 species were better explained by distance to present edge and 24 species were better explained by distance to present edge and past land use.Main conclusions Two mechanisms were responsible for the long-range periphery-to-core gradient: (1) past landscape and colonization processes and (2) present edge-related mechanisms. This suggests that plant community differences between periphery and core zones are thus related to dispersal limitation and not only to environmental filters. Our results underline the need to combine landscape ecology and history and have important implications for forest plant dynamics and conservation in the context of climate change.

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“…Consistent with the successional paradigm, they classified savannahs as a secondary formation. The notion of savannahs as young vegetation, successional to forest was reinforced by their observations that agricultural fallows in 'savannah' were quickly recolonized by grasses and developed into a grass-dominated fire-climax within 20 years; perhaps their conclusions about the rate of savannah recovery would have been different had they observed how long it took for the full savannah herbaceous plant community to re-establish [27,40], rather than just the dominant grasses. In presenting their case for how low intensity traditional cropping systems could be sustainable, Nye & Greenland also raised concern over deforestation.…”

Section: Origins Of Confusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Of particular note is the concept of secondary savannahs [27]-the grassy vegetation that forms following agricultural or silvicultural conversion of savannahs and subsequent abandonmentas distinct from both old-growth savannahs and derived savannahs. Studies of secondary savannahs suggest that, like regenerating forests, they are very slow to return to an old-growth state [27,40]. Because of the very long periods of time involved [9,73] and uncertainty about the conditions under which a return to the reference state is possible [27,74], I do not depict the full recovery of degraded ecosystems in figure 1 (e.g.…”

Section: Integrating Savannah and Forest Degradation Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Clarifying the confusion: old-growth savannahs and tropical ecosystem degradation

Veldman

2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

119

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Ancient tropical grassy biomes are often misrecognized as severely degraded forests. I trace this confusion to several factors, with roots in the nineteenth century, including misinterpretations of the nature of fire in savannahs, attempts to reconcile savannah ecology with Clementsian succession, use of physiognomic (structural) definitions of savannah and development of tropical degradation frameworks focused solely on forests. Towards clarity, I present two models that conceptualize the drivers of ecosystem degradation as operating in both savannahs and forests. These models highlight how human-induced environmental changes create ecosystems with superficially similar physiognomies but radically different conservation values. Given the limitation of physiognomy to differentiate savannahs from severely degraded forests, I present an alternative approach based on floristic composition. Data from eastern lowland Bolivia show that old-growth savannahs can be reliably distinguished by eight grass species and that species identity influences ecosystem flammability. I recommend that scientists incorporate savannahs in tropical degradation frameworks alongside forests, and that savannah be qualified as old-growth savannah in reference to ancient grassy biomes or derived savannah in reference to deforestation. These conceptual advances will require attention not only to tree cover, but also to savannah herbaceous plant species and their ecologies.This article is part of the themed issue 'Tropical grassy biomes: linking ecology, human use and conservation'.

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Strong legacy of agricultural land use on soils and understory plant communities in longleaf pine woodlands

Cited by 94 publications

References 56 publications

Land-Use History and Contemporary Management Inform an Ecological Reference Model for Longleaf Pine Woodland Understory Plant Communities

Land-Use History and Contemporary Management Inform an Ecological Reference Model for Longleaf Pine Woodland Understory Plant Communities

Past landscape explains forest periphery‐to‐core gradient of understorey plant communities in a reforestation context

Clarifying the confusion: old-growth savannahs and tropical ecosystem degradation

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