The role of prescribed fire in the provision of regulating ecosystem services of Spanish heathlands

Calvo, Leonor; Huerta, Sara; Marcos, Elena; Calvo-Fernández, Javier; Taboada, Ángela

doi:10.12775/eq.2015.012

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 4 publications

(7 reference statements)

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“…Forest wildfires represent one of the main threats to Mediterranean ecosystems, with important implications from an ecological point of view (Calvo et al, 2015;Van Drooge et al, 2016). Significant alterations in the historical wildfire regime have been observed in recent decades in the countries with a Mediterranean climate, including an increase in number, severity, and area affected (Moritz et al, 2014;Pausas et al, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wildfire effects on diversity and composition in soil bacterial communities

Miera

Pinto

Gutiérrez-González

et al. 2020

Science of The Total Environment

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wildfire effects on diversity and composition in soil bacterial communities

Miera

Pinto

Gutiérrez-González

et al. 2020

Science of The Total Environment

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“…Based on our experience and evidence from the literature we expected there to be inherent trade-offs between management practices (Calvo et al, 2005(Calvo et al, , 2015Alonso and Härdtle, 2015;Cordingley et al, 2015Cordingley et al, , 2016. Accordingly, our analysis shows that there is no "best" management practice.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Ensuring the Long-Term Provision of Heathland Ecosystem Services—The Importance of a Functional Perspective in Management Decision Frameworks

et al. 2021

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The ecosystem services framework can be used as a way of balancing economic, ecological and societal drivers in land management decision-making processes. As heathland management is typically linked directly to services, the aim of this study was to quantify trade-offs related to the effects of five common heathland management measures (grazing, mowing, burning, choppering, and sod-cutting) using quantitative data from empirical studies within a northwestern heathland in Germany. Besides important services (groundwater recharge and quality, carbon stocks and appreciation by the general public) we included ecosystem functions (balances of nitrogen, phosphorus and major cations) and the net cost of management implementation as trade-off components. We found that all management practices have advantages and disadvantages leading to unavoidable trade-offs. The effect of a management practice on the trade-off components was often closely related to the amount of biomass and/or soil removed during a management cycle (Rannual). Choppering and sod-cutting (large Rannual by involving soil removal) were very good at maintaining a low N system whilst concurrently increasing groundwater recharge, albeit at the cost of all other components considered. If the aim is to preserve heathlands and their associated ecosystem services in the long-term this trade-off is inevitable, as currently only these high-intensity measures are capable of removing enough nitrogen from the system to prevent the transition to non-heather dominated habitat types. Our study, therefore, shows that in order to maintain structural integrity and thereby the service potential a habitat provides, management decision frameworks may need to prioritize ecosystem functioning over ecosystem services. Burning and mowing (low Rannual) were best at retaining phosphorus, cations and carbon and had the lowest costs. Grazing (intermediate Rannual) provided the highest relative benefit in terms of groundwater quality and appreciation. Together these results can help identify management combinations in both space and time, which will be more beneficial for functions and services than management practices considered in isolation. Furthermore, our study assists in recognizing key areas of action for the development of novel management practices and can help raise awareness of the diversity of rare species and potential benefits to people that protected cultural landscapes provide.

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“…This fire regime shift, which has been attributed to fuel accumulation and continuity, as well as to increased drought events (Pausas and Fernández-Muñoz, 2012), may aggravate the ecological consequences of fire. In this sense, severe fires induce significant alterations in the structure and composition of vegetation and soil in forest ecosystems (Keeley, 2009), negatively affecting their capacity to provide ecosystem services (Calvo et al, 2015) and, particularly, their carbon storage function (Van Der Werf et al, 2010). Moreover, fire severity determines post-fire responses, severe fires deriving in poor plant regeneration, increased surface runoff, soil loss and flooding (Pausas et al, 2008;Pereira et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%