RT info:eu-repo/semantics/article
T1 Long-term decrease of organic and inorganic nitrogen concentrations due to pine forest wildfire
A1 Durán, Jorge
A1 Rodríguez, Alexandra
A1 Fernández-Palacios, José María
A1 Gallardo, Antonio
K1 dissolved organic nitrogen
K1 labile nitrogen
K1 microbial biomass
K1 mineral nitrogen
K1 Pinus canariensis
K1 fire
K1 nitrógeno orgánico disuelto
K1 nitrógeno lábil
K1 biomasa microbiana
K1 nitrógeno mineral
K1 fuego
AB Growing concerns about fires and the increase of fire frequency and severity due to climate changehave stimulated a large number of scientific papers about fire ecology. Most researchers have focusedon the short-term effects of fire, and the knowledge about the long-term consequences of fires onecosystem nutrient dynamics is still scarce.Our aim was to improve the existing knowledge about the long-term effects of wildfires on forestlabileN concentrations. We hypothesized that fires may cause an initial decline in organic and inorganicN availability, and in the amount of microbial biomass-N; this should be followed by therecovery of pre-fire N concentrations on a long-term basis. We selected a fire chronosequence inPinus canariensis forests on La Palma Island (Canary Islands, Spain). These forests are under lowanthropogenic atmospheric deposition, and forest management is completely lacking; wildfires aretherefore the only significant disturbance. Soil samples were collected during the winter and springat 22 burned and unburned plots.Fire produced a significant decrease in microbial biomass N, mineral N and dissolved organic N.Almost 20 y after fire, pre-fire levels of N concentrations had not recovered.These results demonstrate that P. canariensis forest soils have a lower resilience against fire thanexpected. The magnitude of these observed changes suggests that pine forest wildfires may inducelong-term (2 decades) changes in soil and in plant primary production.
PB Springer Verlag
YR 2010
FD 2010
LK http://riull.ull.es/xmlui/handle/915/18186
UL http://riull.ull.es/xmlui/handle/915/18186
LA en
NO Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología
DS Repositorio institucional de la Universidad de La Laguna
RD 17-nov-2024