Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Impacts of prescribed burnings on litter production, nitrogen concentration, δ13C and δ15N in a suburban eucalypt natural forest of subtropical Australia

  • Soils, Sec 1 • Soil Organic Matter Dynamics and Nutrient Cycling • Research Article
  • Published:
Journal of Soils and Sediments Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purposes

Prescribed burning is projected to be adopted more frequently with intensifying climate change; thus, a long-term study is necessary to understand the burning impacts on forest productivity and carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycling. Litter fall production rate can be used to indicate burning impacts on forest productivity, whereas N concentration, and C and N isotope composition (δ13C and δ15N) can be used to infer burning impacts on C and N cycling in plant-soil system.

Materials and methods

In this study, the impacts of low-intensity prescribed burning on litter production, N concentration, and C and N isotope compositions were continuously investigated for 6 years at five study sites in a natural eucalypt forest of subtropical Australia.

Results and discussion

Higher leaf litter production rate, N concentration and δ15N, and lower δ13C could be seen shortly after prescribed burning. The higher leaf litter N concentration and lower δ13C were likely due to the ease of competition for soil N and moisture from understory vegetation in the short term by prescribed burning. Leaf δ15N and N concentration were closely correlated, and seasonal changes in leaf litter production rate, δ13C and δ15N were observed. Burning season and related severity might determine the suppression degree of understory vegetation. Time since fire (TSF) was a significant impact factor influencing the litter fall production rate, N concentration, δ13C and δ15N of leaf litter fall for a decade following prescribed burning. However, monthly rainfall and temperature were less consistent in their impacts.

Conclusions

Nitrogen limitation was enhanced by prescribed burning through the removal of litter and understory vegetation in the N poor forest and might be responsible for the long-term burning impacts. Low-intensity prescribed burning might have a long-lasting impact on forest litter productivity in nutrient poor forests in subtropical Australia.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Attiwill P, Adams M (2011) Burning issues. CSIRO Publishing, Victoria, Australia

    Google Scholar 

  • Bryanin SV, Abramova ER (2017) Phytomass of litter fall in postfire larch forests of Zeisky Nature Reserve (Upper Priamurie). Sib J For Sci:93–101

  • Butler OM, Lewis T, Chen C (2017) Fire alters soil labile stoichiometry and litter nutrients in Australian eucalypt forests. Int J Wildl Fire 26:783–788

    Google Scholar 

  • Catterall CP, Wallace CP (1987) An island in suburbia: the natural and social history of Toohey Forest. Institute of Applied Environmental Research. Griffith University, Brisbane

    Google Scholar 

  • Catterall CP, Piper SD, Bunn SE, Arthur JM (2001) Flora and fauna assemblages vary with local topography in a subtropical eucalypt forest. Austral Ecol 26:56–69

    Google Scholar 

  • Christie FJ, York A (2009) No detectable impacts of frequent burning on foliar C and N or insect herbivory in an Australian eucalypt forest. Appl Veg Sci 12:376–384

    Google Scholar 

  • Close DC, Davidson NJ, Swanborough PW, Corkrey R (2011) Does low-intensity surface fire increase water- and nutrient-availability to overstorey Eucalyptus gomphocephala? Plant Soil 349:203–214

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Conen F, Yakutin MV, Puchnin AN, Leifeld J, Alewell C (2011) ∂15N natural abundance in permafrost soil indicates impact of fire on nitrogen cycle. Rapid Commun Mass Spectrom 25:661–664

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Cordell S, Goldstein G, Meinzer FC, Handley LL (1999) Allocation of nitrogen and carbon in leaves of Metrosideros polymorpha regulates carboxylation capacity and δ13C along an altitudinal gradient. Funct Ecol 13:811–818

    Google Scholar 

  • Dezzeo N (2006) Litterfall and nutrient input in undisturbed and adjacent fire disturbed forests of the Gran Sabana, Southern Venezuela. Interciencia 31:894–899

    Google Scholar 

  • Duncan BW, Schmalzer PA, Breininger DR, Stolen ED (2015) Comparing fuels reduction and patch mosaic fire regimes for reducing fire spread potential: a spatial modeling approach. Ecol Modell 314:90–99

    Google Scholar 

  • Enta A, Hayashi M, Yamanaka T, Oikawa A, Seidel F (2019) Nitrogen resorption and fractionation during leaf senescence in typical tree species in Japan. J For Res

  • Espinosa J, Madrigal J, De La Cruz AC, Guijarro M, Jimenez E, Hernando C (2018) Short-term effects of prescribed burning on litterfall biomass in mixed stands of Pinus nigra and Pinus pinaster and pure stands of Pinus nigra in the Cuenca Mountains (Central-Eastern Spain). Sci Total Environ 618:941–951

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Ferwerda JG, Siderius W, Van Wieren SE, Grant CC, Peel M, Skidmore AK, Prins HHT (2006) Parent material and fire as principle drivers of foliage quality in woody plants. For Ecol Manage 231:178–183

    Google Scholar 

  • Franklin JF, Shugart HH, Harmon ME (1987) Tree death as an ecological process: the causes, consequences, and variability of tree mortality. Bioscience 37:550–556

    Google Scholar 

  • Guinto DF, House APN, Xu ZH, Saffigna PG (1999) Impacts of repeated fuel reduction burning on tree growth, mortality and recruitment in mixed species eucalypt forests of southeast Queensland, Australia. For Ecol Manage 115:13–27

    Google Scholar 

  • Hobbie EA (2012) Nitrogen isotopes link mycorrhizal fungi and plants to nitrogen dynamics. New Phytol 196:367–382

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Hobbie EA, Macko SA, Williams M (2000) Correlations between foliar delta N-15 and nitrogen concentrations may indicate plant-mycorrhizal interactions. Oecologia 122:273–283

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Huber E, Bell TL, Adams MA (2013) Combustion influences on natural abundance nitrogen isotope ratio in soil and plants following a wildfire in a sub-alpine ecosystem. Oecologia 173:1063–1074

    Google Scholar 

  • Hyodo F, Kusaka S, Wardle DA, Nilsson M-C (2013) Changes in stable nitrogen and carbon isotope ratios of plants and soil across a boreal forest fire chronosequence. Plant Soil 367:111–119

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Inagaki Y, Miura S, Kohzu A (2004) Effects of forest type and stand age on litterfall quality and soil N dynamics in Shikoku district, southern Japan. For Ecol Manage 202:107–117

    Google Scholar 

  • Jackson BG, Peltzer DA, Wardle DA (2013) Are functional traits and litter decomposability coordinated across leaves, twigs and wood? A test using temperate rainforest tree species. Oikos 122:1131–1142

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnson D, Murphy JD, Walker RF, Glass DW, Miller WW (2007) Wildfire effects on forest carbon and nutrient budgets. Ecol Eng 31:183–192

    Google Scholar 

  • Killingbeck KT (1996) Nutrients in senesced leaves: keys to the search for potential resorption and resorption proficiency. Ecology 77:1716–1727

    Google Scholar 

  • Kunrath TR, Lemaire G, Sadras VO, Gastal F (2018) Water use efficiency in perennial forage species: interactions between nitrogen nutrition and water deficit. F Crop Res 222:1–11

    Google Scholar 

  • LeDuc SD, Rothstein DE, Yermakov Z, Spaulding SE (2013) Jack pine foliar δ15N indicates shifts in plant nitrogen acquisition after severe wildfire and through forest stand development. Plant Soil 373:955–965

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Londe V, De Sousa HC, Kozovits AR (2016) Litterfall as an indicator of productivity and recovery of ecological functions in a rehabilitated riparian forest at das velhas river, southeast brazil. Trop Ecol 57:355–360

    Google Scholar 

  • Lutz JA, Larson AJ, Swanson ME, Freund JA (2012) Ecological importance of large-diameter trees in a temperate mixed-conifer forest. PLoS One 7:e36131

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Martinelli LA, Piccolo MC, Townsend AR, Vitousek PM, Cuevas E, McDowell W, Robertson GP, Santos OC, Treseder K (1999) Nitrogen stable isotopic composition of leaves and soil: tropical versus temperate forests. Biogeochemistry 46:45–65

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Maslov MN, Maslova OA, Tokareva OA (2019) Changes in labile and microbial pools of carbon and nitrogen in forest litter samples under different methods of storage. Eurasian Soil Sci 52:747–755

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Metzger KL, Romme WH, Turner MG (2006) Foliar nitrogen patterns following stand-replacing fire in lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta var. latifolia) forests of the Rocky Mountains, USA. For Ecol Manage 227:22–30

    Google Scholar 

  • Mnich ME (2014) Role of fire, grazing, and forest clearing in 15N/14N balances across diverse terrestrial ecosystems. Unversity of Carlifornia

  • Muqaddas B, Chen C, Lewis T, Wild C (2016) Temporal dynamics of carbon and nitrogen in the surface soil and forest floor under different prescribed burning regimes. For Ecol Manage 382:110–119

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Bryan D (1994) Review of the Toohey Forest fire management plan. Department of Conservation & Natural Resources, Victoria, Melbourne

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Connell A, McCaw W (1997) Prescribed burning of thinning slash in regrowth stands of karri (Eucalyptus diversicolor).2. Nitrogen budgets in pre- and post-burn fuel. Int J Wildl Fire 7:41–49

    Google Scholar 

  • Parr CL, Andersen AN (2006) Patch mosaic burning for biodiversity conservation: a critique of the pyrodiversity paradigm. Conserv Biol 20:1610–1619

    Google Scholar 

  • Perakis SS, Tepley AJ, Compton JE (2015) Disturbance and topography shape nitrogen availability and δ15N over long-term forest succession. Ecosystems 18:573–588

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Pornon A, Lamaze T (2007) Nitrogen resorption and photosynthetic activity over leaf life span in an evergreen shrub, Rhododendron ferrugineum, in a subalpine environment. New Phytol 175:301–310

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • San-Miguel I, Andison DW, Coops NC, Rickbeil GJM (2016) Predicting post-fire canopy mortality in the boreal forest from dNBR derived from time series of Landsat data. Int J Wildl Fire 25:762–774

    Google Scholar 

  • Schafer JL, Mack MC (2010) Short-term effects of fire on soil and plant nutrients in palmetto flatwoods. Plant Soil 334:433–447

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Schafer JL, Mack MC (2014) Foliar nutrient concentrations and ratios of scrubby flatwoods species change with time after fire. Castanea 79:237–245

    Google Scholar 

  • Schoch P, Binkley D (1986) Prescribed burning increased nitrogen availability in a mature loblolly pine stand. For Ecol Manage 14:13–22

    Google Scholar 

  • Turner MG, Smithwick EAH, Metzger KL, Tinker DB, Romme WH (2007) Inorganic nitrogen availability after severe stand-replacing fire in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. Proc Natl Acad Sci 104:4782–4789

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Tutua SS, Xu Z, Blumfield TJ (2014) Foliar and litter needle carbon and oxygen isotope compositions relate to tree growth of an exotic pine plantation under different residue management regimes in subtropical Australia. Plant Soil 375:189–204

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Wanthongchai K, Bauhus J, Goldammer JG (2008) Nutrient losses through prescribed burning of aboveground litter and understorey in dry dipterocarp forests of different fire history. Catena 74:321–332

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams RJ, Hallgren SW, Wilson GWT (2012) Frequency of prescribed burning in an upland oak forest determines soil and litter properties and alters the soil microbial community. For Ecol Manage 265:241–247

    Google Scholar 

  • Wright IJ, Westoby M (2002) Leaves at low versus high rainfall: coordination of structure, lifespan and physiology. New Phytol 155:403–416

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Geoffrey Lambert, Baoyi Wang, Jiawei Li, Yiheng Zhang, Yuchen Jiang, Zhaojia Cai, Gehang Li, Jiangqi Luo, Hongyu Li, Li Tang, Tengjiao Liu, Negar Omidvar, Sabah Taresh and Mone Nouansyvong for their assistances in the field and in sample preparation. This work was supported by postgraduate research scholarships granted by Griffith University.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Dianjie Wang, Kadum Mohammed Abdullah and Iman Tahmasbian contributed equally to the work as co-first authors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Environmental Future Research Institute and School of Environment and Science, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia

    Dianjie Wang, Kadum Mohammed Abdullah, Iman Tahmasbian, Zhihong Xu & Weijin Wang

  2. Plant Protection Department, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Kerbala, Kerbala City, Iraq

    Kadum Mohammed Abdullah

  3. Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Queensland Government, Toowoomba, Australia

    Iman Tahmasbian

  4. School of Geographical Science, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, China

    Zhihong Xu

  5. Department of Environment and Science, Queensland Government, Brisbane, Australia

    Weijin Wang

Authors
  1. Dianjie Wang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Kadum Mohammed Abdullah
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Iman Tahmasbian
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Zhihong Xu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Weijin Wang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

ZX designed the experiment, DW, KA, and IT carried out the sampling and analyses, DW analysed the data and wrote the manuscript, and ZX, IT and WW improved the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dianjie Wang.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

Additional information

Responsible editor: Yongfu Li

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Electronic supplementary material

ESM 1

(DOCX 749 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Wang, D., Abdullah, K.M., Tahmasbian, I. et al. Impacts of prescribed burnings on litter production, nitrogen concentration, δ13C and δ15N in a suburban eucalypt natural forest of subtropical Australia. J Soils Sediments 20, 3148–3157 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-020-02664-6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-020-02664-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation