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Wildfire effects on physiological properties in conifers of central Idaho forests, USA

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Conifers which substantially lost foliage in wildfires were also reduced in their relative hydraulic capacity, resulting in little change in water use efficiency.

Abstract

Wildfires are a natural and ubiquitous component of many forests. Fire-induced damages can lead to immediate tree mortality or a prolonged state of decline. However, physiological mechanisms behind the phenomenon are not well understood. We investigated physiological properties of conifers that survived wildfire 2 year post-fire in central Idaho, USA. In 2005, we set up a burned plot at each of three sites, where the independent wildfires damaged dominant conifers in 2003, paired with a comparable adjacent control plot without any fire damage. At each burned plot, we assessed physical damages in the burned conifers. At each plot in a given site, we repeatedly measured physiological characteristics in five trees of a dominant conifer species (Pseudotsuga menziesii or Pinus contorta) to compare burned and control plots across the three sites during the 2005 growing season. Growth of the burned conifers was significantly reduced post-fire. Leaf area of burned conifers was significantly reduced due to scorching, which, in theory, should have led to increased stomatal conductance (g s) and leaf specific conductance (K L). However, we did not find significant differences in K L between burned and control conifers, and g s was sometimes even lower in burned than control conifers. These results indicate the wildfires reduced capacity of hydraulic apparatus in the surviving conifers, partly due to reduced sapwood area associated with the decreased stem growth post-fire. This was supported by our finding that integrated water use efficiency, assessed via δ13C of woody materials and foliage, was not significantly affected by the wildfires.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Payette National Forest and the Boise National Forest of the USFS for granting us access to these wildfire sites. Drs. Theresa Jain, Ann Abbott of the northern extension of the USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station, and Dr. Ann Hess of Colorado State University provided invaluable statistical advice. Our gratitude also extends to the Idaho Stable Isotopes Lab for technical advice and punctual analysis of our isotopic data. We are grateful to Kirsten Stephan, Nick Norton, Ben Austin, and Rob Vaughn for their assistance in field sampling. We also thank three anonymous reviewers who provided valuable comments to improve the manuscript. This research was funded by the Joint Fire Sciences Program (05-2-1-41).

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  1. Matthew T. C. Thompson

    Present address: USDA Forest Service, Juneau Ranger District, Juneau, AK, 99801, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Science, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA

    Matthew T. C. Thompson

  2. Department of Forest, Rangelandand Fire Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, 83844-1133, USA

    Akihiro Koyama & Kathleen L. Kavanagh

  3. Department of Biology, Algoma University, Queen Street East, Sault Ste. Marie, ON, P6A 2G4, Canada

    Akihiro Koyama

  4. Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843-2138, USA

    Kathleen L. Kavanagh

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  1. Matthew T. C. Thompson
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Correspondence to Akihiro Koyama.

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Additional information

Communicated by A. Nardini.

Matthew T. C. Thompson and Akihiro Koyama equally contributed to the article.

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Thompson, M.T.C., Koyama, A. & Kavanagh, K.L. Wildfire effects on physiological properties in conifers of central Idaho forests, USA. Trees 31, 545–555 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-016-1489-z

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