Examining the Role of Burning and Nitrogen on Soil Processes.

Longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Miller) wiregrass (Aristida stricta Michx.) savannas are regulated by fire and soil resources. Preliminary data point to landscape controls on soil moisture as a major regulator of productivity, but understanding how soil water and nitrogen availability regulate temporal, spatial, and species-specific differences in water and nutrient relations is needed to more fully understand how those controls are manifested throughout the landscape.

We propose that predicting the consequences of management on productivity requires a more general understanding of how interactions among resources and disturbances regulate productivity differentially above- and belowground.

We designed a study to examine the extent that fire, nitrogen (N), and water control plant community composition, productivity, and nutrient cycling in a longleaf pine-wiregrass ecosystem. Here we report the results of the fire exclusion (fire and N) portion of the experiment.