Soil CO2 flux from plots with various fire histories at the Konza Prairie Biological Station
Date
2020
Authors
Slette, Ingrid
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Abstract
There is abundant evidence that ongoing changes to fire regimes are affecting the global carbon cycle. However, uncertainty about how the response to an individual fire may be affected by historical factors such as the time elapsed since the last fire or the long-term fire frequency makes it difficult to predict the effects of changing fire regimes on carbon cycling. We took advantage of a 35-year fire frequency experiment (annual fire, fire every two or four years, and unburned treatments) in a native, mesic grassland to assess how fire history (time since last fire and long-term frequency) affects soil CO2 flux, a key ecosystem carbon output. We found that historic fire frequency altered the magnitude of the response to fire, with greater post-fire soil CO2 flux stimulation in annually burned grassland than in grassland burned every two or four years. Fire-induced flux increases persisted for two years after fire in grassland burned every four years. Though we found that fire also stimulated aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP), a key ecosystem carbon input, this stimulation was not altered by long-term fire frequency and didn't persist into later years, unlike soil CO2 flux. This asymmetry emphasizes the importance of measuring impacts both aboveground and belowground. Our findings demonstrate that fire history modifies a key response to individual fires in this grassland. To understand and predict the dynamics of important global carbon cycle components, it is necessary to consider not only the presence vs. absence of fire, but also the long-term fire regime.
Description
This dataset contains soil CO2 flux data collected at the Konza Prairie Biological Station throughout the 2016 and 2017 growing seasons. Data are from grassland plots with varying fire histories (long-term fire frequencies and number of years elapsed since the last fire) and were used to assess whether / how fire history affects the soil CO2 flux response to an individual fire.
Department of Biology
Graduate Degree Program in Ecology
Department of Biology
Graduate Degree Program in Ecology
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Associated Publications
Slette, I.J., Liebert, A. & Knapp, A.K. Fire history as a key determinant of grassland soil CO2 flux. Plant Soil (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-020-04781-0