Fire and vegetation change in coastal grasslands,South Africa
Successional progression from grassland dominated to tree dominated vegetation is common in both arid and humid areas.Factors influencing the successional processes vary depending on environmental conditions, with fire playing an increasingly important role with increasing rainfall.The influences of fire on these successional processes were investigated in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park (IWP), located on the east coast of South Africa.This area experiences annual summer rainfall in excess of 1000 mm, with a mean maximum temperature in January of 250 C and frost free winters with a mean maximum of 180 C in July.Land use (and associated fire regime) in the area has changed in recent decades from rural shifting agriculture to commercial forestry plantations (during the 1950s), conservation areas or wilderness areas.Fire and groundwater have been recognized as the main determinants of the coastal grasslands where regular inundation encourages a sedge rich hygrophilous grassland and above this,exclusion of fire results in succession through to forest scrub savanna and Dune Forest ( Taylor 2003 ; Weisser & Marques 1979 ; Weisser & Muller 1983).Where large areas have been afforested with Pinus elliottii, the use of fire in the surrounding grasslands was prohibited.In the wilderness area, active management has been kept to a minimum, and fires, whether natural or anthropogenic, have not been extinguished.This resulted in regular and extensive fires in the wilderness areas.
fire grassland savanna management
K.P.Kirkman B.P.A.Dalton
BiologicaLand Conservation Sciences,University of KwaZulu-Natal Private Bag X01,Scottsville 3209,South Africa
国际会议
呼和浩特
英文
2008-06-29（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）