Black spruce (Picea mariana) seed availability and viability in boreal forests after large wildfires
Key message
Black spruce (Picea mariana (Mill.) B.S.P.) has historically self-replaced following wildfire, but recent evidence suggests that this is changing. One factor could be negative impacts of intensifying fire activity on black spruce seed rain. We investigated this by measuring black spruce seed rain and seedling establishment. Our results suggest that increases in fire activity could reduce seed rain meaning reductions in black spruce establishment.
Keywords
Seed rain; Non-linear relationships; Fire return interval; Combustion severity; Fire size; Postfire regeneration
Publication
Reid, K.A., Day, N.J., Alfaro-Sánchez, R. et al. Black spruce (Picea mariana) seed availability and viability in boreal forests after large wildfires. Annals of Forest Science 80, 4 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13595-022-01166-4
Data and/or Code availability
The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study can be found in Reid et al. (2022) https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.z8w9ghxg4 and Baltzer et al. (2020) https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.76hdr7sth
Handling Editor
Paulo Fernandes
