Short-term low-severity spring grassland fire impacts on soil extractable elements and soil ratios in Lithuania

Paulo Pereira; Artemi Cerda; Deborah Martin; Xavier Úbeda; Daniel Depellegrin; Agata Novara; Juan F Martínez-Murillo; Eric C Brevik; Oleksandr Menshov; Jesus Rodrigo Comino; Jessica Miesel

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.10.210

Short-term low-severity spring grassland fire impacts on soil extractable elements and soil ratios in Lithuania

Sci Total Environ. 2017 Feb 1:578:469-475. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.10.210. Epub 2016 Nov 9.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Environmental Management Center, Mykolas Romeris University, Ateities g. 20, LT-08303 Vilnius, Lithuania. Electronic address: pereiraub@gmail.com.
² SEDER Soil Erosion and Degradation Research Group, Department of Geography, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain. Electronic address: artemio.Cerda@uv.es.
³ USGS, 3215 Marine Street, Boulder, CO, USA. Electronic address: damartin@usgs.gov.
⁴ GRAM (Mediterranean Environmental Research Group), Department of Physical Geography and Regional Geographic Analysis, University of Barcelona, Montalegre, 6, 08001 Barcelona, Spain. Electronic address: xubeda@gmail.com.
⁵ Environmental Management Center, Mykolas Romeris University, Ateities g. 20, LT-08303 Vilnius, Lithuania. Electronic address: danny_green@hotmail.com.
⁶ Dipartimento di Scienze agrarie e forestali, University of Palermo, 90128 Palermo, Italy. Electronic address: agata.novara@unipa.it.
⁷ Department of Geography, University of Málaga, Andalucía Tech. Campus de Teatinos, 29071 Málaga, Spain. Electronic address: jfmmurillo@uma.es.
⁸ Department of Natural Sciences, Dickinson State University, Dickinson, ND 58601, USA. Electronic address: eric.brevik@dickinsonstate.edu.
⁹ Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Institute of Geology, 90 Vasylkivska str., Kyiv, Ukraine. Electronic address: menshov.o@ukr.net.
¹⁰ Instituto de Geomorfología y Suelos, University of Málaga, Edificio Ada Byron, Ampliación del Campus de Teatinos, 29071 Málaga, Spain; Department of Physical Geography, Trier University, D-54286 Trier, Germany. Electronic address: rodrigo-comino@uma.es.
¹¹ Department of Forestry, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48825, USA. Electronic address: mieselje@msu.edu.

PMID: 27836340
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.10.210

Abstract

Spring grassland fires are common in boreal areas as a consequence of slash and burn agriculture used to remove dry grass to increase soil nutrient properties and crop production. However, few works have investigated fire impacts on these grassland ecosystems, especially in the immediate period after the fire. The objective of this work was to study the short-term impacts of a spring grassland fire in Lithuania. Four days after the fire we established a 400m² sampling grid within the burned area and in an adjacent unburned area with the same topographical, hydrological and pedological characteristics. We collected topsoil samples immediately after the fire (0months), 2, 5, 7 and 9months after the fire. We analysed soil pH, electrical conductivity (EC), major nutrients including calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), sodium (Na), and potassium (K), and the minor elements aluminium (Al), manganese (Mn), iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn). We also calculated the soil Na and K adsorption ratio (SPAR), Ca:Mg and Ca:Al. The results showed that this low-severity grassland fire significantly decreased soil pH, Al, and Mn but increased EC, Ca, Mg, and K,. There was no effect on Na, Fe, and Zn. There was a decrease of EC, Ca, Mg, and Na from 0months after the fire until 7months after the fire, with an increase during the last sampling period. Fire did not significantly affect SPAR. Ca:Mg decreased significantly immediately after the fire, but not to critical levels. Ca:Al increased after the fire, reducing the potential effects of Al on plants. Overall, fire impacts were mainly limited to the immediate period after the fire.

Keywords: Boreal grasslands; Dry grass; Slash and burn; Soil nutrients.