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Restoring Fire in Eastern Oak Savannas and Forests

Restoring Fire in Eastern Oak Savannas and Forests

Edited by Morgan Varner, Heather Alexander, Dan Dey, Justin Hart, Jesse Kreye, Callie Schweitzer

This is a special collection of papers on a fire-prone region of North America that has been somewhat overlooked in the past—oak savannas, woodlands, and forests. Fire is widely recognized as a dominant historic process across most of eastern North America, but many hurdles have slowed restoration progress.

These collected papers represent substantial contributions toward understanding how fire impacts plants, animals, ecosystem processes, and includes novel research on on-going restoration efforts in the region as well as those presented at the 6th Fire in Eastern Oak Forests Conference held in State College, Pennsylvania, USA on July 23 - 25, 2019.

  1. Over the last century, fire exclusion has caused dramatic structural and compositional changes to southern New England forests, highlighting the need to reintroduce fires into the historically pyrogenic landsc...

    Authors: Caroline G. Borden, Marlyse C. Duguid and Mark S. Ashton
    Citation: Fire Ecology 2021 17:24
    Content type: Original research Published on:

  2. Prescribed fire in Eastern deciduous forests has been understudied relative to other regions in the United States. In Pennsylvania, USA, prescribed fire use has increased more than five-fold since 2009, yet fo...

    Authors: Cody L. Dems, Alan H. Taylor, Erica A. H. Smithwick, Jesse K. Kreye and Margot W. Kaye
    Citation: Fire Ecology 2021 17:10
    Content type: Field note Published on:

  3. Our study was designed to reveal a detailed forest fire history at Catoctin Mountain Park, Maryland, USA. We compared the ages of living trees to known fire dates in the dendrochronological record. Seasonality...

    Authors: Lauren F. Howard, Gabriel D. Cahalan, Kristyn Ehleben, Baaqeyah Amala Muhammad El, Hope Halza and Stephen DeLeon
    Citation: Fire Ecology 2021 17:8
    Content type: Original research Published on:

  4. The idea that not all fire regimes are created equal is a central theme in fire research and conservation. Fire frequency (i.e., temporal scale) is likely the most studied fire regime attribute as it relates to c...

    Authors: David S. Mason and Marcus A. Lashley
    Citation: Fire Ecology 2021 17:3
    Content type: Forum Published on:

    The Correction to this article has been published in Fire Ecology 2021 17:13

  5. Prescribed fire is increasingly used to restore and maintain upland oak (Quercus L. spp.) ecosystems in the central and eastern US. However, little is known about how prescribed fire affects recently fallen acorn...

    Authors: Rachel E. Nation, Heather D. Alexander, Geoff Denny, Jennifer K. McDaniel and Alison K. Paulson
    Citation: Fire Ecology 2021 17:1
    Content type: Original research Published on:

  6. Vegetation of the Cumberland Plateau (USA) has undergone dramatic transitions since the last glaciation and particularly since the onset of widespread logging and twentieth century fire exclusion. Shortleaf pi...

    Authors: Michael C. Stambaugh, Joseph M. Marschall and Erin R. Abadir
    Citation: Fire Ecology 2020 16:24
    Content type: Original research Published on:

    The Correction to this article has been published in Fire Ecology 2020 16:26

  7. In oak-dominated communities throughout eastern North America, fire exclusion and subsequent woody encroachment has replaced the “glitter” of once robust and diverse wildflower and grass layers with leaf-litte...

    Authors: Andrew L. Vander Yacht, Patrick D. Keyser, Seth A. Barrioz, Charles Kwit, Michael C. Stambaugh, Wayne K. Clatterbuck and Ryan Jacobs
    Citation: Fire Ecology 2020 16:17
    Content type: Original research Published on: