Prescribed burning is widely practiced for fuels reduction and restoring ecosystems historically maintained by fire. The Pine Barrens in southern New Jersey (USA) is an ecosystem shaped by frequent fire. Although late-winter prescribed burning has been applied to New Jersey Pine Barrens (NJPB) forests for decades, the long-term ecological consequences remain uncertain. A prescribed fire experiment was started in 2015 to evaluate effects of fire return interval on NJPB forests. For this investigation, monitoring plots were classified into five groups based on burn frequency, or number of burns over 9 years, ranging from 1 to 8 burns. Burn frequency did not explain significant ( p < 0.05) variation in stand-level attributes (stem density, basal area, etc.) in the first decade. Tree-level survival was significantly and positively correlated with stem diameter (DBH), but unaffected by fire frequency. No recruitment of new stems was observed under any burn frequency. Collectively, the early findings of this experiment indicate that the dual objectives of fuels reduction and minimizing overstory damage can be achieved under a range of fire frequencies (or return intervals) in these fire-adapted oak–pine woodlands. Research addressing effects of prescribed fire on the understory layer and tree regeneration in NJPB oak–pine woodlands is warranted.
Matthew G. Olson (Thu,) studied this question.