Aboveground Biomass of Florida Scrub Plants

Biomass regressions are useful in non-destructively deriving biomass estimates for many applications. We present aboveground biomass regressions for 14 species of resprouting plants found in pyrogenic Florida scrub and related ecosystems. Aboveground biomass was collected from sites within five time-since-fire classes and predicted by plant height, canopy length, canopy width, species, and time-since-fire class. We were generally able to predict 72-95% of biomass variation from the three plant measurements. Regressions without plant width were almost as successful. For six of the species, time-since-fire affected the allometric equations, so we present regressions for specific time-since-fire classes for these species. Species differed markedly in their biomass equations. Within species groups, individual species usually differed but were similar for Lyonias. These equations will be useful in summarizing species responses to fire frequency and fire intensity in Florida scrub and related ecosystems.