Changes in ecosystem properties after postfire management strategies in wildfire affected areas

1. Forest are highly vulnerable to global change drivers, such as an increase in wildfire events. Learning more about how and why different postfire management strategies regulate the ability of forest ecosystem properties (e.g., plant diversity and function) to simultaneously recover after wildfire and provide multiple ecosystem functions is of critical importance.

2. This study aims to evaluate how unburned, burned managed and burned unmanaged plots regulate the responses of multiple forest ecosystem properties (e.g., plant diversity, nutrient cycling, soil carbon stocks, water regulation, and decomposition and wood production) and overall multifunctionality to wildfires. In September 2017, we selected two postfire management strategies in a 3 km2 watershed previously affected by a wildfire in July 2012: contour-felled log debris (CFD), log erosion barriers area (LEB), and also unburned and unmanaged plots (BNA). We randomly distributed 12 plots among the three postfire management ...