Salvage logging versus natural regeneration post-fire practices in a forest: Soil chemical and microbial aspects

The increase in forest-wildfire events around the world has revived the old debate regarding the practice of salvage logging and its effectiveness in comparison to the unlogged, natural regeneration of burned forests. Since the logging of burned trees may have undesirable outcomes in soil systems, such as soil compaction and nutrient losses, these changes could further cause disturbances to soil microbial-community activity. The aim of this study was to examine chemical and biological changes in soil under two post-fire practices: salvage logging and unlogged, natural regeneration of burned areas, in the recently burned Byria Forest in Israel. Results indicated that salvage logging had a short- lived effect on soil chemical and biological properties that was confined mostly to the first year after logging. Soil moisture was greatly affected by salvage logging, and drier conditions were found in the logged compared to the unlogged burned areas. Moreover, logging had a negative effect on microbial biomass, with reduced biomass in the logged compared to unlogged areas, which was more evident during the first year after fire. These findings support the recommendations in the literature to postpone post-fire practices such as logging or, in turn, to combine the two practices in order to create a mosaic of burned-logged and burned-naturally regenerated areas.

• Publication year

  2012

• Venue

  Open Journal of Ecology

• Publication date

  2012-02-29

• Fields of study

  Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.4236/OJE.2012.21004
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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