Effects of Prescribed Burns on Litter Decomposition and Microarthropod Communities in New Jersey Pinelands

Abstract

In the Northeastern United States, climate change, shifts in forest disturbance regimes, and associated shifts in forest processes are expected to continue to impact forest structure, composition, and diversity (Clark, Skowronski, and Gallagher 2015); however, changes in soil community dynamics and processes, especially those in the soil are not yet fully understood. Restoration of fire dependent ecosystems has been proposed as one solution for mitigating the negative impacts of these changes while reducing the wildfire risk, particularly in Northeastern forests where fire has been largely excluded for much of the past century (Forman and Boerner 1981, Fahey and Reiners 1981, Marschall et al. 2016). However, there is limited information on how such efforts may impact soils and their communities. In pine ecosystems, prescribed burning and wildfire management has provided strong evidence for restoring structure following long-term fire suppression that reduces forest health and resilience (Forman and Boerner 1981, Lee et al. 2019, Van Lear et al. 2005). Yet there is a lack of fundamental research to understand how fire may impact communities of micro- organisms, such as microarthropods, in forest soil and detritus layers that are critical for the forest nutrient cycles.