Burn Severity Effect on the Short-Term Functional Response of Quercus ilex after Fire

Abstract

Understanding how fire severity affects resprouting plants during post-fire regeneration is key to anticipating Mediterranean vegetation vulnerability in a context of increasingly large fires with high intensity and severity due to climate change. Here, we monitored the water status, leaf gas exchange, and plant growth in holm oaks (Quercus ilex) of central Spain burned with different fire severity throughout the first post-fire year. The Q. ilex burned with high severity (HB+) showed higher water potential and shoot growth than those burned with low severity (LB+) or unburned (B−), especially during spring and summer. In summer, resprouting HB+ and LB+ plants exhibited higher carbon assimilation than unburned ones. Moreover, we also found that plants with higher water availability and growth, i.e., HB+ individuals, had higher specific leaf area and lower water use efficiency. Overall, our study shows that holm oak forests exhibit high plasticity to fire and that Q. ilex burned with high severity have a faster short-term regeneration than those burned with low severity. However, this rapid regeneration is based on a less conservative water-use strategy, which could jeopardize their populations in case of extreme drought events increasingly common in the current context of climate change.