Summary: | Fire severity is increasing across the boreal forest biome as climate warms, and initial post-fire impacts on tree demographic processes and soil conditions could be an important determinant of long-term forest structure and carbon dynamics. To examine soil burn severity impacts on volumetric soil moisture, we conducted experimental burns in summer 2012 that created a gradient of residual post-fire soil organic layer (SOL) depth within a mature, sparse-canopy Cajander larch (Larix cajanderi Mayr.) forest in the Eastern Siberian Arctic. Immediately post-burn and every growing season until 2017, we measured surface (~5-cm depth) soil moisture across the severity gradient.
|