Seedling establishment of Mediterranean woody species after fire in two different regions of central Portugal
1996
Sande Silva, J.
In order to withstand the occurrence of fire, the different woody species of Mediterranean plant communities follow certain regenerative patterns which include two basic regeneration mechanisms: seedling establishment and resprouting. The objective of this study is to evaluate the seedling establishment characteristics of Mediterranean woody species of two regions of Central Portugal (Serra da Malcata and Serra de Candeeiros) for different stages of development after fire. The evaluation is made by analysing three major aspects of seedling establishment for each region/successive stage: species frequency, seedling density for each species and factors affecting the establishment of the different species. For most of the recorded species, the results indicate the existence of two basic establishment strategies, one taking advantage of fire occurrence to establish a very large number of seeds, preferably on bare exposed ground, and the other establishing a much smaller number of seedlings only after more favourable soil and shade conditions have been created by the progressive development of the plant community. Some emphasis is given to the use of distance sampling methods for density estimation and a new adaptation of this methodology is presented and evaluated.
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