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Summary: Vegetation recovery in a desert landscape after
wildfires: influences of community type, time since fire
and contingency effects
E. Cayenne Engel* and Scott R. Abella
Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV 89154-3063,
USA
Summary
1. Theories of plant succession are poorly developed in arid lands, hindering our understanding of
how long communities may take to recover after disturbances such as fire. In desert landscapes
vulnerable to fire, information about vegetation recovery is important when deciding whether land
managers should facilitate vegetation recovery. The deserts of the southwestern USA are increas-
ingly subject to unprecedented fires, facilitated by fuel from exotic grasses, yet management
strategies are unclear.
2. We evaluated post-fire recovery patterns of perennial plant species richness and diversity, com-
pared the rate and direction of succession between two major community types, and explored the
relationship of time since fire (TSF) and other environmental factors with vegetation recovery. We
sampled perennial plant communities and environmental variables (e.g. soil N) on 32 burns, ranging
from 2 to 29 years TSF and each paired with their own unburned area, within a 1Æ8 million ha land-
scape in the Mojave Desert, USA.
3. Species richness, diversity and composition exhibited different post-burn recovery patterns, and
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