Fire In Eastern Oak Forests

Up to the late 20th century, most ecologists tacitly assumed that fire was not an important factor in eastern deciduous forests. Nowhere is fire mentioned in E. Lucy Braun's monographic treatment of this biome (Braun 1950). Oosting (1942) likewise omitted any mention of fire in his survey of the successional and mature communities of the eastern Piedmont. Whittaker (1956) speculated that wildfire played an important role in the maintenance of ridge top shrub and pine dominated communities of the southern Appalachians but not in deciduous hardwoods.

Contains 10 full-length papers and 12 abstracts of posters that were presented at the 3rd Fire in Eastern Oak Forests conference, held in Carbondale, IL, May 20-22, 2008. The conference was attended by over 200 people from a variety of groups, including federal and state agencies, nongovernmental organizations, universities, and private citizens.

If you are responsible for oak management, Managing Oak Forests in the Eastern United States is for you. It is the definitive practical guide for anyone interested in improving stewardship of eastern oak forests. Organized into three sections, the first section, "Background and Biology: Setting the Stage," helps you establish a solid understanding

Guidelines for using prescribed fire to regenerate and restore upland oak forests, woodlands, and savannas in eastern North America were developed by synthesizing the results of more than 100 scientific publications. The first four chapters provide background information on the values of oak ecosystems, eastern fire history, oak's adaptations to fire, and the findings of fire-oak research conducted over the past 50 years. The final chapter synthesizes that background information into guidelines that explain how to use prescribed fire to facilitate oak seedling establishment, release oak reproduction from competing mesophytic hardwoods, and rehabilitate open oak woodlands, oak savannas, and scrub oak communities. A reference section is also provided for readers desiring to delve more deeply into the associations between periodic fire and oak forests, woodlands, and savannas.