Fire Effects on Seed banks and Vegetation in the Eastern Mojave Desert: Implications for Post-fire Management

.............................................................................................................................................................................. 1 Background and Purpose ................................................................................................................................................. 2 Objectives and hypotheses ...................................................................................................................................... 3 Study Description and Location ...................................................................................................................................... 4 Study area .................................................................................................................................................................... 4 Experimental design and sampling ......................................................................................................................... 4 Data analyses .............................................................................................................................................................. 6 Seed bank and vegetation .................................................................................................................................. 6 Burn severity ......................................................................................................................................................... 8 Results .................................................................................................................................................................................. 8 Seed bank diversity .................................................................................................................................................... 8 Seed bank density .................................................................................................................................................... 10 Vegetation diversity ................................................................................................................................................. 14 Vegetation cover ...................................................................................................................................................... 17 Burn severity correlations ...................................................................................................................................... 22 Key Findings and Relationship to Other Recent Studies ........................................................................................... 23 Seed bank diversity findings .................................................................................................................................. 23 Seed bank density findings ..................................................................................................................................... 24 Vegetation diversity findings .................................................................................................................................. 25 Vegetation density findings .................................................................................................................................... 26 Burn severity correlation findings ......................................................................................................................... 28 Management Implications .............................................................................................................................................. 29 Future Studies Needed ................................................................................................................................................... 31 Deliverables by Catgegory Listed in the Project Proposal ....................................................................................... 32 Website ...................................................................................................................................................................... 32 Progress reports ....................................................................................................................................................... 32 Final report ................................................................................................................................................................. 32