Size Dependency of Post-Disturbance Recovery of Multi-Stemmed Resprouting Trees

In frequently burned ecosystems, many plants persist by repeated resprouting from basal or belowground buds. This strategy requires that plants reach a balance between biomass loss and recovery, which depends on the shape of the relationship between pre- and post-fire size. Previous analyses of this relationship, however, have focused on the size of the largest stem, which ignores the importance of the multi-stem growth habit that is common in pyrogenic ecosystems. We hypothesized that the presence of multiple stems causes a substantial shift in the relationship between pre- and post-fire size and in the relationship between pre-fire size and size recovery. We measured the height and basal diameter, then calculated volume and biomass, of all stems of six tree species before and nine months after complete removal of aboveground biomass via coppicing. The number of resprouts was correlated with the original number of stems for four species. For all species, the relationship between pre-coppicing and resprout size fit a positive curvilinear function, and the shape of this curve did not differ for maximum and total stem size. Smaller individuals recovered a larger proportion of their pre-coppicing size than larger individuals, but the shape of the size recovery curves were the same regardless of whether the analysis was performed with all stems or only the largest stem. Our results indicate that measuring only the largest stem of multi-stemmed individuals is sufficient to assess the ability of individuals to recover after complete loss of aboveground biomass and persist under frequent burning.