Prescribed Burn Effects on Natural Regeneration in Pine Flatwoods: Implications for Uneven-Aged Stand Conversion from a Florida Study

Uneven-aged silvicultural approaches are increasingly utilized as efficient management strategies for economic and ecological sustainability of forest resources, including in the southeastern United States where there is interest in converting intensively managed pine plantations to uneven-aged stands. However, success of stand conversion and perpetuation of an uneven-aged forest stand depends on obtaining adequate regeneration of the desired species and its ability to develop into merchantable size classes. In fire-maintained ecosystems, regeneration dynamics can be challenging for species such as slash pine that are not tolerant of fire in the seedling stage. In this study, we examined the survival of slash pine (Pinus elliottii Englm.) regeneration (seedlings and saplings) following prescribed burns in (1) a harvest-created gap (0.4 ha; 70 m diameter) and (2) a mature stand with abundant advanced regeneration at two mesic-hydric flatwoods sites in northwest Florida, USA. We characterized the prescribed burns at the two sites and quantified survival of regeneration of different size classes (3 m) at 10 months after the burn. Within the gap, the greatest survival of regeneration was observed at the center (12.5% survival) in comparison to the other positions in the gap (1.92% to 7.14% survival), with all seedlings