Effects of short-interval reburns in the boreal forest on soil bacterial communities compared to long-interval reburns

Abstract Increasing fire frequency in some biomes is leading to fires burning in close succession, triggering rapid vegetation change and altering soil properties. We studied the effects of short-interval (SI) reburns on soil bacterial communities of the boreal forest of northwestern Canada using paired sites (n = 44). Both sites in each pair had burned in a recent fire; one site had burned within the previous 20 years before the recent fire (SI reburn) and the other had not. Paired sites were closely matched in prefire ecosite characteristics, prefire tree species composition, and stand structure. We hypothesized that there would be a significant effect of short vs. long fire-free intervals on community composition and that richness would not be consistently different between paired sites. We found that Blastococcus sp. was consistently enriched in SI reburns, indicating its role as a strongly ‘pyrophilous’ bacterium. Caballeronia sordidicola was consistently depleted in SI reburns. The depletion of this endophytic diazotroph raises questions about whether this is contributing to—or merely reflects—poor conifer seedling recolonization post-fire at SI reburns. While SI reburns had no significant effect on richness, dissimilarity between short- and long-interval pairs was significantly correlated with difference in soil pH, and there were small significant changes in overall community composition. A paired-site study of short-interval (SI) reburns in the Canadian boreal forest demonstrates that SI reburns alter soil bacterial communities, accompanied by changes in pH and poor conifer seedling establishment, and identifies specific bacteria associated with SI reburns.