Fire-maintained upland oak-pine woodlands were once common across much of the interior East Gulf Coastal Plain of the United States. However, due to fire suppression, nearly all these systems are now closed-canopy forests. The change has been so dramatic that Natureserve does not recognize oak-pine woodlands as a natural vegetation type within the East Gulf Coastal Plain. Using mechanical thinning followed by prescribed fire, other investigators have successfully restored oak-pine woodlands from closed-canopy stands. Given the constraints on planned thinning, tornado damage (i.e., natural thinning) may serve as an impetus for restoring oak-pine woodlands. Fire exclusion and/or salvage logging after a tornado or other natural disturbance, however, may alter the regeneration trajectory and prevent restoration. In this study, we examined the initial effects of tornado damage and tornado damage combined with salvage logging on sapling recruitment in adjacent 10 x 30 m plots. We assumed that one measure of the success of restoration efforts was increased oak and pine regeneration.

Results/Conclusions

Distance-based linear models revealed an increase in densities of saplings of upland oaks and mesophytes in tornado damaged plots, but not in the undamaged plots or the salvage logged plots. Sapling densities of pines were low in all plots. Of the few saplings encountered in the salvage logged plots, most were mesophtyic pioneer trees such as sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua), winged elm (Ulmus alata), and persimmon (Diospyros virginina). One-half of the plots were scheduled to be burned in spring 2010, in part to see if prescribed burning could be an effective filter against mesophytic saplings, thereby giving oak saplings a competitive advantage. With the past successes of oak stand restoration from thinning and prescribed fire, we hypothesize that storm-damaged oak-pine stands, when subjected to prescribed burning, may offer an opportunity for restoring a rare ecosystem. Such an approach could be a desirable alternative to “hands-off” management or exploiting the damage for timber harvest and conversion to pine plantations.