Version 1
: Received: 16 February 2024 / Approved: 17 February 2024 / Online: 18 February 2024 (11:49:46 CET)
How to cite:
Ajao, A.; Sharma, S.; Wait, D.A.; Khanal, P. A New Landscape for Southwest Ozark Missouri Woodlands?. Preprints2024, 2024020923. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202402.0923.v1
Ajao, A.; Sharma, S.; Wait, D.A.; Khanal, P. A New Landscape for Southwest Ozark Missouri Woodlands?. Preprints 2024, 2024020923. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202402.0923.v1
Ajao, A.; Sharma, S.; Wait, D.A.; Khanal, P. A New Landscape for Southwest Ozark Missouri Woodlands?. Preprints2024, 2024020923. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202402.0923.v1
APA Style
Ajao, A., Sharma, S., Wait, D.A., & Khanal, P. (2024). A New Landscape for Southwest Ozark Missouri Woodlands?. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202402.0923.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Ajao, A., D Alexander Wait and Puskar Khanal. 2024 "A New Landscape for Southwest Ozark Missouri Woodlands?" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202402.0923.v1
Abstract
Oak woodlands are a keystone ecosystem that may not be sustainable under ongoing fire management regimes and climate change. For example, in 2014, sassafras saplings started to emerge in degraded woodlands at the 1200 ha Drury Conservation Area as part of research at the Bull Shoals Field Station in Taney County, Missouri where burning was initiated in 1999. After Spring (March) 2021 burnt, we examined trend in the potential community and ecosystem effects, we assessed sapling density, height, and specific leave weigh (SLW) of white oak and sassafras (<1.0 m) from fall 2021 through fall 2022. In fall 2021, sassafras density was 560/0.1ha with mean height of 25.42cm and SLW of 0.00436g/cm2 while white Oak density was 171/0.1ha with mean height of 10.2cm and SLW of 0.00680g/cm. However, in fall 2022, Sassafras density was 582/0.1ha with mean height of 71.689cm and SLW of 0.00366 g/cm2 meanwhile, white Oak density was 213/0.1ha with mean height of 50.544cm and SLW of 0.00563 g/cm2. We analyzed mass loss for sassafras and white oak after buried for 198 days. The weight loss for sassafras was 0.857g while oak was 0.790g for 61 days of buried. Subsequent sassafras weight loss was 1.942g, 3.343g, 4.222g and 4.82g while that of white Oak was 1.877g, 2.862g, 3.344g and 4.28g for day 105, 153 and 198 respectively. The nutrients composition and carbon sequestration of sassafras and white oak species need to be determined to better understand the effect of their dominance in fire management regime of degraded oak woodland in Southwest Missouri Ozarks.
Keywords
woodland; regression; t-test; specific leaf weight; decomposition
Subject
Environmental and Earth Sciences, Ecology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
