The Effects of Prescribed Burning on Vegetation Community Composition: A Case Study at Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve

BIOL 406 - Term Project: While fire can be perceived as an unwanted event, it can be used as an ecological service for ecosystems that depend on fire cycles. Oak savannas would be considered one of these ecosystems as they thrive and benefit from burnings. For my final project, my colleagues and I wanted to investigate whether prescribed burning influences biodiversity within the Cedar Creek oak savanna. We performed all our data manipulation and statistical analysis using Rstudio software.

Full Report here: BOL406_final-project-report_SimonCampbell

The results of our study suggest that average biomass and species richness, respectively, are not influenced by burn frequency grouped by year of observation. However, average biomass and species richness are suggested to increase according to burn frequencies grouped with native species and decrease with burn frequencies and invasive status. An ideal burn frequency was not identified from the statistical analyses, however, the species status is an important variable to consider in conservation approaches. Our study partially supports the hypothesis that fire cycles promote biodiversity in terms of species biomass and richness. Our findings of the beneficial effects of prescribed burning have broad implications for the restoration of oak savannas.

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