Effects of Two Prescribed Fires on Red Maple Regeneration Across Four Levels of Canopy Cover

Oak species have maintained an important role in eastern U.S. forests for the last 8,000 years (Foster and others 2002). Intense changes in land use and disturbance regimes brought on by European settlement helped oak persist and expand its range through the 1800s. Mixed-oak forests persist as the predominant forest type in present-day eastern forests, but very little oak recruitment into the overstory has occurred since the implementation of fire suppression in the early 1900s (Abrams 1992). Advanced oak regeneration on high-quality and some intermediate-quality sites is being replaced in the midstory by more mesic, shade-tolerant species (Abrams and Nowacki 1992). Red maple (Acer rubrum) is often the most frequently occurring competitor on upland oak sites in much of the eastern United States (Abrams 1998, 2005). Current thinking is that reintroduction of representative fire regimes into eastern oak systems may help promote oak recruitment and impede the development of red maple competition..