The waiting game: Passive restoration of biological soil crusts after fire in coastal California

Brianne R Palmer, Plant Science, University of California, Davis, San Diego, CA; Biology, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA and David Lipson, Department of Biology, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA

Passive restoration is the idea that given the time, ecosystems will recover on their own. We were interested in how biocrusts recover from coastal grassland fires and understand how much time it may take to restore functionality and community composition passively. We found that one year after a prescribed fire and six years after a wildfire, the burned plots had greater biocrust cover and similar community composition to the unburned plots. From this we concluded that in this ecosystem, biocrusts recover rapidly from fire and reach similar community composition and ecosystem functionality within one year after a fire.