Fire effects on tree overstories in the oak savannas of the Southwestern Borderlands Region

Effects of cool-season and warm-season prescribed burning treatments and a wildfire on tree overstories in oak savannas on the Cascabel Watersheds of the Southwestern Borderlands Region are reported in this paper. Information on the initial survival, levels of crown damage, species compositions and densities, annual growth rates, and basal sprouting following these burning events is presented. Impact of the fires on spatial distributions of trees in the overstories is also described. These events were all of low fire severities. As a consequence, effects of the prescribed burning treatments and the wildfire on tree overstories of the watersheds were similar and, therefore, the data sets were pooled. Effects of these fires on the tree overstories were mostly minor and often insignificant in terms of management implications.