{"id":16780,"date":"2023-10-19T19:46:47","date_gmt":"2023-10-19T23:46:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/?p=16780"},"modified":"2023-10-19T19:54:38","modified_gmt":"2023-10-19T23:54:38","slug":"in-the-longleaf-ecosystem-more-fire-more-carbon-stored","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/2023-10-19\/in-the-longleaf-ecosystem-more-fire-more-carbon-stored\/","title":{"rendered":"In the longleaf ecosystem: more fire, more carbon stored?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/IMG_9929-forsurebanne-nova2-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Pine Cone on Fire\" class=\"wp-image-16782\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/IMG_9929-forsurebanne-nova2-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/IMG_9929-forsurebanne-nova2-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/IMG_9929-forsurebanne-nova2-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/IMG_9929-forsurebanne-nova2-391x260.jpg 391w, https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/IMG_9929-forsurebanne-nova2-696x464.jpg 696w, https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/IMG_9929-forsurebanne-nova2-1068x712.jpg 1068w, https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/IMG_9929-forsurebanne-nova2-630x420.jpg 630w, https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/IMG_9929-forsurebanne-nova2.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<iframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3WtU-RhFwyY?si=c0LZnNdx8TsMDm5A\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p>I set the camera on the ground, and watch as the fire burns slowly through the grass towards me. By the end of the day, the ground will be black and empty. Fire hits the reset button in longleaf ecosystems; applied every 1-3 years, grasses and wildflowers cover more ground than do woody plants. In turn, this openness suits a host of animals that have evolved in this landscape. Frequent fire creates ecological balance here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But might ecological balance locally contribute to an environmental imbalance globally? Watching the foliage turn to ash and smoke, we\u2019re seeing carbon leave plants and enter the atmosphere. Regular prescribed fire is good for plants and animals, but might it be contributing to global climate change?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s a question that has interested researchers in recent decades. One of those researchers is Dr. Josh Puhlick, a silviculturist at the Jones Center at Ichauway, in south Georgia. Today the Jones Center is applying prescribed fire to several plots of longleaf forest. They\u2019ve been at it for a little over a month, and so we can see different plots in different states of regrowth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Jones Center is a 29,000 acre laboratory, and these parcels of land are the foundation of the research conducted here. In these plots, Josh and his colleagues can see how flora and fauna respond to fire in different scenarios. They can experiment with different methods of sustainably harvesting timber from the forest. And they can also see how this ecosystem stores and releases carbon after a fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.wfsu.org\/blog-coastal-health\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/GOPR0966-small.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.wfsu.org\/blog-coastal-health\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/GOPR0966-small-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"A grassy, open canopy at the Jones Center at Ichauway.\" class=\"wp-image-20846\"\/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A grassy, open canopy at the Jones Center at Ichauway, north of Bainbridge, Georgia along the Flint River.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Can the longleaf pine habitat store more carbon than it burns away?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>To many, longleaf pine ecosystems are more savannas than forests. The ideal habitat resembles a grassland, with pines standing a respectful distance from one another. When thinking about carbon in this habitat, I think of how few trees there are compared to other forest types.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>About 58% of a plant\u2019s matter is carbon. It would take a lot of wiregrass to store as much carbon as a tree that can grow to 120 feet tall, and that has a dense wooden trunk. Fire suppresses oaks and other hardwoods, not killing them, but keeping them small. Without fire, they become full sized trees, and so they would store much more carbon. Allowing this to happen would reduce the diversity of plant and animal species in the system, but might it not take more carbon out of the atmosphere?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then there\u2019s the smoke. Plants store carbon in their bodies in the form of carbohydrates. When fire burns away the grasses, palmettos, wildflowers, and the leaves of all the hardwoods, carbohydrates become carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Doing the carbon math on my fingers, it\u2019s hard to see the longleaf ecosystem as carbon negative (meaning it takes in more carbon than it emits). But when the Jones Center and other researchers&nbsp;<em>actually<\/em>&nbsp;measure the carbon coming into and going out of the whole system, what do they find? The answer\u2019s not as obvious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-1 wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link has-vivid-green-cyan-background-color has-background has-text-align-center wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.wfsu.org\/blog-coastal-health\/2023\/05\/in-the-longleaf-ecosystem-more-fire-more-carbon-stored\/\">Click here to read the rest of this article on the WFSU Ecology Blog<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I set the camera on the ground, and watch as the fire burns slowly through the grass towards me. By the end of the day, the ground will be black and empty. Fire hits the reset button in longleaf ecosystems; applied every 1-3 years, grasses and wildflowers cover more ground than do woody plants. In [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":16782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":"","wds_primary_category":136},"categories":[1522,136],"tags":[52],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>In the longleaf ecosystem: more fire, more carbon stored? - WFSU Local Routes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/2023-10-19\/in-the-longleaf-ecosystem-more-fire-more-carbon-stored\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In the longleaf ecosystem: more fire, more carbon stored? - WFSU Local Routes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I set the camera on the ground, and watch as the fire burns slowly through the grass towards me. By the end of the day, the ground will be black and empty. Fire hits the reset button in longleaf ecosystems; applied every 1-3 years, grasses and wildflowers cover more ground than do woody plants. In [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/2023-10-19\/in-the-longleaf-ecosystem-more-fire-more-carbon-stored\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"WFSU Local Routes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-10-19T23:46:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-10-19T23:54:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/IMG_9929-forsurebanne-nova2.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rob Diaz de Villegas\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rob Diaz de Villegas\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/2023-10-19\/in-the-longleaf-ecosystem-more-fire-more-carbon-stored\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/2023-10-19\/in-the-longleaf-ecosystem-more-fire-more-carbon-stored\/\",\"name\":\"In the longleaf ecosystem: more fire, more carbon stored? - WFSU Local Routes\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2023-10-19T23:46:47+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-10-19T23:54:38+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/#\/schema\/person\/ec1064679708b0ea57f955a40095f7a2\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/2023-10-19\/in-the-longleaf-ecosystem-more-fire-more-carbon-stored\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/2023-10-19\/in-the-longleaf-ecosystem-more-fire-more-carbon-stored\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/2023-10-19\/in-the-longleaf-ecosystem-more-fire-more-carbon-stored\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"In the longleaf ecosystem: more fire, more carbon stored?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/\",\"name\":\"WFSU Local Routes\",\"description\":\"Local stories from northern Florida and southern Georgia.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/#\/schema\/person\/ec1064679708b0ea57f955a40095f7a2\",\"name\":\"Rob Diaz de Villegas\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/f80\/f80bc05b01deefb64e462ebfed093036x96.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/f80\/f80bc05b01deefb64e462ebfed093036x96.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Rob Diaz de Villegas\"},\"description\":\"Rob Diaz de Villegas is a senior producer for television at WFSU Public Media, covering outdoors and ecology. After years of producing the music program OutLoud, Rob found himself in a salt marsh with a camera, and found a new professional calling as well. That project, the National Science Foundation funded \\\"In the Grass, On the Reef,\\\" spawned the award-winning WFSU Ecology Blog. Now in its tenth year, the Ecology Blog recently wrapped its most ambitious endeavor, the EcoCitizen Project. 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