Masters Theses

Date of Award

6-1987

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Botany

Major Professor

Edward E. C. Clebsch

Committee Members

Walter Herndon, Ronald Hay

Abstract

Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park consists of five reservations in and around Chattanooga, Tennessee. The largest of the five is the Chickamauga Battlefield located about eight miles south of Chattanooga. The mandate of the National Park Service in managing Chickamauga Battlefield is to recreate the historic scene that existed during the battle that occurred there on September 19 and 20, 1863. This goal has resulted in the establishment of a management plan that proposes the use of prescribed burning to reduce hazardous fuel loads and to control alien and "weed species" that are not in keeping with the natural and historic scene.

The purpose of this study is to provide the Park Service with quantitative information regarding the effect of fire on fuel loads and pest species such as Lonicera japonica, Ligustrum sinense, and Rhus radicans. Three study areas were located in Chickamauga Battlefield that reflected the differing pine presence in the forest. Each block was divided into plots and a grid system was used to locate sample quadrats in each plot. Fuel weights, above ground biomass of honeysuckle, and counts of privet and poison ivy were collected both before and after prescribed fire. Two plots were burned during the fall of 1985 and six more during the following winter while two plots in each block remained untreated controls. Additionally one fourth of each of the 14 blocks was treated with glyphosate (Roundup) to test for the use of fire as a herbicide pretreatment. This was a randomized block design. Analyses of data were done using the General Linear Model of the Statistical Analysis System.

Prescribed burning did significantly reduce fuel loads and the biomass of honeysuckle on burned plots. There was a statistically different response in fuel load reduction between fall and winter burns but no important difference between the response of the different blocks. Poison ivy significantly increased on burn plots while privet counts did not vary significantly. Again there was no significant difference between the response of plots in different blocks.

Applications of glyphosate negatively impacted all three target species. Honeysuckle appeared to be damaged more readily on untreated plots while no difference in response was noted on privet. Significantly more poison ivy growing points were killed by herbicide applications on burned plots than on unburned plots.

Download
Files over 3MB may be slow to open. For best results, right-click and select "save as..."

Share

COinS