Fire in North American Wetland Ecosystems and Fire-Wildlife Relations: An Annotated Bibliography

80. Foster, D. R., and P. H. Glaser. 1986. The raised bogs of southeastern Labrador, 
         Canada: classification, distribution, vegetation and recent dynamics. J. 
         Ecol. 74:47-71.

Lightning fires are an important environmental factor in southeastern Labrador. Fires spread easily from adjoining uplands through the shrubby and woody margins of raised mires. On the bog proper, fire burns preferentially along lichen-covered ridges and hummocks, eliminating lichen cover and killing conifers and aboveground portions of other vascular species. Peat moss is apparently killed by heat and there is little removal of peat or production of charcoal. Shrubs sprout prolifically after fire, and the charred humus becomes covered by lichens. With the exception of black crowberry, black spruce, and tamarack larch, which are killed by fire, the vascular species resprout to approximately their original cover within 20 years. [K-L-S]

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