DOI: 10.5061/dryad.1rn8pk0s8
title: Data from: Changes in ecosystem properties after postfire management strategies in wildfire affected areas

description: 1. Forest are highly vulnerable to global change drivers, such as an
 increase in wildfire events. Learning more about how and why different
 postfire management strategies regulate the ability of forest ecosystem
 properties (e.g., plant diversity and function) to simultaneously recover
 after wildfire and provide multiple ecosystem functions is of critical
 importance. 2. This study aims to evaluate how unburned, burned managed
 and burned unmanaged plots regulate the responses of multiple forest
 ecosystem properties (e.g., plant diversity, nutrient cycling, soil carbon
 stocks, water regulation, and decomposition and wood production) and
 overall multifunctionality to wildfires. In September 2017, we selected
 two postfire management strategies in a 3 km2 watershed previously
 affected by a wildfire in July 2012: contour-felled log debris (CFD), log
 erosion barriers area (LEB), and also unburned and unmanaged plots (BNA).
 We randomly distributed 12 plots among the three postfire management
 strategies (3 plots per treatment) and unburned. 3. The results showed
 that multiple forest ecosystem properties were significantly affected by
 wildfire and that specific postfire management treatment (e.g., LEB and
 CFD) can be used to efficiently support plant diversity and ecosystem
 functioning. Our results revealed that the general indicators of ecosystem
 functions decreased in Mediterranean forests after wildfires and postfire
 management strategies (LEB and CFD) significantly helped to recover the
 ecosystems’ short-term community-level properties and ecosystem functions
 (5 years after a wildfire event) to prefire levels. 
 4. Synthesis and applications: These findings demonstrate that
 multiple ecosystem functions are affected by wildfires in Mediterranean
 forests and show that postfire management treatments can promote
 multifunctionality and plant diversity. Our results unfold the potential
 of LEB and CFD as effective strategies for recovering community-level
 properties and forest functions in the short term.
description: Fifty variables, hereafter
 “indicators”, were measured at each plot as proxies of important forest
 ecosystem functions. The nutrient content (N, Ca, P, K, and Na) values
 determined for each plot were used to estimate nutrient cycling function.
 Soil respiration and carbon stocks were employed as a proxy for climate
 regulation (e.g., carbon cycling regulation). Soil enzyme activities
 (dehydrogenase, β-glucosidase, urease, and phosphatase activities) were
 utilized as a proxy of the waste decomposition function. Glomalin, a
 glycoprotein produced abundantly on hyphae and spores of arbuscular
 mycorrhizal fungi in soil and roots, was used as a proxy of the symbiosis
 function, whereas the basal area was taken as a proxy of wood production.
 Finally, SWR and soil infiltration were used to evaluate the water
 regulation function. To obtain a quantitative standardized
 multifunctionality index for each treatment (i.e., UB, BNA, CFD, and LEB),
 all six measured functions (i.e., nutrient cycling, decomposition, water
 regulation, wood production, climate regulation, and symbiosis) were first
 normalized (log-transformed whenever necessary) and standardized by the
 Z-score transformation. Previously, we grouped the indicators into the six
 functions and then took the average of the six functions to create the
 index. These standardized ecosystem functions were then averaged to obtain
 a multifunctionality index.