Effects of Past and Present Fire on the
Vegetation of the French Mediterranean
Region1
Louis Trabaud2
Since 1960 wildfires have burned an average of
36,000 hectares a year of natural vegetation in
southern France. Some years the area burned greatly exceeds this average (e.g. 52,800 hectares in
1976). The most important trends for the last two
decades are a steady increase in number of fires,
but a relative constancy in the total area burned
(Trabaud 1980).
The most numerous and most harmful wildfires
occur in the Mediterranean zone, an area which
stretches from the eastern Pyrenees to the southern
Alps, including Corsica. This area is characterized by its geographical position near the Mediterranean sea and by its climate with hot dry summer and mild rainy winters. The long dry summer
season, with warm temperatures and low relative
humidity, is particularly favourable to fire. Besides, the mediterranean vegetation type is highly flammable and combustible due to the preponderance of species with a high content of resins or
essential oils. In addition, the rugged topography
of the area increases the ease of fire spread. The
presence of millions of people (both residents and
tourists) in this region can also contribute to
create an "explosive" fire situation under certain
conditions.
It is apparent that fire is an important past
and present ecological force which has played and
continues to play a significant role in fashioning,
positioning, and developing numerous mediterranean
plant communities. Used for a long time by man to
reclaim virgin lands or to maintain already burned
plots, fire associated with other human activities
has had a significant impact on shaping the current
landscape of the French Mediterranean region.
Abstract: Fire has shaped the French Mediterranean vegetation for a long time. Man used and
abused fire for reclaiming agricultural lands.
Today, fire is mainly lit by carelessness. Most
plants of the mediterranean vegetation have acquired
strategies to withstand and survive fire. After
wildfire, vegetation turns back quickly towards its
initial stage. By using prescribed burnings according to different frequencies and seasons the
structure of a Quercus coccifera garrigue was
changed, but not the floristic composition.
FIRE HISTORY ELEMENTS
Fire during Prehistory
Man had probably begun to frequent the French
Mediterranean region half a million years ago. At
that time he had little impact on the native vegetation as he was primarily fed by hunting animals
and gathering fruits and edible roots.
As soon as man possessed fire (about 300,000
years B.C.; Perles 1975, 1977) he had many reasons
for burning. These have remained essentially the
same until the present time. In fact, man has probably voluntarily used fire for hundreds of thousands of years. Without knowing how to create fire,
man carefully preserved natural fire whenever possible. Hough (1926) said that the oldest known
torch dates from about 100,000 years ago in France.
It was not until later (40,000 to 50,000 years B.C.)
that prehistoric man learned to create and control
fire.
First the hunter and the herdsman must have noted that the animals they fed upon were attracted
by burned zones, where vegetation appeared greener
and softer. Hence, it appears that man has set fire, accidentally through lack of care, but also
intentionally, for a great number of purposes. It
seems that fire has been used to increase food
choice, to facilitate the gathering of edible plants,
and to attract and hunt game. Testimonies are available to show that Paleolithic man used this technique in Greece (Liacos 1974), Israel (Naveh 1974),
Spain and France (Perles 1977). With the domestication of animals, which took place in the French
Mediterranean region about 7,000 years B.C.
(Bailloud 1975), man needed rangelands. He burned
the forest to be able to see more clearly and protect his domestic animals against their natural
predators.
2-Departement d'Ecologie Générale - Centre
d'Etudes Phytosociologiques et Ecologiques B.P.
5051 - 34033 - Montpellier Cedex - FRANCE
During the Neolithic (about 5,000 years B.C.),
men of this area were primarily field growers and
sedentary herdsmen (Pannoux and Pannoux 1957,
Dugrand 1964). They occupied fields after partial
burning of the forest, supplementing their resources by picking fruit. Beaulieu (1969) interpreted
evidence of fire in the pollen diagram of the
Font-Salesse peat-bog (Monts de 1'Espinouse) as
being from this period, and concluded that it must
be ascribed to human intervention. Those farming
peoples, or their immediate predecessors, could
have engaged in nomadic agriculture, a sort of
shifting cultivation such as is still used in some
450
Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-58. Berkeley, CA: Pacific Southwest Forest and Range
Experiment Station, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture; 1982.
1-Presented at the Symposium on Dynamics and
Management of Mediterranean-type Ecosystems, June
22-26, 1981, San Diego, California
areas of Africa and Asia where fire is set before
or after tree-felling, followed by reclamation
and cultivation. Cultivation shifted as soon as
production decreased as a result of the soil becoming poorer. The village might also be moved to
remain near the arable lands.
Fire has also been used as a technique for comtry around Montpellier was regularly burned to promote proliferation of the kermes oak (Quercus coccifera L.) cochineal bettle (Kermococcus vermilio)
in order to obtain from it a red dye for dyeing
wool (Delmas 1958).
The successors of the paleolithic hunter-gatherer, the mediterranean shepherds, used and still
today are using fire to open the dense thickets
of maquis and garrigue to increase the area of
rangelands for their herds (goats, sheep and cattle). Thus, Niederlender and others (1966) ascribe
the modification of the vegetation of calcareous
regions of southern France to man, who set fires
repeatedly during the Neolithic.
Fire has also been effectively used as a war weapon for destroying crops. The country to be subdued
was ravaged and the inhabitants famished and demoralized by setting afire forests and fields. In
970 A.D., the people, around Nice set fire to the
forest to hinder the ambushes of the Saracens
(Kuhnholtz-Lordat 1938). In the Middle Ages, the
"Grandes Compagnies" and bands of ruffians pillaged and set fire to fields and woods (Fourquin
1975). During the 16th century, great areas of
forest were burned as the armies of the constable
of France Charles de Bourbon, of Charles V, and of
Emmanuel de Savoie passed through. The forests of
Mont des Maures were burned during the battles between the armies of Charles V and those of Francois
I (Seigue 1972). It was the same during the rebellion of the Camisards in the Cevennes (Le Roy
Ladurie 1976).
Fire during historical times
During the historical period (which runs from
the first Greek factories, 750 years B.C., up to
the beginning of the 20th century), that country
today occupied by the garrigue underwent a series
of changes. Periods of population increase produced new waves of land reclamation, and simultaneous
increase in the number and size of herds. There
followed both an expansion of cultivated lands at
the expense of rangelands and of rangelands at the
expense of forests. On the other hand, during periodic disasters, due to wars, invasions, epidemic
diseases and economic crises, cultivated lands were
abandoned, returning to post-cultural or pre-forested stages (Dugrand 1964).
Most fires ignited by man were set for agricultural or pastoral purposes. Due both to poor yields
and the need to feed growing numbers of people,
man had to increasingly reclaim new cultivated
lands. Fire was associated with the "essartage" or
"ecobuage". In the first case, trees were first
felled, then burned and the land was sown. In the
case of "ecobuage" the technique was more complex.
The ground was "fleeced" with adapted tools and
according to precise methods; afterwards, the
clods were dried up, then burned. The ashes were
used as fertilizer.
These agricultural practices were in use throughout the French Mediterranean region at least
from the Middle Ages through the end of the 19th
century (Ribbe 1865, Kuhnholtz-Lordat 1938, 1958,
Sigaut 1975). Ecobuage was mainly employed in
Languedoc and Roussillon where, during the 18th
century, authorities intervened to limit cultivation on burned lands. It was between 1820 and 1830
that the largest areas were burned by ecobuage in
southern France (Sigaut 1975). Essartage was still
used in 1870 in crystalline Provence (Les Maures,
1'Esterel) and in the Montagne Noire. In Provence
the forests of maritime pine (Pinus pinaster Soland) were burned. The burned pines were then cut
and sold at Marseille and the cleared lands cultivated (Kuhnholtz-Lordat 1958). In Corsica that
technique was still in use in 1930 to create arable fields (Sigaut 1975).
In later periods (towards the middle of the 19th
century, Sigaut 1975), with the emergence of
new technologies, fire has been less and less used
to reclaim lands. Only shepherds continued to set
fire, primarily through tradition to open rangelands on abandoned fields that had become increasingly invaded by shrubby vegetation. Fire was required to promote the growth of new shoots of palatable species. As Le Roy Ladurie (1976) states,
burning off pasturelands in Languedoc was the only
way used during the 17th century to improve feed
for animals. Animal husbandry was regulated by
"transhumance" (travelling into the mountains to
graze in summer and coming back down to the plains
in winter ; transhumance was documented 1,000 years
B.C., Bailloud 1975). Shepherds burned every four
or five years either in February or March, before
the growth of herbaceous species, or at the beginning of autumn before the flocks come down from
transhumance.
Fire today
While the causes of burning have shifted over
the years the French Mediterranean region has continued to be fired. It is difficult to know the
importance of the lightning fires in the past because we have no precise records, but today in
southern France only 1 percent of the wildfires
are caused by lightning.
At present, flocks of sheep, although less numerous, continue to graze the garrigue rangelands.
But the origin of fire is no longer the exclusive
liability of shepherds. The town dwellers, eager
for calm and clean air and wishing to "come back
to nature", are building homes in increasing numbers in the country. Large numbers of people who
now travel through southern France are tourists or
451
holiday-makers. They create a new danger. As a
consequence of current ways of life (homes in the
woods, barbecues, hikers) fire risks are increasing.
Besides, people living or travelling through these
zones which are susceptible to fire are often ignorant of the chance they take or the imprudence they
create for other people.
Today the areas burned by wildfires change according to the vagaries of meteorological conditions. In the area called "the red belt" in Provence
and Corsica (Southeastern France) each piece of
natural vegetation would be burned, on an average,
once every 25 years (Seigue 1972). This fact clearly shows the problem of vegetation fire in southern
France, but also the importance of fire as an ecological force shaping the landscape and the plant
communities. This emphasizes the necessity to obtain a scientific knowledge of the effects of fire.
ECOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF FOREST FIRES
In France, to date, only a few authors have studied the role of fire as a factor in succession
(Braun-Blanquet 1936, Laurent 1937, KuhnholtzLordat 1938, 1958 , Kornas 1958, and Barry 1960).
Generally these authors describe stages corresponding to vegetation types ; they give some information about succession following fire, and compare
the different stages to each other only in a synchronic way. Precise diachronic observations are
very rare on the actual succession of plant communities after fire. There are also few available
data about the ecological consequences of fire.
Effects of fire on mediterranean plants
Plants react to fire in very different ways.
They possess numerous fire-related adaptations.
Nobody has studied in a precise manner the problem
of the relative resistance of species to fire, probably because of the numerous factors which are
acting.
For any given species there is a range of
fire-resistance possibilities which vary according
to fire intensity. These possibilities may vary
with growing season and maturity. For example, observations show that winter or spring fires do not
harm the subsequent development of sprouts of
Quercus ilex L. (holly oak) or Q. coccifera L.
(kermes scrub oak ; Trabaud 1970, 1974, 1980),
while fires in summer or autumn, which are more
intense, decrease sprouting ability.
The plants of sclerophyllous communities in
the mediterranean region are adapted to survive
after the passage of fires, particularly light
fires, where the plant cover quickly builds up
again (Le Houerou 1974, Naveh 1974, Trabaud 1974,
1980). Among the fire adaptations observed are
plants with little or no bark, but which can survive owing to subterranean organs (bulbs, rhizomes,
and tubers), geophytes such as Asphodelus cerasifer Gay (Trabaud 1974) and Ophrys sp.p (Naveh 1974,
452
1975), and grasses such as Brachypodium ramosum
(L.) R. et S. (Trabaud 1974). The latter species
shows a noteworthy indifference towards burning dates
and fire frequency. Some species possess strong
vegetative subterranean systems, like Quercus coccifera (Trabaud 1974, 1980). Other kinds of vegetation shaped by fire include tall maquis dominated
by Q. ilex, and Ericaceae including Arbustus unedo
L., Erica arborea and E. scoparia L. All these species produce vigorous stump sprouts; consequently
they dominate the burned forests or maquis (Le
Houerou 1974, Naveh 1974, 1975).
Some trees, such as Quercus suber L. (cork oak),
have relatively thick bark permitting them to resist fire. According to Le Houerou (1974) cork oak
forests would be a stage in fire succession of the
Q. faginea Lamk. forests in North Africa, Portugal
and Spain, where the latter oak has been eliminated
by burning. In France, cork oak would be only a
vicariant of holly oak on warmer and moister siliceous soils. When fire is neither very frequent nor
very intense, open forests of Q. suber maintain
themselves. However, despite the role of bark thickness, many species with thin bark, such as Q. ilex,
withstand fire very well. This species sprouts
abundantly from stumps, but when fires are not too
intense it can produce sprouts from epicormic buds.
Some species do not withstand fire directly but,
owing to their ability to disseminate numerous seeds,
they can survive fire and also colonize large areas.
Such species include Cistus sp.p. (Trabaud 1970).
Le Houérou (1974) quotes 12 species of mediterranean Cistus considered as typical active pyrophytes
propagating only by seed. Another example is that
of coniferous species, which are among the most
flammable ecosystems in the region. Pinus halepensis Mill. (Aleppo pine) and P. pinaster Soland.
(maritime pine) constitute huge forests in the Mediterranean region. They can regenerate only by
seed, disseminated by cones which often burst during fires (Le Houérou 1974, Trabaud 1970, 1980).
Generally after fire the pine forests are colonized by a large number of pine seedlings which produce a new pine forest, with no change in the floristic composition. Since seeds of these two Pines
germinate on mineral soil in sunny places, where
competition is weakest and where mineral nutrients
are abundant, the pine forests may perpetuate themselves indefinitely.
Ecological effects of fire on plant communities of
Southern France
After fire the vegetation of the garrigue returns quickly towards its initial state (Trabaud
1974, 1977, 1980, Trabaud and Lepart 1980). Most
often the species which are present 12 years after
fire are the first ones to appear immediately following fire and become more and more numerous
through the years. To study this, 47 observation
plots were established in areas burned by wildfires
in Bas-Languedoc. These were located in 8 types
of plant communities representative of the area.
One year after fire 70 percent of the study plots
the period of observation (Trabaud and Lepart 1980).
The fugacity of any species is measured by the number of observations in which it is missing. The fugacity index can be considered as a measure of floristic stability: if the index is high, the community has not reached a stable state, if it equals
zero the community is floristically stable. Fugacity is low immediately after fire and reaches its
maximal value during the first and second year, when
floristic richness is also at its maximum. Therefore
the richness of the intermediate stages results
from shortlived species which are progressively
eliminated during vegetation recovery. Most often
these species are therophytes which do not belong
to the communities.
Figure 1 -- Floristic richness of dense Quercus
ilex coppices.
possessed more than 75 percent of the species which
are present 10 or 12 years later. Two years after
fire, this percentage was over 80 percent; and in
five years it reached 100 percent. The reversion
towards a metastable state, at least for the time
considered, was quickly accomplished.
This study of the development of floristic
richness following fire shows that the different
communities follow a highly general model (fig. 1).
During the first months after fire there were relatively few species. Floristic richness reaches a
maximum between the first and the third year after
fire, and finally tends to stabilize after the
fifth year.
The generally higher number of species during
the first three years can be attributed to the fire-induced opening of vegetation cover, the disappearance of litter, and to the richness in nutrients
of the upper soil. These conditions favour the establishment of exogenous species which will later
disappear as plant cover closes up.
The index of species fugacity is similar to the
model of floristic richness (fig. 2). A "fugacious"
species is defined as one that does not survive
Actually, after fire, there is no real succession in the sense of substitution of species or
communities, but only a progressive return towards
a stage similar to the one before fire. Most often
the species of the "terminal" community (defined
by the latest dated observation) appear long before the alien species. Floristic composition of
present communities is changed very little by fire.
The return towards a metastable state occurs quickly
and the floristic diversity of the landscape does
not seem to be affected. At least for the length
of time of this study and for the plant communities
in Bas-Languedoc there is no convergence towards similar vegetation types. Each community keeps its
own characteristics.
This result is also confirmed by the structural
development of the communities. The passage of fire
has not only an effect upon floristic composition
but it modifies the plant arrangement and phytomass.
After fire and through succeeding years, stand strata get more and more complex and vegetation tends
to grow up from the lower layer to the upper layers
with a progressive multiplicity of strata similar
to those of origin (fig. 3): the higher strata
appear later in succession. These trends were quantified by recording the number of hits on plants at
various layers by a needle dropped along a transect line. During the 12 years of observation only
Quercus ilex coppices reach the fifth layer (from
2 to 4 m). Pinus halepensis stands, though belonging to forest communities generally do not grow
beyond the third layer (1 m). This difference is
due to the kind of survival strategy used by the
dominant species of each community to regenerate
after fire. Q. ilex sprouts vigorously from stumps
and rapidly grows reaching heights 'of 2 m in 70
months, while P. halepensis can only regenerate by
seed and thus shows a slower growth following fire
(80 cm in 80 months).
Changes in Q. coccifera garrigue with different
prescribed fire regimes
Figure 2 -- Development of the fugacity index:
dense Quercus ilex coppices
The study of the development of post-wildfire
vegetation showed that plant communities quickly
recover, and that after about 10 years they are
not much different from those which existed before
the fire. To analyze more precisely and to better
understand the effects of fire on plants and vegetation, it is necessary to set up experimentation
453
with prescribed fires. Only an experimentation on
vegetation stands identified and studied before
burning will give reliable results which can be
compared with observations from plots burned by
wildfires.
Such experimentation was set up in a Quercus
coccifera garrigue 10 km north of Montpellier. The
objective was to analyze:
1) the development of vegetation with regards
to the initial pre-fire state to determine the fire resistance of species;
2) the impact on vegetation of different frequencies of repeated burns (a burn every six years,
a burn every three years, and a burn every two
years);
3) the effects on vegetation of the time (season)
of burning, to determine how seasonal conditions,
which affect the phenological behavior of species,
relate to fire effects.
The presentation of the experimental techniques
and partial results were published previously by
Trabaud (1974, 1977, 1980). Thus only a brief summary of effects on floristic composition and changes in vegetation structure will be discussed in
the present paper.
The combination of burning frequency and burning season gives six treatments:
6 P - vegetation burned every six years in spring
3 P - vegetation burned every three years in
spring
2 P - vegetation burned every two years in spring
6 A - vegetation burned every six years in autumn
3 A - vegetation burned every three years in autumn
2 A - vegetation burned every two years in autumn
The unburnt vegetation was considered as a control
(T). All of these treatments have five replicates.
As for the study of the development of vegetation
structure after wildfire, the importance of vegetation is given by the number of hits on plants of
defined layers by a needle.
The floristic composition of the Quercus coccifera garrigue is on the whole very stable. After
burning it is identical to that which existed at
the beginning of the experiment. The dominant and
characteristic species are present at all times.
The advent or the disappearance of some of them
produces only a small floristic change. This relative stability is due to the fact that most of
species present in the plots before burning regenerate predominantly by vegetative means (sprouts),
while the "invading" species appear only the first
year after burning as individuals coming from seeds.
They are rapidly eliminated in later years. The
influence of season of burning is much more important than burning frequency; with autumn burnings
many alien short-lived species appear increasing
454
Figure 3 - Development through time of the number
of hits according to the height of strata of the
communities burned by wildfires.
the floristic richness for a short time whereas
other species of the original community disappear.
Frequently repeated fires alter the structure
of the vegetation. Immediately after each burning
there was a decrease in the number of hits (disappearence of above ground vegetation), then a progressive increase, following autumn burns this increase is slower. When burning is only every six
years, the vegetation of the Quercus coccifera garrigue reaches a level similar to that of the unburnt garrigue within five year after prescribed
fire. On the other hand, burnings regularly set
every two years produce a decrease in the total
number of hits. This repetition of burns leads to
a disappearance of the upper layers (above 50 cm)
but it favours an increase in the amount of vegetation in the lower layers (< 25 cm).
The decrease in the number of hits is mainly
due to the woody plants which have fewer long
sprouts bearing fewer leaves. But the number of
hits from herbaceous plants is not diminished by
successive fires; rather it is increased and particularly so with autumn burnings. The influence
of fire on the increment of herbaceous plant phytomass has been recognized for a long time (Ahlgren
and Ahlgren 1960, Daubenmire 1968, Vogl 1974).
In the unburnt
number of hits on
herbaceous plants
(fig. 4). This is
in the spring. In
vegetation, the proportion of the
woody plants as compared with
does not vary through the years
also true for vegetation burned
the vegetation regularly burned
Figure 4 -- Changes in the ratio of hits of woody plants to the total vegetation number of hits.
every two years in autumn, this proportion goes
down from about 4/5 in 1969, before prescribed
burns, to 1/3 in 1975 and again in 1978, or lesser.
These results are confirmed by a brief study
of above-ground phytomass as a function of the different treatments. In may 1979, for each treatment
seven 1 m2 samples were collected from each different plot. Then vegetation was hand-sorted, separating woody from herbaceous plants, dried, and finally weighed. Total above ground phytomass of the
unburnt vegetation weighed, on an average, 30 t.
-1
-1
-1
(table 1), or a production of 1 t.ha
yr
ha
of dry matter since the last wildfire. This value
is similar to that reported already by Long and
others (1967) twelve years earlier.
Burning frequency has an effect on the amount of
vegetation produced. Four years after a second burn
(1979; 6P, 6A) total phytomass only represent one
third of that of the unburnt vegetation. But herbaceous plants do constitute a greater proportion than
in the unburnt vegetation (respectively 12.9 percent for treatment 6P; 18.7 percent for 6A, and
3.2 percent for T). For the other treatments, comparison becomes more difficult because of differences of elapsed times from the latest burns and the
sampling date.
As regards the effect of season of burning, the
total mass of vegetation burned in spring is always
greater than that burned in autumn. In spring-burned vegetation the above-ground mass of woody plants
is always greater than that of vegetation burned
in autumn. On the contrary, the mass of herbaceous
plants of autumn-burned vegetation is higher than
that of spring-burned vegetation. About two years
after the fifth burn the herbaceous phytomass of
the vegetation burned every two years in autumn
(2 A) is greater than that of the unburnt vegetation (T).
CONCLUSIONS
The results presented here show that the development of vegetation after fire follows the "initial
floristic composition" model described by Egler
(1954): all the pre-fire species are present immediately after fire, even if later on, the relative
abundance of individuals changes. Thus there is no
succession of floristic relays, or different communities succeeding on the same sites as is characteristic of secondary succession.
The presence of invading therophytes which often
characterize young communities (Bournerias 1959,
455
Table 1 -- Mean above-ground phytomass (g per m2 of dry matter) of the Quercus coccifera garrigue according
to the different prescribed fire regimes (May 1979). (Extreme values are presented in parentheses).
Fire Regimes
Phytomass (g m-2)
Woody plants
Herbaceous plants
Total plants
Age of community
T
2.944.9
(4000.0
1450.0)
97.0
6 P
983.4
(1124.0
610.0)
6 A
3 P
754.8
1060.0
175.0)
3 A
135.0
(218.8
68.6)
2 P
19.1
(38.0
8.2)
440.5
(733.9
226.6)
2 A
157.5
(336.0
28.9)
145.5
173.7
23.1
24.0
33.0
117.5
(285.0
1.5)
(278.4
24.3)
(441.5
27.9)
(70.0
0.7)
(78.0
5.7)
(78.1
8.0)
(223.7
30.7)
3041.9
1128.9
(4170.0
1475.5)
(1317.3
888.4)
(1160.4
422.3)
(235.5
93.6)
28 years
after latest wildfire
48 months
after 2nd
prescribed fire
44 months
after 2nd
prescribed
fire
12 months
after 4th
prescribed fire
928.6
Bazzaz 1968) is practically non-existent except for
communities where herbaceous plants are dominant.
In fact, mediterranean vegetation does present a
recovery by "direct" endogenous process, i.e. the
species which existed before fire reoccupy the burned ground, as opposed to an "indirect" or exogenous recovery characterized by a succession of stages as Bournerias (1959), Drury and Nisbet (1973)
and Guillerm (1978) have described for old fields.
The plants which persist are those which appear
immediately after fire and which existed before
fire. This is due to the strategies used by the
plants to regenerate: mainly by vegetative survival, or by residual seeds buried in the soil or
coming from nearby unburnt communities.
158.1
43.1
(105.6
13.9)
8 months
after 4th
prescribed
fire
473.5
275.0
(749.2
234.6)
(417.5
162.9)
24 months 20 months
after 5th after 5th
prescribed prescribed fire
fire
This evolutionary impact has been manifested by positive and negative feedback responses that enable
direct fire tolerance or permit its avoidance, followed by vegetative and reproductive regeneration.
Acknowledgments: I particularly thank Dr. Lepart
who performed the indices of fugacity and discussed
thoroughly the French manuscript. I thank also Dr.
G. Long for fruitful discussions and comments of
the French manuscript. I am grateful to the technicians for their work during the burnings. I greatly
appreciated the help from Dr. D. Parsons for reading
and correcting the English text.
LITERATURE CITED
If fires are lit more frequently than the normal cycle (i.e. about every five or six years at
least for such communities as the Quercus coccifera
garrigues of Bas-Languedoc), the tendency towards
a return to the initial stage is slowed and phytomass gradually decreases. This reduction is due to
a decrease in the phytomass of woody plants. Their
stems which are located above the ground are constantly burned and do not have enough time to sprout
again before the next fire. However, in spite of
the burning frequencies, there is little change in
the flora of the Quercus coccifera garrigue. The
impact of fire only leads to a change in vegetation
structure as the upper layers of woody plants disappear and the amount of herbaceous species increases.
Thus, the use of prescribed burning would be a possibility to transform these shrubby rangelands as
was sometimes done by shepherds many years ago.
The plants of the French Mediterranean region
are well adapted to withstand fire. The present
vegetation of Bas-Languedoc results from many years
of evolution during which plants have acquired mechanisms to overcome the effects of fire as well
as climatic (especially summer drought) factors.
456
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