Long-term weather sensitivity of open sand grasslands of the Kiskunság Sand ridge forest-steppe mosaic after wildfires

We studied the long-term impact of wildfire on the vegetation dynamics of sand grasslands in a forest-steppe vegetation mosaic in Central Hungary (Kiskunság). Long-term permanent quadrat monitoring was carried out from 1997 to 2008. We sampled the forest-steppe mosaic both in burnt and unburnt areas in 100 patches altogether using 1 m × 1 m quadrats. The effect of fire and precipitation on vegetation dynamics was characterized by patch type transitions between years. Patch types were defined by means of Cocktail method. Nine patch types of sand grasslands were altogether identified. The least productive patch types, bare soil and cryptogam dominance, did not occur in the burnt patches, while annual dominated patch type appeared only in burnt patches. The frequencies of patch type changes were significantly higher in burnt patches than in unburnt ones, independently on time after fire. All the eight patch types found in the unburnt patches proved permanent, while in the burnt patches only four of seven were so. The relative frequency of patch type changes did not correlate with precipitation in the vegetation period in the unburnt patches, while positively correlated in the burnt patches. It was concluded that the long-term difference in grassland dynamics between the unburnt and burnt patches, i.e., the excess of the patch type transitions in the burnt grasslands, is due to increased drought sensitivity of the grassland, which is the consequence of the elimination of the woody component of the forest-steppe vegetation.