ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the influences of fire regimes on biogeochemical cycles as well as the effects of fire exclusion and agricultural land use on soil processes across soil types within the longleaf pine range. It discusses the changes in ecosystem attributes that are associated with degraded longleaf pine sites, and the implications of restoration and fire reintroduction on fire-excluded sites. The relationships among soil moisture, vegetation, and key belowground processes are especially important for longleaf pine ecosystems because of their influence on efforts to restore sites that have been degraded by agriculture, fire exclusion, or conversion to intensively managed pine plantations. The correlation between soil moisture and aboveground net primary production (ANPP) is well documented within the context of other soil physical and chemical properties and with respect to species richness, diversity, and composition of longleaf pine ecosystems. Sophisticated regional ecosystem models are currently guided by new remote sensing technologies and eddy covariance measurements.
