Short-Term Fire Effects on Small Mammal Populations and Vegetation of the Northern Chihuahuan Desert

Table 1

Mean total shrub, grass, and forb canopy cover (%) and bare ground (%) prior to burning, May 1995 (PRE), one month postburn, July 1995 (POST95), and one year postburn, July 1996 (POST96), on 10 pairs of burned (B) and control (C) sites on Fort Bliss Military Reservation, Otero County, New Mexico.

Cover		PRE		POST95		POST96		𝑃
		B	C	B	C	B	C	Burn	Time
Shrub	𝑥	22.7	32.2	14.4	26.7	15.4	29.2	.006	.040
	SE	1.6	10.3	1.9	1.9	2.5	2.2
Grass	𝑥	35.8	36.7	5.6 A	36.8 B	9.8 A	35.0 B	^2
	SE	2.5	2.1	1.1	2.1	1.4	2.3
Forb^1	𝑥	1.7	2.5	2.0 A	0.9 A	19.3 A	4.0 B	^2
	SE	0.3	0.6	0.4	0.5	2.7	0.8
Bare ground	𝑥	49.3	48.8	82.2 A	51.5 B	62.6 A	52.0 A	^2
	SE	2.7	2.1	4.2	2.3	5.0	2.0

¹May 1995 results used as a covariate for postburn comparisons due to the potential for pretreatment effects (.05<𝑃<.10). Postburn results are covariate-adjusted means.
²Treatment × time interaction (𝑃<.05). Means followed by same letter within years are not different (𝑃>.05).