Impact of fires on an open bamboo forest in years of extreme drought in southwestern Amazonia
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Impact of fires on an open bamboo forest in years of extreme drought in southwestern Amazonia Sonaira Souza da Silva 1,2,3 & Izaya Numata 4 & Philip Martin Fearnside 3 & Paulo Mauricio Lima de Alencastro Graça 3 & Evandro José Linhares Ferreira 3 & Edneia Araújo dos Santos 1 & Pedro Raimundo Ferreira de Lima 1 & Maury Sergio da Silva Dias 5 & Rodrigo Cunha de Lima 5 & Antonio Willian Flores de Melo 1 Received: 7 September 2019 / Accepted: 28 September 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract In Brazil’s state of Acre, in southwestern Amazonia, wildfires mediated by extreme droughts in 2005 and 2010 affected more than 500,000 ha of forest, causing changes in their structure, species diversity, and aboveground biomass (AGB), and the expansion of bamboo. Our objective was to analyze these changes in an open bamboo forest in Acre after forest fires occurred either in one of the extreme drought years (2005 or 2010) or in both years (2005 + 2010). We sampled 9.75 ha (in 2016 and 2017), distributed in 18 0.5 ha (100 m × 50 m) plots and three 0.25-ha (50 m × 50 m) plots. We identified a strong fire effect on the number of tree individuals per hectare, which declined by 50% if the forest was burned in only one year (2005 or 2010) and by 74% if burned in both years. This was inversely related to the expansion of bamboo stems, which increased in number by 7 to 9 times. Changes in forest structure and species composition after the fire were characterized by a high importance value for pioneer tree species; reductions in the number of trees with logging potential, in the basal area of trees, and in the number of lianas; and an increase in the density of bamboo stems. AGB in the burned forests was 51–73% that of the unburned forest. With the expansion of bamboo, its contribution to AGB increased from 1% in the unburned forest to 27% in the twice-burned forest. These forms of degradation represent serious threats to Amazon forests. Keywords Floristic composition . Secondary forest . Bamboo expansion . Timber . Amazon forest . Acre Communicated by Anne Bousquet-Melou Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-020-01707-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Sonaira Souza da Silva [email protected]; [email protected]
Rodrigo Cunha de Lima [email protected] Antonio Willian Flores de Melo [email protected]
Izaya Numata [email protected] Philip Martin Fearnside [email protected]
1
Geoprocessing laboratory applied to the environment, Federal University of Acre - Campus Floresta (UFAC), Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre CEP 69.980-000, Brazil
2
Federal University of Acre (UFAC), Rio Branco, Acre CEP 69.920-900, Brazil
3
National Institute for Research in Amazonia (INPA), Caixa Postal 2223, Manaus, Amazonas CEP 69.080-971, Brazil
4
Geospatial Sciences Center of Excellence, South Dakota State University, Brookings, SD 57007, USA
5
Northern Educational Unio
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