Impact on soil and tree community of a threatened subtropical phytophysiognomy after a forest fire
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Impact on soil and tree community of a threatened subtropical phytophysiognomy after a forest fire Lucas Deziderio Santana & José Hugo Campos Ribeiro & Eduardo van den Berg & Fabrício Alvim Carvalho
Received: 13 August 2019 / Revised: 27 March 2020 / Accepted: 18 April 2020 # Institute of Botany, Czech Academy of Sciences 2020
Abstract Knowledge about the effects of fire on tree communities of Araucaria forests (AF) is scarce, although this physiognomy is among the most threatened ones in the entire Brazilian hotspot Atlantic Forest. With this study, we sought to answer the following questions: After three years of the fire, how has the soil of this forest remnant been recovering? Are fires in the AF able to change the structure, composition and species richness of tree community? The survey was carried out in a remnant of AF in an integral protected area in Brazil. Two areas were selected, one that has no fire history in Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12224-020-09367-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. L. D. Santana (*) Departamento de Ciências Florestais, Universidade Federal de Lavras, C. Postal 3037, Lavras, Minas Gerais State 37200-000, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] J. H. C. Ribeiro Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Sudeste de Minas Gerais, 36884-036 Muriaé, Minas Gerais State, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] E. van den Berg Departamento de Biologia, Universidade Federal de Lavras, C. Postal 3037, Lavras, Minas Gerais State 37200-000, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] F. A. Carvalho Departamento de Botânica, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais State, Brazil e-mail: [email protected]
the last 30 years (unburned) and another that burned recently. In each area 25 permanent plots of 20 × 10 m were allocated and all shrub-tree vegetation with DBH ≥ 4.8 cm was sampled. Our initial expectations were largely refuted, since we found no differences between the two areas in composition and richness of tree species and in most soil environmental variables, but only in the community structure. The majority of the dead individuals were concentrated in the smallest diameter classes (DBH < 9.8 cm). The only soil environmental variables that presented differences were pH and organic matter. Our study shows that the AF presents a significant resistance against forest fires, probably due to the evolutionary history of this physiognomy with fire. Nevertheless, several individuals died, so it is also important to highlight that preventive measures against fires are always relevant for conservation of this endangered physiognomy. Keywords Araucaria angustifolia . Araucaria forest . Brazil . mixed ombrophilous forest . soil variables
Introduction Fires are one of the main factors reducing and damaging the world’s forests (Goldammer 1999; Cochrane 2003; Xaud et al. 2013). However, the consequences of fires are still not wel
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