Fire effect on bamboo-dominated forests in Southwestern Amazon: impacts on tree diversity and forest structure

• Autor(a) principal: Silva, Izaias Brasil da
• Data de Publicação: 2024
• Outros Autores: Miranda, Patrícia Nakayama, Anderson, Liana Oighenstein, Jesus, Camila Valéria Silva de, Aragão, Luiz Eduardo Oliveira Cruz de, Campos, Carlos Alberto, Salimon, Cleber Ibraim, Rodriguez, Anselmo Fortunato Ruiz, Silveira, Marcos
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Revista Brasileira de Ciências Ambientais (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://www.rbciamb.com.br/Publicacoes_RBCIAMB/article/view/1755
• topic: aboveground biomass; burned forests; tree species; tropical forests.; biomassa aérea; espécies arbóreas; florestas queimadas; florestas tropicais.

Severe droughts increase the forest flammability, especially if fires are recurrent. Considering that fires tend to alter the forest structure and reduce biological diversity, we analyzed the fire effect on the tree plant community and forest structure over a 10-year post-fire period. The study was carried out in two tropical forest fragments located in the eastern Acre State in southwestern Brazilian Amazon. In each fragment, we established three plots of 250 × 10 m2 in an unburned forest and three in a burned forest. In these plots, we collected all tree individuals with DBH≥10 following the RAINFOR protocol, with censuses made in 2011, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020 and 2021. The fire significantly reduced the abundance, basal area, and aboveground biomass of tree species, and altered the species composition along the post-fire temporal gradient. The absence of differences in the species richness and species diversity between unburned and burned forests is probably related to the life cycle of bamboo. The results suggest that, 10 years after the fire, the structure and phytosociology of the forest have not yet fully recovered.