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Fire benefits flower beetles in a Mediterranean ecosystem

Despite the abundance of plants that benefit from fire in Mediterranean ecosystems, little is known about the possible presence of fire-favoured insects (other than bark beetles). For two years we sampled invertebrates after two large wildfires in eastern Spain and demonstrate that two flower beetle...

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Autores principales: Pausas, Juli G., Belliure, Josabel, Mínguez, Eduardo, Montagud, Sergio
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6021045/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29949613
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0198951
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author Pausas, Juli G.
Belliure, Josabel
Mínguez, Eduardo
Montagud, Sergio
author_facet Pausas, Juli G.
Belliure, Josabel
Mínguez, Eduardo
Montagud, Sergio
author_sort Pausas, Juli G.
collection PubMed
description Despite the abundance of plants that benefit from fire in Mediterranean ecosystems, little is known about the possible presence of fire-favoured insects (other than bark beetles). For two years we sampled invertebrates after two large wildfires in eastern Spain and demonstrate that two flower beetle species, Protaetia morio and P. oblonga (Cetoniidae), show a pyrophilous behaviour. These beetles were much more numerous after the fires than in unburnt plots around the fire perimeter; in addition, these species tended to increase in number with the distance from the fire perimeter and with fire recurrence, especially P. morio. These results were maintained for the two postfire years sampled. The results for the beetles do not support the hypothesis of postfire colonization, but that local populations survived the fire as eggs or larvae protected in the soil (endogenous persistence). We propose that the increase in population size (compared with unburnt zones) could be driven by the reduction of their predator populations, as vertebrates that feed on these beetles were disfavoured by fire. That is, the results suggest that these flower beetle species benefit from fire because fire disrupts antagonistic interactions with their predators (predation release hypothesis). Given the omnipresence of small mammals, soil insects, and fires, the processes described here are likely to be general but unexplored.
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spelling pubmed-60210452018-07-07 Fire benefits flower beetles in a Mediterranean ecosystem Pausas, Juli G. Belliure, Josabel Mínguez, Eduardo Montagud, Sergio PLoS One Research Article Despite the abundance of plants that benefit from fire in Mediterranean ecosystems, little is known about the possible presence of fire-favoured insects (other than bark beetles). For two years we sampled invertebrates after two large wildfires in eastern Spain and demonstrate that two flower beetle species, Protaetia morio and P. oblonga (Cetoniidae), show a pyrophilous behaviour. These beetles were much more numerous after the fires than in unburnt plots around the fire perimeter; in addition, these species tended to increase in number with the distance from the fire perimeter and with fire recurrence, especially P. morio. These results were maintained for the two postfire years sampled. The results for the beetles do not support the hypothesis of postfire colonization, but that local populations survived the fire as eggs or larvae protected in the soil (endogenous persistence). We propose that the increase in population size (compared with unburnt zones) could be driven by the reduction of their predator populations, as vertebrates that feed on these beetles were disfavoured by fire. That is, the results suggest that these flower beetle species benefit from fire because fire disrupts antagonistic interactions with their predators (predation release hypothesis). Given the omnipresence of small mammals, soil insects, and fires, the processes described here are likely to be general but unexplored. Public Library of Science 2018-06-27 /pmc/articles/PMC6021045/ /pubmed/29949613 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0198951 Text en © 2018 Pausas et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Pausas, Juli G.
Belliure, Josabel
Mínguez, Eduardo
Montagud, Sergio
Fire benefits flower beetles in a Mediterranean ecosystem
title Fire benefits flower beetles in a Mediterranean ecosystem
title_full Fire benefits flower beetles in a Mediterranean ecosystem
title_fullStr Fire benefits flower beetles in a Mediterranean ecosystem
title_full_unstemmed Fire benefits flower beetles in a Mediterranean ecosystem
title_short Fire benefits flower beetles in a Mediterranean ecosystem
title_sort fire benefits flower beetles in a mediterranean ecosystem
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6021045/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29949613
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0198951
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