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Drought-driven wildfire impacts on structure and dynamics in a wet Central Amazonian forest

While the climate and human-induced forest degradation is increasing in the Amazon, fire impacts on forest dynamics remain understudied in the wetter regions of the basin, which are susceptible to large wildfires only during extreme droughts. To address this gap, we installed burned and unburned plo...

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Autores principales: Pontes-Lopes, Aline, Silva, Camila V. J., Barlow, Jos, Rincón, Lorena M., Campanharo, Wesley A., Nunes, Cássio A., de Almeida, Catherine T., Silva Júnior, Celso H. L., Cassol, Henrique L. G., Dalagnol, Ricardo, Stark, Scott C., Graça, Paulo M. L. A., Aragão, Luiz E. O. C.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8131120/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34004131
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.0094
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author Pontes-Lopes, Aline
Silva, Camila V. J.
Barlow, Jos
Rincón, Lorena M.
Campanharo, Wesley A.
Nunes, Cássio A.
de Almeida, Catherine T.
Silva Júnior, Celso H. L.
Cassol, Henrique L. G.
Dalagnol, Ricardo
Stark, Scott C.
Graça, Paulo M. L. A.
Aragão, Luiz E. O. C.
author_facet Pontes-Lopes, Aline
Silva, Camila V. J.
Barlow, Jos
Rincón, Lorena M.
Campanharo, Wesley A.
Nunes, Cássio A.
de Almeida, Catherine T.
Silva Júnior, Celso H. L.
Cassol, Henrique L. G.
Dalagnol, Ricardo
Stark, Scott C.
Graça, Paulo M. L. A.
Aragão, Luiz E. O. C.
author_sort Pontes-Lopes, Aline
collection PubMed
description While the climate and human-induced forest degradation is increasing in the Amazon, fire impacts on forest dynamics remain understudied in the wetter regions of the basin, which are susceptible to large wildfires only during extreme droughts. To address this gap, we installed burned and unburned plots immediately after a wildfire in the northern Purus-Madeira (Central Amazon) during the 2015 El-Niño. We measured all individuals with diameter of 10 cm or more at breast height and conducted recensuses to track the demographic drivers of biomass change over 3 years. We also assessed how stem-level growth and mortality were influenced by fire intensity (proxied by char height) and tree morphological traits (size and wood density). Overall, the burned forest lost 27.3% of stem density and 12.8% of biomass, concentrated in small and medium trees. Mortality drove these losses in the first 2 years and recruitment decreased in the third year. The fire increased growth in lower wood density and larger sized trees, while char height had transitory strong effects increasing tree mortality. Our findings suggest that fire impacts are weaker in the wetter Amazon. Here, trees of greater sizes and higher wood densities may confer a margin of fire resistance; however, this may not extend to higher intensity fires arising from climate change.
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spelling pubmed-81311202021-05-27 Drought-driven wildfire impacts on structure and dynamics in a wet Central Amazonian forest Pontes-Lopes, Aline Silva, Camila V. J. Barlow, Jos Rincón, Lorena M. Campanharo, Wesley A. Nunes, Cássio A. de Almeida, Catherine T. Silva Júnior, Celso H. L. Cassol, Henrique L. G. Dalagnol, Ricardo Stark, Scott C. Graça, Paulo M. L. A. Aragão, Luiz E. O. C. Proc Biol Sci Global Change and Conservation While the climate and human-induced forest degradation is increasing in the Amazon, fire impacts on forest dynamics remain understudied in the wetter regions of the basin, which are susceptible to large wildfires only during extreme droughts. To address this gap, we installed burned and unburned plots immediately after a wildfire in the northern Purus-Madeira (Central Amazon) during the 2015 El-Niño. We measured all individuals with diameter of 10 cm or more at breast height and conducted recensuses to track the demographic drivers of biomass change over 3 years. We also assessed how stem-level growth and mortality were influenced by fire intensity (proxied by char height) and tree morphological traits (size and wood density). Overall, the burned forest lost 27.3% of stem density and 12.8% of biomass, concentrated in small and medium trees. Mortality drove these losses in the first 2 years and recruitment decreased in the third year. The fire increased growth in lower wood density and larger sized trees, while char height had transitory strong effects increasing tree mortality. Our findings suggest that fire impacts are weaker in the wetter Amazon. Here, trees of greater sizes and higher wood densities may confer a margin of fire resistance; however, this may not extend to higher intensity fires arising from climate change. The Royal Society 2021-05-26 2021-05-19 /pmc/articles/PMC8131120/ /pubmed/34004131 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.0094 Text en © 2021 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Global Change and Conservation
Pontes-Lopes, Aline
Silva, Camila V. J.
Barlow, Jos
Rincón, Lorena M.
Campanharo, Wesley A.
Nunes, Cássio A.
de Almeida, Catherine T.
Silva Júnior, Celso H. L.
Cassol, Henrique L. G.
Dalagnol, Ricardo
Stark, Scott C.
Graça, Paulo M. L. A.
Aragão, Luiz E. O. C.
Drought-driven wildfire impacts on structure and dynamics in a wet Central Amazonian forest
title Drought-driven wildfire impacts on structure and dynamics in a wet Central Amazonian forest
title_full Drought-driven wildfire impacts on structure and dynamics in a wet Central Amazonian forest
title_fullStr Drought-driven wildfire impacts on structure and dynamics in a wet Central Amazonian forest
title_full_unstemmed Drought-driven wildfire impacts on structure and dynamics in a wet Central Amazonian forest
title_short Drought-driven wildfire impacts on structure and dynamics in a wet Central Amazonian forest
title_sort drought-driven wildfire impacts on structure and dynamics in a wet central amazonian forest
topic Global Change and Conservation
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8131120/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34004131
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.0094
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