Do fire and seasonality affect the establishment and colonisation of litter arthropods?
2016
Anjos, Diego | Alves-Silva, Estevao | Ribeiro, Sérvio Pontes
In tropical ecosystems, the influence of fire can have dramatic effects on the arthropod community and some taxa may take a long period to recover after such disturbance. Here we investigated the effects of an accidental fire on the reestablishment of litter arthropods and compared it with a control/unburned area. Seasonal data were also included in the analysis, as the rupestrian fields (transition between Brazilian savanna and Atlantic forest) have two well-defined seasons and arthropod populations tend to fluctuate accordingly. Our study commenced 4 months after fire and during the 2 years afterwards, we found 19 arthropod groups in the litter, of which flies, springtails, spiders, beetles, true-bugs, harvestmen, grasshoppers, hymenopterans (except ants), mites and roaches were the most representative. The unburned area hosted over 60 % of the total arthropod abundance and only true-bugs were significantly more abundant in the burned site, the other arthropods remained, in general, more abundant in the control/unburned area throughout the study. Arthropod abundance was threefold-higher in the rainy season. Arthropods were able to recolonise the burned area soon after the fire event, but their abundance was low during the 2 years of study, revealing that fire effects can extend for long periods. We conclude that, despite rapid plant resprouting and arthropod colonisation after fire, 2 years were not enough for the full reestablishment of litter arthropods.
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