Despite their humid environment, tropical rainforests are threatened by fires that negatively impact their ecological and economic value. However, fires in these ecosystems have been investigated to a far lesser degree compared with temperate or seasonally dry forests. We performed a bibliometric analysis to identify knowledge gaps in rainforest fire studies from 1981 to 2015. Through an analysis of the temporal and spatial research trends, we aimed to evaluate the main drivers that motivate investigations in this field of study. In total, we recorded 366 publications in indexed journals. Approximately 60% of these studies were conducted in four countries. The number of publications tended to increase after El Niño years. A word co-occurrence network revealed a strong relationship between land use change and fires and the role of fire in agricultural and ecosystem traits. We conclude that socioeconomic drivers, deforestation, and global climate change should be considered to gain a better understanding of the occurrence of forest fires. Further studies should include the cause, intensity, and recurrence of fires, since they determine the effects of fire on the soil and biota (fire severity). The spatiotemporal patterns of forest fires require further study to develop strategies for good agricultural production and to predict successional routes after fires. These identified gaps in the research on forest fires could guide decision-making toward the prevention of further fire expansion or at least to reduce its negative effects in tropical rain forests.
We evaluated the plant richness and conservation value of three areas recently added to the territory of the Pedregal de San Ángel Ecological Reserve: two of them added to the Southeastern core area (SOl and S02), and one to the buffer zone called Al3. Cumulative plant richness was 199 species (57.6% of the species previously recorded in the literature). In SOl, S02 and A13, the numbers of recorded plant species werel48, 152 and 149, respectively. Mammillaria haageana subsp. san-angelensis,which is an endangered cactus species, Blelia urbana, a threatened orchid, as well as a two new records for this site (Eupatorium pazcuarense and Adiantum andicola) were found in Al3. Pennisetum clandestinum is an introduced species that occurs in disturbed areas of this reserve. With these three species, the total plant richness of the reserve goes up to 340 taxa. Based on a conservation value index calculated on the bas is of eight parameters, Al3 showed the highest value (21 points), followed by S02 and SOl , with 16.5 and 10.5 points, respectively.
A navegação consulta e descarregamento dos títulos inseridos nas Bibliotecas Digitais UC Digitalis, UC Pombalina e UC Impactum, pressupõem a aceitação plena e sem reservas dos Termos e Condições de Uso destas Bibliotecas Digitais, disponíveis em https://digitalis.uc.pt/pt-pt/termos. Conforme exposto nos referidos Termos e Condições de Uso, o descarregamento de títulos de acesso restrito requer uma licença válida de autorização devendo o utilizador aceder ao(s) documento(s) a partir de um endereço de IP da instituição detentora da supramencionada licença. Ao utilizador é apenas permitido o descarregamento para uso pessoal, pelo que o emprego do(s) título(s) descarregado(s) para outro fim, designadamente comercial, carece de autorização do respetivo autor ou editor da obra. Na medida em que todas as obras da UC Digitalis se encontram protegidas pelo Código do Direito de Autor e Direitos Conexos e demais legislação aplicável, toda a cópia, parcial ou total, deste documento, nos casos em que é legalmente admitida, deverá conter ou fazer-se acompanhar por este aviso. AbstractBibliometrics allows to analyze on behalf of literature searches the existing knowledge around a specific topic and identify tendencies in its development. Tropical forests are characterized naturally by a low regime of fires. However human activities have dramatically changed this phenomenon. Since tropical rain forests are a hot spot of world's diversity, we conducted a bibliometric study of occurrence and effects of fires in tropical rain-forests. The aim of this work is to identify the main tendencies in biological literature about this subject, diagnose knowledge areas with a poor development and to define the geographic location of the performed studies and their methodological approach. This analysis will allow to identify the main gaps in the research of fires in tropical rain forests and contribute to direction the following research projects. We retrieved more than 2000 documents of indexed journals from the following bibliographic databases: Web of Science, Scopus, Science Direct, Biosis and Zoological abstracts. We selected the papers of words related with forest fires and tropical rain forests by an advanced search using logic and boolean operators. We considered for this study the fields: the document title, authors, adscription institution, publication year, journal name, Keywords and descriptors, country, knowledge area and abstract. With this information we designed and normalized the database. Then, we considered all the papers focused on the study of fires in tropical forests and we classified other works that not specifically worked on fires but mention it as an important element of their studies. We did this by looking for the words "fire" and "tropical forest" in the Keywords and abstracts. Then we analysed the documents by their geographic location and by the field of knowledge. We found an increasing interest in this topic in the scientific community since early 1950 to the present. The journals with more works in the theme...
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.