The role of Pteridium arachnoideum(Kaulf) on the seed bank of the endangered Brazilian Cerrado

Xavier, Rafael de Oliveira; Alday, Josu G.; Marrs, Rob H.; Matos, Dalva Maria da Silva

doi:10.1590/1519-6984.21814

Cited by 15 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…However, this may not apply to the Brazilian Cerrado, a fire-prone vegetation, where natural fires are frequent (Ramos-Neto & Pivello, 2000) and where native plant species are generally able either to withstand fire events or resprout after them (Hoffmann, 1998;Hoffmann & Solbrig, 2003;Silva et al, 2009;Dodonov et al, 2014). Pteridium arachnoideum has been considered as one of the most important invasive plants in the Brazilian Cerrado (Pivello et al, 1999), where it may lead to a low density and diversity of native woody plants (Miatto et al, 2011) and a high abundance of alien grasses in the soil seed bank (Xavier et al, 2016), with possibly negative consequences for Cerrado regeneration. Although many Cerrado sites have been subjected to frequent anthropogenic fires, these ecosystems are naturally prone to fires (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fire has short-term negative effects on a super-dominant native fern, Pteridium arachnoideum (Dennstaedtiaceae), in a Brazilian savanna

Tiberio¹,

Xavier²,

Dodonov³

et al. 2022

Nat. Conserv. Res.

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Although fire occurrence plays a central role in the dominance of the super-dominant bracken fern Pteridium arachnoideum in Neotropical forests, it is unclear whether this applies to the Brazilian savanna (Cerrado), which vegetation is naturally adapted to fire. We assessed fire effects on the aboveground biomass of P. arachnoideum in the Cerrado Ecological Reserve in Central Brazil. We measured frond height, density, standing biomass, and litter biomass before and for two years following a prescribed fire, and also sampled a control site to control for other mortality events and for seasonal variation. The average P. arachnoideum frond height and aboveground biomass decreased over three times in the burnt site 18 months after the fire. The frond density decreased both in the burnt and control site, indicating that this may have been caused in another way than by fire. Conversely, litter biomass decreased shortly after the fire in the burnt site, but returned to pre-fire levels in one year. Possible explanations for the lasting negative effects of fire on the height and biomass of P. arachnoideum include the implementation of the prescribed fire early in the dry season, which likely limited immediate clonal regrowth, and the herbivory by leaf-cutting ants. Nevertheless, the effective clonal growth of P. arachnoideum apparently precluded the fire from having stronger effects and hence this species was not excluded from the site. We conclude that direct and indirect fire effects may cause the decline of P. arachnoideum in Cerrado, so that prescribed fires may be applied as a management strategy in Cerrado sites where this species is super-dominant, ideally in combination with other control measures.

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