Forever young: arrested succession in communities subjected to recurrent fires in a lowland tropical forest

Mata, Stella; Braga, João Marcelo Alvarenga; Moser, Pamela; Sartori, Richieri Antonio; Sánchez‐Tapia, Andrea; Sansevero, Jerônimo Boelsums Barreto

doi:10.1007/s11258-022-01239-4

Cited by 9 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 87 publications

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“…Overall, there is no doubt about the fire potential to degrade tropical forests relative to biodiversity persistence (Barlow & Peres 2008), aboveground forest biomass (Brando et al 2020) and related ecosystems services, although the magnitude of such effects is still to be completely documented. However, the connections between forest degradation, multiple ecosystem services, and social reproduction/empowering of traditional communities in the Amazon require urgent attention since (1) wildfires are likely to occur in the same frequency intense droughts occur (Barlow et al 2020), (2) burned forest are more prone to subsequent intense fire events; that is, surface fires moving to canopy fires, (3) forest regeneration following severe damages can experience arrested succession due to a combination of drivers including elevated seedling and tree mortality, seed dispersal limitation, and grass invasion, and (4) forest persistence, integrity and even land tenure status depend in a large extent on the social reproduction of locals and their effective/direct engagement into the wildfire agenda (see Balch et al 2013; Carmenta et al 2016; Flores et al 2021; Canoa et al 2022; Mata et al 2022). As stated before, forest degradation has already exceeded deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon (Matricardi et al 2020).…”

Section: Addressing Forest Fires Via An Integrated Research Agendamentioning

confidence: 99%

Restoring fire‐degraded social forests via biocultural approaches: a key strategy to safeguard the Amazon legacy

Pereira

Tabarelli

Barros

et al. 2023

Restoration Ecology

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Wildfires have emerged as an escalating source of tropical forest degradation with a cascade of negative consequences for the sustainable development of tropical regions. This is particularly the case in the Amazon forest region as wildfires have already degraded a considerable extension of both secondary and old‐growth forests, including “social forests” managed by traditional communities into protected areas. Here, we advocate in favor of a neglected perspective recognizing wildfires as an escalating threat of unanticipated but certainly devasting impacts on social forests, communal territories, the social reproduction of local/traditional forest‐based communities, and the network of protected areas devoted to safeguard the Amazon forest legacy, including ecosystem services of global relevance such as climate regulation. In response to this prognosis, we call for a research agenda focused on fire drivers, impacts, management, and mitigation, including the establishment of biocultural restoration initiatives/pilot programs in communal territories. Initiatives should integrate co‐produced goals, approaches, and technology to economically, socially, and politically empower those stakeholders with an effective interest in forest persistence although they are already vulnerable. Finally, we propose a governance model connecting key stakeholders to scale up fire‐related biocultural restoration in the Amazon region with the potential to produce timely and globally relevant knowledge and lessons. We hope our ideas stimulate key stakeholders to promote biocultural initiatives able to guarantee the emergence of sustainable territories and thus safeguard the climate‐buffering Amazon forest and its legacy for the sake of both local and global society.

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Section: Addressing Forest Fires Via An Integrated Research Agendamentioning

confidence: 99%

Restoring fire‐degraded social forests via biocultural approaches: a key strategy to safeguard the Amazon legacy

Pereira

Tabarelli

Barros

et al. 2023

Restoration Ecology

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“…In some forest fragments, these impacts can initiate the process of biotic homogenization and forest secondarization (although both phenomena are independent and happen in different ways: Nobre et al, 1991;Salazar et al, 2007;Nobre and Borma, 2009;Flores et al, 2016;Veldman and Putz, 2011;Staal et al, 2018), i. e. high proportion of species requiring undisturbed forest tend to experience intense degradation of their forest habitats, while secondary forest stands face a form of arrested succession supporting impoverished communities (Jolly et al, 2015;Mata et al, 2022). In general, it is verified higher species richness, diversity and basal area for unburned sites and lowest for recurrent burned areas in Amazon forests (Mena et al, 2020;Prestes et al, 2020).…”

Section: Floristic and Phytosociological Inventorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite the importance of the Atlantic Forest and its potential threat to fires, studies on the impacts of disturbances such as fires over these ecosystems are scarce (Guedes et al, 2020;Sansevero et al, 2020;Mata et al, 2022). Thus, the objective of our study is to contribute to filling this knowledge gap by investigating how fire shapes composition, diversity, structure and functioning of the Atlantic Forest.…”

Section: Floristic and Phytosociological Inventorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Fire effects on Atlantic Forest sites from a composition, structure and functional perspective

et al. 2022

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Recently, some portions of the Atlantic Forest biome have been suffering an increase in forest fires, possibly changing its vegetation cover, composition, structure and functioning. Understanding these changes is critical to evaluate the present and future response of tropical forests to fire. Thus, the purpose of our study was to evaluate how diversity, structure and functioning of tree communities differed between burned and unburned sites. Two unburned and two burned forest patches were selected for floristic and phytosociological surveys. Then, we calculated species richness, Shannon diversity index, tree density and basal area, Importance Value Index for trees in each site and we assessed community weighted mean of six functional traits (maximum tree height, wood density, leaf length, leaf deciduousness, shade tolerance and dispersal mode). Diversity, species richness, tree density and basal area were similar between sites. We found changes in floristic composition, but did not verified variations in functional traits. Results indicate that recovery may be fast and that pioneer and early secondary species are occupying post burned sites (nine years old). One-time anthropogenic, superficial and low intensity fires might disrupt advanced stages of succession and start again the dynamics of species substitution.

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“…By resprouting and dispersing into burnt patches, grasses and shrubs reinforce their dominance in fire‐disturbed habitats (Paula et al., 2016; Simpson et al., 2016). In many degraded landscapes, this leads to positive fire‐vegetation feedbacks, which may create ‘fire traps’ that perpetuate early successional vegetation in areas where the climate supports closed‐canopy forests (Bell, 1984; Flores et al., 2016; Hoffmann, Geiger, et al., 2012; Mata et al., 2022; Staal et al., 2018; Van Nes et al., 2018). These effects are further compounded by the abundance of anthropogenic ignition sources (Cochrane, 2003; Tien Bui et al., 2016) and stronger droughts under climate change (Clarke et al., 2022; Hoffmann et al., 2003; Lizundia‐Loiola et al., 2020; Seidl et al., 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Fire susceptibility and post‐fire recovery in the wet tropics and subtropics are currently understudied. Despite evidence showing that degraded sites in the wet tropics are reasonably fire‐prone (Flores et al., 2016; Mata et al., 2022; Uhl et al., 1988), there is still a prevailing perception of these bioregions being ‘too wet to burn’. Existing studies on fire dynamics continue to focus on naturally fire‐adapted Mediterranean, boreal and Savanna ecosystems (Kibler et al., 2019; Kurbanov et al., 2022; Mallek et al., 2013; Qiu et al., 2021; van Butsic, Kelly and Moritz, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fire traps in the wet subtropics: New perspectives from Hong Kong

Chan,

Coomes

2024

Journal of Applied Ecology

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Fires undermine efforts to restore degraded forests in the wet tropics and subtropics. Grasslands and shrublands established after fires are more fire susceptible than forests and tend to be set alight more often, creating a positive feedback loop that curbs succession (i.e. create a fire trap). Understanding the factors that underpin the strength of these fire traps could transform restoration programmes by identifying the steps needed to escape them. Fire traps are notoriously challenging to quantify because multiple factors influence fire occurrence and vegetation recovery. Here we used multi‐decadal satellite imagery from Landsat to create a 34‐year time series of burn areas and vegetation dynamics in wet subtropical Hong Kong. These dynamic maps were then used to characterise (1) the influence of successional stage on fire occurrence, having accounted for topographical and ignition source imbalances using neighbourhood analyses and entropy balancing (EBAL) weights, and (2) recovery time to the next successional stage by survival analysis with EBAL weights. Our analyses revealed that fire regimes in the wet subtropics are defined by strong fire‐vegetation feedbacks. Grasslands and shrublands were 20 and 9 times more susceptible to fires than forests in similar topographic positions. Human activities compounded these differences by disproportionally introducing more ignition sources to grasslands (2.3 times) and shrublands (2.0 times) than to forests. Burnt shrublands recovered to forests faster (19 years) than grasslands (40 years). Proximity to forest patches had strong positive effects on recovery rates, highlighting the importance of seed sources. Post‐fire recovery was faster on wetter northwest‐facing sites and valleys. Overall, topography strongly influenced recovery processes but hardly affected fire occurrence. Synthesis and applications. Our study provides the first quantification of fire trap processes in the wet subtropics, which provides new opportunities for evidence‐based fire suppression and post‐fire restoration. Our results suggest that (1) fire traps could be mitigated by fire suppression programmes as the traps are currently exacerbated by ignition source imbalance; (2) establishing green fire breaks represents an effective fire suppression measure in the wet subtropics; and (3) active restoration could target areas where models predict sluggish post‐fire natural regeneration.

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Forever young: arrested succession in communities subjected to recurrent fires in a lowland tropical forest

Cited by 9 publications

References 87 publications

Restoring fire‐degraded social forests via biocultural approaches: a key strategy to safeguard the Amazon legacy

Restoring fire‐degraded social forests via biocultural approaches: a key strategy to safeguard the Amazon legacy

Fire effects on Atlantic Forest sites from a composition, structure and functional perspective

Fire traps in the wet subtropics: New perspectives from Hong Kong

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