Peat-Fire Impact on Forest Structure in Peatland of Central Kalimantan

Understanding Natural Regeneration in Burned Tropical Peatland: A Strategy to Accelerate the Forest Recovery Process

“…This transect was characterized with more long-lived pioneer species, such as Melalezlca leacadendron, Melicope lanzl-ankenda, Jyggiam sp., and Macarangapminosa, whde transects FBF and NB were also rich with other generalist and late successional species, such as Alstonia scholaris, Ficzls spp., and Nepheliam mangd_yi. Unhke other researchers who reported that burned peatland forests in Icalimantan were normally dominated by pioneer species especially Combretocapzls and Cratoxylm species (Blackham et al 2014;Graham et al 2017;Shiodera et al 2016), there were no indications about the existence of these trees after fire might not affect the emergence of species in our study sites. However, it is new recruitments on peatland forest, as a source confirmed that our study sites were still at the of seeds might come from various sources.…”

“…This indicated that the density of regrowth on our study site was still relatively low although the species richness (especially on FBF) demonstrated a valuable sign of recovery. Moreover, our study indicated that fires frequencies are not the only determining factor on forest recruitment on this study site, although according to Shiodera et al (2016), intense and repeated fires reduced the ability of forests to regenerate. The combination of fire frequency, fire intensity, and proximity to remnant forest will produce different degrees of forest recovery, and the result will be unique for each site (Graham et al 2017).…”

“…Osaki et al (2016) stated that the agricultural activity on peatlands in Indonesia has a long and complex historical substance, with fires playing an important role in *Corresponding author, email: dwi.puji@ptrmu.com this story, although fire is not likely naturlly occurred on peat swamp forest ecosystem. Fires have been commonly used to clear peatland forests, and h s such burning become massive in areas whenever a long drought occurs, such as in commonplace during El Nino climatic phases (Page et al 2009;Shiodera et al 2016).…”

“…Moreover, unlike numerous studies on dryland or tropical forests, studies on the recovery process of peatland after fire are less common or still at their early stage (Graham et a/. 2017;Page et al 2009;Shiodera et al 2016). This results in considerable uncertainties around the effectiveness of current peatland restoration practice.…”

“…From this figure, grow(Page et 2009)' Given this several pioneer species (Meialeuca ieucadendmon, only pioneer species are able to grow and supply Meiicope iunu-ankenda, S_yggiam sp.) dominated the continuous seeds for further colonization(Hapsari et al 201 8;Shiodera et al 2016). Only whole study area.…”