Drought-driven wildfire impacts on structure and dynamics in a wet Central Amazonian forest

Author(s):Show less -

Pontes-Lopes, Aline ^[1] ; Silva, Camila V. J. ^{[2, 3]} ; Barlow, Jos ^[2] ; Rincon, Lorena M. ^[4] ; Campanharo, Wesley A. ^[1] ; Nunes, Cassio A. ^[5] ; de Almeida, Catherine T. ^{[6, 1]} ; Silva Junior, Celso H. L. ^{[1, 7]} ; Cassol, Henrique L. G. ^[1] ; Dalagnol, Ricardo ^[1] ; Stark, Scott C. ^[8] ; Graca, Paulo M. L. A. ^[4] ; Aragao, Luiz E. O. C. ^{[9, 1]}

Affiliation

^[1] Natl Inst Space Res INPE, Earth Observat & Geoinformat Div, BR-12227010 Sao Jose Dos Campos - Brazil

^[2] Univ Lancaster, Lancaster Environm Ctr, Lancaster LA1 4YQ - England

^[3] Amazon Environm Res Inst IPAM, BR-71503505 Brasilia, DF - Brazil

^[4] Natl Inst Res Amazonia INPA, BR-69067375 Manaus, Amazonas - Brazil

^[5] Fed Univ Lavras UFLA, Dept Ecol & Conservat, BR-37200000 Lavras - Brazil

^[6] Univ Sao Paulo USP ESALQ, Luiz de Queiroz Coll Agr, Dept Forest Sci, BR-13418900 Piracicaba - Brazil

^[7] State Univ Maranhao UEMA, Dept Agr Engn, BR-65055310 Sao Luis, Maranhao - Brazil

^[8] Michigan State Univ, Dept Forestry, E Lansing, MI 48824 - USA

^[9] Univ Exeter, Coll Life & Environm Sci, Exeter EX4 4RJ, Devon - England

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES; v. 288, n. 1951 MAY 26 2021.
• Web of Science Citations: 0

Abstract

While the climate and human-induced forest degradation is increasing in the Amazon, fire impacts on forest dynamics remain understudied in the wetter regions of the basin, which are susceptible to large wildfires only during extreme droughts. To address this gap, we installed burned and unburned plots immediately after a wildfire in the northern Purus-Madeira (Central Amazon) during the 2015 El-Nino. We measured all individuals with diameter of 10 cm or more at breast height and conducted recensuses to track the demographic drivers of biomass change over 3 years. We also assessed how stem-level growth and mortality were influenced by fire intensity (proxied by char height) and tree morphological traits (size and wood density). Overall, the burned forest lost 27.3% of stem density and 12.8% of biomass, concentrated in small and medium trees. Mortality drove these losses in the first 2 years and recruitment decreased in the third year. The fire increased growth in lower wood density and larger sized trees, while char height had transitory strong effects increasing tree mortality. Our findings suggest that fire impacts are weaker in the wetter Amazon. Here, trees of greater sizes and higher wood densities may confer a margin of fire resistance; however, this may not extend to higher intensity fires arising from climate change. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 16/21043-8 - Airborne LiDAR for quantifying changes in biomass stocks and structural dynamics in fire-damaged forests in Central Amazon
• Grantee: Aline Pontes Lopes
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• FAPESP's process: 19/21662-8 - Quantifying tree mortality with lasers: using a state-of-the-art model-data fusion approach to estimate biomass loss in tropical forests
• Grantee: Ricardo Dal'Agnol da Silva
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• FAPESP's process: 18/14423-4 - Modeling a decade of carbon gross emissions from forest fires in the Amazon: Conciliating the bottom-up and top-down views of the problem
• Grantee: Henrique Luis Godinho Cassol
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• FAPESP's process: 20/06734-0 - Unravelling landscape drivers of forest recovery in a successional perspective
• Grantee: Catherine Torres de Almeida
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral