By Mariana Abuchain*
Recurrent fires can further alter the structure and functioning of the ecosystem, in addition to reducing the regeneration of Amazonian forests, according to a study carried out as part of PELD (Long-term Ecological Research Program), an IPAM (Amazon Environmental Research Institute) project at the Tanguro Research Station.
The research observed the consequences of the indirect effect of fire on Amazonian forests, specifically with regard to the increase in herbivory – an ecological interaction in which animals consume plants, which influences the establishment, growth and reproduction of vegetation, consequently the structure of the plant community and the functioning of the ecosystem.
According to Lucas Paolucci, professor and adjunct researcher at the Department of General Biology at UFV (Federal University of Viçosa) and one of the authors of the study, fire degrades forests not only by killing trees, but by reducing predation by herbivorous arthropods and reducing predator-prey and plant-animal interactions, triggering an increase in herbivory.
For the researcher, these results are important because they show indirect ways in which fire contributes to the degradation of the Amazon. “One of the reasons why herbivory increased was the loss of predatory ant species in the burned forests – there were only around 55% more ants than in the unburned forests,” he explains.
With the research, it was possible to demonstrate the importance of the role of animals in the recovery of degraded forests and how these attributions can be severely altered by fire.
This has led to the need for better fire management to avoid the loss of ecological interactions that contribute to the ecosystem and the flow of matter and energy, such as the predation of insects by ants.
“Another highlight is that these changes caused by fire make the natural regeneration of degraded forests even more difficult. In addition to the impacts caused by fire, herbivory causes trees to have their photosynthetic capacity reduced and, consequently, their growth and reproduction,” says the researcher.
The Tanguro Research Station is a research base on the Cerrado-Amazon agricultural frontier, where since 2016, IPAM has been developing the PELD (Long-term Ecological Research Program) and one of its partners is EcoTrop (Laboratory of Ecology of Tropical Communities and Ecosystems) at UFV (Universidade Feral de Viçosa). The full study can be accessed here.
*Intern under the supervision of Sara Leal
