Wildfires in Bamboo-Dominated Amazonian Forest: Impacts on Above-Ground Biomass and Biodiversity

Fire has become an increasingly important disturbance event in south-western Amazonia. We conducted the first assessment of the ecological impacts of these wildfires in 2008, sampling forest structure and biodiversity along twelve 500 m transects in the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve, Acre, Brazil. Six transects were placed in unburned forests and six were in forests that burned during a series of forest fires that occurred from August to October 2005. Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR) calculations, based on Landsat reflectance data, indicate that all transects were similar prior to the fires. We sampled understorey and canopy vegetation, birds using both mist nets and point counts, coprophagous dung beetles and the leaf-litter ant fauna. Fire had limited influence upon either faunal or floral species richness or community structure responses, and stems野火已成为亚马孙西南部愈发重要的干扰事件。本研究于2008年首次评估了此类林火的生态影响，在巴西阿克雷州奇科·门德斯提取保护区（Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve）内沿12条500米长的样带开展森林结构与生物多样性采样。其中6条样带设置于未受火烧的森林，另外6条设置于2005年8月至10月间经历系列林火的森林。基于陆地卫星（Landsat）反射率数据计算得到的标准化燃烧比率（Normalized Burn Ratio, NBR）显示，所有样带在火烧前的状态均较为相似。本次研究采样对象涵盖林下与冠层植被、采用雾网法与点计数法调查的鸟类、食粪蜣螂以及枯落物蚂蚁类群。火烧对动物群落与植物群落的物种丰富度及群落结构响应的影响均较为有限，且茎秆（stems）