Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Infante, José
• Novoa, Fernando J
• Ibarra, José Tomás
• Melnick, Don J
• Griffin, Kevin L
• Bonacic, Cristián

Titel

Altered fire regimes modify lizard communities in globally endangered Araucaria forests of the southern Andes

Ist Teil von

• Scientific reports, 2021-11, Vol.11 (1), p.22709-22709, Article 22709

Ort / Verlag

England: Nature Publishing Group

Erscheinungsjahr

2021

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Wildfire regimes are being altered in ecosystems worldwide. The density of reptiles responds to fires and changes to habitat structure. Some of the most vulnerable ecosystems to human-increased fire frequency are old-growth Araucaria araucana forests of the southern Andes. We investigated the effects of wildfires on the density and richness of a lizard community in these ecosystems, considering fire frequency and elapsed time since last fire. During the 2018/2019 southern summer season, we conducted 71 distance sampling transects to detect lizards in Araucaria forests of Chile in four fire "treatments": (1) unburned control, (2) long-term recovery, (3) short-term recovery, and (4) burned twice. We detected 713 lizards from 7 species. We found that the density and richness of lizards are impacted by wildfire frequency and time of recovery, mediated by the modification of habitat structure. The lizard community varied from a dominant arboreal species (L. pictus) in unburned and long-recovered stands, to a combination of ground-dwelling species (L. lemniscatus and L. araucaniensis) in areas affected by two fires. Araucaria forests provided key habitat features to forest reptiles after fires, but the persistence of these old-growth forests and associated biodiversity may be threatened given the increase in fire frequency.