The construction and expansion of highways aiming to improve the integration of the most isolated... more The construction and expansion of highways aiming to improve the integration of the most isolated regions in Brazil facilitated the access to many inhabited areas in the Amazon biome, but had as a consequence assisted the degradation of many of these regions. Over the last two decades, we have observed in this biome a gradual diversification and intensification of land uses through vegetation loss and an increase in fire associated with deforestation and an increase in grazing areas. We used data from several active fires products derived from 14 different satellites, available on the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE). We evaluated the influence of highway infrastructure on fire occurrence inside and around Indigenous Lands (IL) located in the Brazilian Amazon biome, from 2008 to 2021. We classified 332 ILs into “cut by highways”, “without highways”, and “with highways in a 10 km buffer”. We performed: (a) the descriptive statistics of the fire occurrence by sta...
Tropical forests provide essential environmental services to human well-being. In the world, Braz... more Tropical forests provide essential environmental services to human well-being. In the world, Brazil has the largest continuous area of these forests. However, in the state of Maranhão, in the eastern Amazon, only 24% of the original forest cover remains. We integrated and analyzed active fires, burned area, land use and land cover, rainfall, and surface temperature datasets to understand forest fragmentation and forest fire dynamics from a remote sensing approach. We found that forest cover in the Maranhão Amazon region had a net reduction of 31,302 km2 between 1985 and 2017, with 63% of losses occurring in forest core areas. Forest edges extent was reduced by 38%, while the size of isolated forest patches increased by 239%. Forest fires impacted, on average, around 1031 ± 695 km2 year−1 of forest edges between 2003 and 2017, the equivalent of 60% of the total burned forest in this period. Our results demonstrated that forest fragmentation is an important factor controlling temporal...
The present study compared patterns of diversity of the families Calliphoridae and Sarcophagidae ... more The present study compared patterns of diversity of the families Calliphoridae and Sarcophagidae (Diptera: Oestroidea) among areas of primary and secondary forest, and clearings in the Amazon biome. We evaluated the relationship between habitat specialist and generalist species, verifying their potential for use as bioindicator species. The study was conducted in 27 areas that comprise primary and secondary forests and clearings in the municipality of Juruti, Para, Brazil. We collected 4286 necrophagous flies in the three study environments. The hypothesis of dissimilarity in the diversity among environments was corroborated for the Sarcophagidae and partly upheld for the Calliphoridae. The sarcophagid species Oxysarcodexia carvalhoi (Lopes 1946), Oxysarcodexia fringidea (Curran and Walley 1934), Oxysarcodexia thornax (Walker 1849), and the calliphorids Chrysomya megacephala (Fabricius 1794) and Cochliomyia macellaria (Fabricius 1775) were all associated with clearing environments. No sarcophagid species were identified as indicators of primary forest. The calliphorids, Chloroprocta idioidea (Robineau-Desvoidy 1830) and Paralucilia adespota (Dear 1985) were identified as indicators of primary + secondary forest. The occurrence of indicator species and their levels of tolerance varied considerably between the two families. The calliphorids and sarcophagids both included species capable of representing differences in necrophagous fly’s diversity among clearing, primary and secondary forest environments, which increases the understanding of the ecology of the taxa and their potential use for biomonitoring, management, and habitat conservation. In general, sarcophagids had a strong relationship with clearings and secondary forest. Some species show intense scavenger behavior and preference for altered environments. This reinforces the importance of the relationship between species and landscapes. In calliphorids, only Chloroprocta idioidea was associated with primary and secondary forest. We also recorded calliphorid species that prefer clearings and secondary forest and are highly tolerant to variation from abiotic factors, with wide niche breadth due to preference for these landscape types. The niche breadth and the tolerance shown by the species are an indication of the potential success of these organisms in response to anthropic processes and changes in landscapes.
<strong>Abstract </strong> <strong>Aim:</strong> An emerging framework fo... more <strong>Abstract </strong> <strong>Aim:</strong> An emerging framework for tropical ecosystems states that fire activity is either '<em>fuel build-up limited</em>' or '<em>fuel moisture limited</em>' i.e. as you move up along rainfall gradients, the major control on fire occurrence switches from being the amount of fuel, to the moisture content of the fuel. Here we used remotely sensed datasets to assess whether interannual variability of burned area is better explained by annual rainfall totals driving fuel build-up, or by dry season rainfall driving fuel moisture. <strong>Location:</strong> Pantropical savannas and grasslands <strong>Time period:</strong> 2002-2016 <strong>Methods:</strong> We explored the response of annual burned area to interannual variability in rainfall. We compared several linear models to understand how <em>fuel moisture </em>and <em>fuel build-up effect </em>(accumulated rainfall during 6 and 24 months prior to the end of the burning season respectively) determine the interannual variability of burned area and explore if tree cover, dry season duration and human activity modified these relationships. <strong>Results:</strong> Fuel and moisture controls on fire occurrence in tropical savannas varied across continents. Only 24% of South American savannas were <em>fuel build-up limited</em> against 61% of Australian savannas and 47% of African savannas. On average, South America switched from fuel limited to moisture limited at 500 mm yr<sup>-1</sup>, Africa at 800 mm yr<sup>-1</sup> and Australia at 1000 mm yr<sup>-1 </sup>of mean annual rainfall. <strong>Main conclusions:</strong> In 42% of tropical savannas (accounting for 41% of current area burned) increased drought and higher temperatures will not increase fire, but there are savannas, particularly in South America, that are likely to become more flammable with increasing temperatures. These findings highlight that we cannot transfer knowledge of fire responses to global change across ecosystems/regions – local solutions to local fir [...]
Les evenements ecologiques survenus ces dernieres annees, notamment en raison des changements glo... more Les evenements ecologiques survenus ces dernieres annees, notamment en raison des changements globaux, et du rechauffement climatique en particulier, ont fait prendre conscience a l'opinion publique des menaces qui planent sur les zones tropicales. Et les sciences, dans une nouvelle approche transversale et interdisciplinaire, se penchent aujourd'hui sur cette ecologie unique qui abrite des ecosystemes d'une grande complexite. En effet, l'equilibre de notre planete repose en partie sur ces environnements fragiles ou evolue le plus grand nombre d'especes en densite et en diversite. Cette biodiversite et la gestion des ressources associees apparaissent comme l'un des enjeux ecologiques majeurs du XXIe siecle. Des specialistes de toutes les disciplines, issus des laboratoires du CNRS ou associes, presentent les travaux menes et tracent les voies prospectives de recherche pour les annees a venir. Ils nous font decouvrir les specificites de ces espaces tropicaux, ...
O estudo das relações entre o fogo e a dinâmica das paisagens brasileiras resulta fundamental par... more O estudo das relações entre o fogo e a dinâmica das paisagens brasileiras resulta fundamental para uma melhor compreensão dos processos ecológicos e dos impactos humanos incidentes sobre a dinâmica da paisagem. O presente artigo busca explorar a dinâmica de variação espaço-temporal de ocorrência de queimadas nos biomas brasileiros nos últimos 18 anos (2001-2018), com base no produto MCD64A1 v006 de área queimada e a base de dados de uso e cobertura da terra do projeto Mapbiomas. O Cerrado apresentou 62,2% do total queimado registrado no período analisado, seguido do bioma Amazônia, com 23,5%. Pampa, Mata Atlântica e Amazônia apresentaram uma incidência de queimadas superior a ≈50% em áreas com usos da terra agropastoris, enquanto nos biomas Cerrado, Caatinga e Pantanal as queimadas ocorreram principalmente sobre áreas de formação vegetal natural. Comprova-se o potencial de combinação de uso de produtos derivados de sensoriamento remoto para análise dos padrões de áreas queimadas, ge...
Increasing efforts are being devoted to understanding fire patterns and changes highlighting the ... more Increasing efforts are being devoted to understanding fire patterns and changes highlighting the need for a consistent database about the location and extension of burned areas (BA). Satellite-derived BA mapping accuracy in the Brazilian savannas is limited by the underestimation of burn scars from small, fragmented fires and high cloudiness. Moreover, systematic mapping of BA is challenged by the need for human intervention in training sample acquisition, which precludes the development of automatic-generated products over large areas and long periods. Here, we developed a multi-sensor, active fire-supervised, one-class BA mapping algorithm to address several of these limitations. Our main objective is to generate a long-term, detailed BA atlas suitable to improve fire regime characterization and validation of coarse resolution products. We use composite images derived from the Landsat satellite to generate end-of-season maps of fire-affected areas for the entire Cerrado. Validatio...
The present study evaluated the effects of habitat quality on the alpha and beta diversity of odo... more The present study evaluated the effects of habitat quality on the alpha and beta diversity of odonate larvae under conditions of reduced impact and conventional logging. We hypothesized that the variation in the abiotic conditions found in areas of conventional logging would result in a greater loss of alpha and beta diversity in these areas in comparison with areas of reduced-impact logging and native forest. The study area was located in northeastern Para state, in northern Brazil. We analyzed data from 10 control streams, located in areas of preserved native forest, 11 streams in forest harvested by reduced-impact logging, and nine streams in areas that had been logged conventionally. Environmental factors such as dissolved oxygen, woody debris, water temperature, sediments, and canopy cover were the principal predictors of the diversity of the Odonata. Our results showed that turnover was the principal component structuring beta diversity in the three areas (native forest, reduced impact and conventional logging). The results of the present study indicate that management initiatives based on reduced-impact logging techniques could be adopted to guarantee socio-economic benefits while minimizing the impacts of logging on local biodiversity.
Abstract The Cerrado is the most diverse tropical savanna in the world. As a fire-prone ecosystem... more Abstract The Cerrado is the most diverse tropical savanna in the world. As a fire-prone ecosystem, natural fire in the Cerrado shapes plant communities and drives evolutionary processes. Human activities and landscape management can alter natural fire regimes and reshape Cerrado dynamics, making biodiversity conservation a challenge, particularly in densely populated areas. We reconstructed the historical fire regime of three protected areas (PA) and their buffer zones in Sao Paulo state to understand how current fire exclusion policies are affecting fire regimes and to measure how human-climate-fire relationships can change in areas under different land management. We used Landsat satellite imagery, from 1984 to 2017, with 30 meters of spatial resolution and 16 days of temporal resolution. In total, we mapped 49,471 hectares of burned area, and we detected variations in fire frequency and fire size among sites. PA dominated by open savanna in Itirapina concentrated 93% of all observed fires, while PA dominated by forest-like formations in Assis represented only 2% of the fires. Annual rainfall showed a very weak relationship (R2 = 0.04) with annual total burned area, while the rainfall split between dry and wet seasons showed a tendency to have a fuel moisture effect which determined the vegetation available to burn in the dry season (R² = 0.09). Fire regimes in PA were similar to those observed in buffer zones suggesting that fire-exclusion policies do not effectively prevent fires in PA that are surrounded by an anthropic matrix where fire is often used. When we included human factors in addition to rainfall, our models explained 44% of variation of burned areas. We conclude that fire regimes in Sao Paulo Cerrado have been modified by humans and that fire exclusion is not a suitable policy for protected areas in this fire-prone ecosystem.
Bastin et al . (Reports, 5 July 2019, p. 76) neglect considerable research into forest-based clim... more Bastin et al . (Reports, 5 July 2019, p. 76) neglect considerable research into forest-based climate change mitigation during the 1980s and 1990s. This research supports some of their findings on the area of land technically suitable for expanding tree cover, and can be used to extend their analysis to include the area of actually available land and operational feasibility.
The year 2017 was a megafire year, when huge areas burned on different continents. In Brazil, a g... more The year 2017 was a megafire year, when huge areas burned on different continents. In Brazil, a great extension of the Cerrado burned, raising once more the discussion about the “zero-fire” policy. Indeed, most protected areas of the Cerrado adopted a policy of fire exclusion and prevention, leading to periodic megafire events. Last year, 78% of the Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park burned at the end of the dry season, attracting media attention. Furthermore, 85% of the Reserva Natural Serra do Tombador burned as a result of a large accumulation of fuel caused by the zero-fire policy. In 2014, some protected areas started to implement the Integrate Fire Management (IFM) strategy. During 2017, in contrast to other protected areas, the Estação Ecológica Serra Geral do Tocantins experienced no megafire events, suggesting that a few years of IFM implementation led to changes in its fire regime. Therefore, we intended here to compare the total burned area and number of fire scars betwe...
Humans can alter fire dynamics in grassland systems by changing fire frequency, fire seasonality ... more Humans can alter fire dynamics in grassland systems by changing fire frequency, fire seasonality and fuel conditions. These changes have effects on vegetation structure and recovery, species composition, and ecosystem function. Understanding how human management can affect fire regimes is vital to detect potential changes in the resilience of plant communities, and to predict vegetation responses to human interventions. We evaluated the fire regimes of two recently protected areas in Madagascar (Ibity and Itremo NPA) and one in Brazil (Serra do Cipó NP) before and after livestock exclusion and fire suppression policies. We compare the pre- and post-management fire history in these areas and analyze differences in terms of total annual burned area, density of ignitions, burn scar size distribution, fire return period and seasonal fire distribution. More than 90% of total park areas were burned at least once during the studied period, for all parks. We observed a significant reduction...
The construction and expansion of highways aiming to improve the integration of the most isolated... more The construction and expansion of highways aiming to improve the integration of the most isolated regions in Brazil facilitated the access to many inhabited areas in the Amazon biome, but had as a consequence assisted the degradation of many of these regions. Over the last two decades, we have observed in this biome a gradual diversification and intensification of land uses through vegetation loss and an increase in fire associated with deforestation and an increase in grazing areas. We used data from several active fires products derived from 14 different satellites, available on the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE). We evaluated the influence of highway infrastructure on fire occurrence inside and around Indigenous Lands (IL) located in the Brazilian Amazon biome, from 2008 to 2021. We classified 332 ILs into “cut by highways”, “without highways”, and “with highways in a 10 km buffer”. We performed: (a) the descriptive statistics of the fire occurrence by sta...
Tropical forests provide essential environmental services to human well-being. In the world, Braz... more Tropical forests provide essential environmental services to human well-being. In the world, Brazil has the largest continuous area of these forests. However, in the state of Maranhão, in the eastern Amazon, only 24% of the original forest cover remains. We integrated and analyzed active fires, burned area, land use and land cover, rainfall, and surface temperature datasets to understand forest fragmentation and forest fire dynamics from a remote sensing approach. We found that forest cover in the Maranhão Amazon region had a net reduction of 31,302 km2 between 1985 and 2017, with 63% of losses occurring in forest core areas. Forest edges extent was reduced by 38%, while the size of isolated forest patches increased by 239%. Forest fires impacted, on average, around 1031 ± 695 km2 year−1 of forest edges between 2003 and 2017, the equivalent of 60% of the total burned forest in this period. Our results demonstrated that forest fragmentation is an important factor controlling temporal...
The present study compared patterns of diversity of the families Calliphoridae and Sarcophagidae ... more The present study compared patterns of diversity of the families Calliphoridae and Sarcophagidae (Diptera: Oestroidea) among areas of primary and secondary forest, and clearings in the Amazon biome. We evaluated the relationship between habitat specialist and generalist species, verifying their potential for use as bioindicator species. The study was conducted in 27 areas that comprise primary and secondary forests and clearings in the municipality of Juruti, Para, Brazil. We collected 4286 necrophagous flies in the three study environments. The hypothesis of dissimilarity in the diversity among environments was corroborated for the Sarcophagidae and partly upheld for the Calliphoridae. The sarcophagid species Oxysarcodexia carvalhoi (Lopes 1946), Oxysarcodexia fringidea (Curran and Walley 1934), Oxysarcodexia thornax (Walker 1849), and the calliphorids Chrysomya megacephala (Fabricius 1794) and Cochliomyia macellaria (Fabricius 1775) were all associated with clearing environments. No sarcophagid species were identified as indicators of primary forest. The calliphorids, Chloroprocta idioidea (Robineau-Desvoidy 1830) and Paralucilia adespota (Dear 1985) were identified as indicators of primary + secondary forest. The occurrence of indicator species and their levels of tolerance varied considerably between the two families. The calliphorids and sarcophagids both included species capable of representing differences in necrophagous fly’s diversity among clearing, primary and secondary forest environments, which increases the understanding of the ecology of the taxa and their potential use for biomonitoring, management, and habitat conservation. In general, sarcophagids had a strong relationship with clearings and secondary forest. Some species show intense scavenger behavior and preference for altered environments. This reinforces the importance of the relationship between species and landscapes. In calliphorids, only Chloroprocta idioidea was associated with primary and secondary forest. We also recorded calliphorid species that prefer clearings and secondary forest and are highly tolerant to variation from abiotic factors, with wide niche breadth due to preference for these landscape types. The niche breadth and the tolerance shown by the species are an indication of the potential success of these organisms in response to anthropic processes and changes in landscapes.
<strong>Abstract </strong> <strong>Aim:</strong> An emerging framework fo... more <strong>Abstract </strong> <strong>Aim:</strong> An emerging framework for tropical ecosystems states that fire activity is either '<em>fuel build-up limited</em>' or '<em>fuel moisture limited</em>' i.e. as you move up along rainfall gradients, the major control on fire occurrence switches from being the amount of fuel, to the moisture content of the fuel. Here we used remotely sensed datasets to assess whether interannual variability of burned area is better explained by annual rainfall totals driving fuel build-up, or by dry season rainfall driving fuel moisture. <strong>Location:</strong> Pantropical savannas and grasslands <strong>Time period:</strong> 2002-2016 <strong>Methods:</strong> We explored the response of annual burned area to interannual variability in rainfall. We compared several linear models to understand how <em>fuel moisture </em>and <em>fuel build-up effect </em>(accumulated rainfall during 6 and 24 months prior to the end of the burning season respectively) determine the interannual variability of burned area and explore if tree cover, dry season duration and human activity modified these relationships. <strong>Results:</strong> Fuel and moisture controls on fire occurrence in tropical savannas varied across continents. Only 24% of South American savannas were <em>fuel build-up limited</em> against 61% of Australian savannas and 47% of African savannas. On average, South America switched from fuel limited to moisture limited at 500 mm yr<sup>-1</sup>, Africa at 800 mm yr<sup>-1</sup> and Australia at 1000 mm yr<sup>-1 </sup>of mean annual rainfall. <strong>Main conclusions:</strong> In 42% of tropical savannas (accounting for 41% of current area burned) increased drought and higher temperatures will not increase fire, but there are savannas, particularly in South America, that are likely to become more flammable with increasing temperatures. These findings highlight that we cannot transfer knowledge of fire responses to global change across ecosystems/regions – local solutions to local fir [...]
Les evenements ecologiques survenus ces dernieres annees, notamment en raison des changements glo... more Les evenements ecologiques survenus ces dernieres annees, notamment en raison des changements globaux, et du rechauffement climatique en particulier, ont fait prendre conscience a l'opinion publique des menaces qui planent sur les zones tropicales. Et les sciences, dans une nouvelle approche transversale et interdisciplinaire, se penchent aujourd'hui sur cette ecologie unique qui abrite des ecosystemes d'une grande complexite. En effet, l'equilibre de notre planete repose en partie sur ces environnements fragiles ou evolue le plus grand nombre d'especes en densite et en diversite. Cette biodiversite et la gestion des ressources associees apparaissent comme l'un des enjeux ecologiques majeurs du XXIe siecle. Des specialistes de toutes les disciplines, issus des laboratoires du CNRS ou associes, presentent les travaux menes et tracent les voies prospectives de recherche pour les annees a venir. Ils nous font decouvrir les specificites de ces espaces tropicaux, ...
O estudo das relações entre o fogo e a dinâmica das paisagens brasileiras resulta fundamental par... more O estudo das relações entre o fogo e a dinâmica das paisagens brasileiras resulta fundamental para uma melhor compreensão dos processos ecológicos e dos impactos humanos incidentes sobre a dinâmica da paisagem. O presente artigo busca explorar a dinâmica de variação espaço-temporal de ocorrência de queimadas nos biomas brasileiros nos últimos 18 anos (2001-2018), com base no produto MCD64A1 v006 de área queimada e a base de dados de uso e cobertura da terra do projeto Mapbiomas. O Cerrado apresentou 62,2% do total queimado registrado no período analisado, seguido do bioma Amazônia, com 23,5%. Pampa, Mata Atlântica e Amazônia apresentaram uma incidência de queimadas superior a ≈50% em áreas com usos da terra agropastoris, enquanto nos biomas Cerrado, Caatinga e Pantanal as queimadas ocorreram principalmente sobre áreas de formação vegetal natural. Comprova-se o potencial de combinação de uso de produtos derivados de sensoriamento remoto para análise dos padrões de áreas queimadas, ge...
Increasing efforts are being devoted to understanding fire patterns and changes highlighting the ... more Increasing efforts are being devoted to understanding fire patterns and changes highlighting the need for a consistent database about the location and extension of burned areas (BA). Satellite-derived BA mapping accuracy in the Brazilian savannas is limited by the underestimation of burn scars from small, fragmented fires and high cloudiness. Moreover, systematic mapping of BA is challenged by the need for human intervention in training sample acquisition, which precludes the development of automatic-generated products over large areas and long periods. Here, we developed a multi-sensor, active fire-supervised, one-class BA mapping algorithm to address several of these limitations. Our main objective is to generate a long-term, detailed BA atlas suitable to improve fire regime characterization and validation of coarse resolution products. We use composite images derived from the Landsat satellite to generate end-of-season maps of fire-affected areas for the entire Cerrado. Validatio...
The present study evaluated the effects of habitat quality on the alpha and beta diversity of odo... more The present study evaluated the effects of habitat quality on the alpha and beta diversity of odonate larvae under conditions of reduced impact and conventional logging. We hypothesized that the variation in the abiotic conditions found in areas of conventional logging would result in a greater loss of alpha and beta diversity in these areas in comparison with areas of reduced-impact logging and native forest. The study area was located in northeastern Para state, in northern Brazil. We analyzed data from 10 control streams, located in areas of preserved native forest, 11 streams in forest harvested by reduced-impact logging, and nine streams in areas that had been logged conventionally. Environmental factors such as dissolved oxygen, woody debris, water temperature, sediments, and canopy cover were the principal predictors of the diversity of the Odonata. Our results showed that turnover was the principal component structuring beta diversity in the three areas (native forest, reduced impact and conventional logging). The results of the present study indicate that management initiatives based on reduced-impact logging techniques could be adopted to guarantee socio-economic benefits while minimizing the impacts of logging on local biodiversity.
Abstract The Cerrado is the most diverse tropical savanna in the world. As a fire-prone ecosystem... more Abstract The Cerrado is the most diverse tropical savanna in the world. As a fire-prone ecosystem, natural fire in the Cerrado shapes plant communities and drives evolutionary processes. Human activities and landscape management can alter natural fire regimes and reshape Cerrado dynamics, making biodiversity conservation a challenge, particularly in densely populated areas. We reconstructed the historical fire regime of three protected areas (PA) and their buffer zones in Sao Paulo state to understand how current fire exclusion policies are affecting fire regimes and to measure how human-climate-fire relationships can change in areas under different land management. We used Landsat satellite imagery, from 1984 to 2017, with 30 meters of spatial resolution and 16 days of temporal resolution. In total, we mapped 49,471 hectares of burned area, and we detected variations in fire frequency and fire size among sites. PA dominated by open savanna in Itirapina concentrated 93% of all observed fires, while PA dominated by forest-like formations in Assis represented only 2% of the fires. Annual rainfall showed a very weak relationship (R2 = 0.04) with annual total burned area, while the rainfall split between dry and wet seasons showed a tendency to have a fuel moisture effect which determined the vegetation available to burn in the dry season (R² = 0.09). Fire regimes in PA were similar to those observed in buffer zones suggesting that fire-exclusion policies do not effectively prevent fires in PA that are surrounded by an anthropic matrix where fire is often used. When we included human factors in addition to rainfall, our models explained 44% of variation of burned areas. We conclude that fire regimes in Sao Paulo Cerrado have been modified by humans and that fire exclusion is not a suitable policy for protected areas in this fire-prone ecosystem.
Bastin et al . (Reports, 5 July 2019, p. 76) neglect considerable research into forest-based clim... more Bastin et al . (Reports, 5 July 2019, p. 76) neglect considerable research into forest-based climate change mitigation during the 1980s and 1990s. This research supports some of their findings on the area of land technically suitable for expanding tree cover, and can be used to extend their analysis to include the area of actually available land and operational feasibility.
The year 2017 was a megafire year, when huge areas burned on different continents. In Brazil, a g... more The year 2017 was a megafire year, when huge areas burned on different continents. In Brazil, a great extension of the Cerrado burned, raising once more the discussion about the “zero-fire” policy. Indeed, most protected areas of the Cerrado adopted a policy of fire exclusion and prevention, leading to periodic megafire events. Last year, 78% of the Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park burned at the end of the dry season, attracting media attention. Furthermore, 85% of the Reserva Natural Serra do Tombador burned as a result of a large accumulation of fuel caused by the zero-fire policy. In 2014, some protected areas started to implement the Integrate Fire Management (IFM) strategy. During 2017, in contrast to other protected areas, the Estação Ecológica Serra Geral do Tocantins experienced no megafire events, suggesting that a few years of IFM implementation led to changes in its fire regime. Therefore, we intended here to compare the total burned area and number of fire scars betwe...
Humans can alter fire dynamics in grassland systems by changing fire frequency, fire seasonality ... more Humans can alter fire dynamics in grassland systems by changing fire frequency, fire seasonality and fuel conditions. These changes have effects on vegetation structure and recovery, species composition, and ecosystem function. Understanding how human management can affect fire regimes is vital to detect potential changes in the resilience of plant communities, and to predict vegetation responses to human interventions. We evaluated the fire regimes of two recently protected areas in Madagascar (Ibity and Itremo NPA) and one in Brazil (Serra do Cipó NP) before and after livestock exclusion and fire suppression policies. We compare the pre- and post-management fire history in these areas and analyze differences in terms of total annual burned area, density of ignitions, burn scar size distribution, fire return period and seasonal fire distribution. More than 90% of total park areas were burned at least once during the studied period, for all parks. We observed a significant reduction...
Uploads
Papers by Swanni Tatiana Alvarado Romero