Departamento de Biología, Universidad de Cádiz, Campus Río San Pedro, Puerto Real, Spain.
Oecologia. 2010 Jul;163(3):729-35. doi: 10.1007/s00442-009-1550-3. Epub 2010 Jan 8.
Recurrent wildfires constitute a major selecting force in shaping the structure of plant communities. At the regional scale, fire favours phenotypic and phylogenetic clustering in Mediterranean woody plant communities. Nevertheless, the incidence of fire within a fire-prone region may present strong variations at the local, landscape scale. This study tests the prediction that woody communities on acid, nutrient-poor soils should exhibit more pronounced phenotypic and phylogenetic clustering patterns than woody communities on fertile soils, as a consequence of their higher flammability and, hence, presumably higher propensity to recurrent fire. Results confirm the predictions and show that habitat filtering driven by fire may be detected even in local communities from an already fire-filtered regional flora. They also provide a new perspective from which to consider a preponderant role of fire as a key evolutionary force in acid, infertile Mediterranean heathlands.
反复发生的野火是塑造植物群落结构的主要选择力量。在区域尺度上，火有利于地中海木本植物群落的表型和系统发育聚类。然而，在火灾多发地区内，火灾的发生在局部、景观尺度上可能存在强烈的变化。本研究检验了这样一种预测，即在酸性、贫营养土壤上的木本群落应该比在肥沃土壤上的木本群落表现出更明显的表型和系统发育聚类模式，这是因为它们的可燃性更高，因此可能更易发生反复火灾。研究结果证实了这些预测，并表明即使在已经经过火灾过滤的区域性植物群中，由火灾驱动的生境过滤也可以被检测到。它们还提供了一个新的视角，认为火作为一种关键的进化力量，在酸性、贫瘠的地中海石楠灌丛中起着主导作用。
