Laboratório de Ecologia de Interações, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia e Evolução da Biodiversidade, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, building 12, block C, room 111, Ipiranga Avenue 6681, Porto Alegre, RS, 90619-900, Brazil.
Laboratório de Ornitologia, Museu de Ciências e Tecnologia, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia e Evolução da Biodiversidade, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, building 40, room 112, Ipiranga Avenue 6681, Porto Alegre, RS, 90619-900, Brazil.
Sci Rep. 2020 Nov 12;10(1):19708. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-76758-z.
Grassland ecosystems are evolutionarily linked to disturbances such as grazing and fire. These disturbances define grassland plant communities and habitat heterogeneity, which influence animal communities. We evaluated the influence of fire disturbance on plant and bird communities and on habitat structure by sampling grassland fragments with different time elapsed since the last fire event. Habitat structure was sampled using plant life forms and abiotic variables and birds were sampled through point counts. We recorded 862 bird individuals from 70 species. Intermediately-burnt sites harbor higher habitat heterogeneity and plant species richness in comparison with recently or long-burnt sites. Bird abundance and taxonomic diversity decreased linearly as time since fire increased. Finally, time since fire influenced the relative distribution of plant life forms and bird food guilds. Our results indicate that fire management should be included in the framework for conservation and sustainable use of grasslands, because it promotes habitat heterogeneity and diversity. To maintain habitat heterogeneity and the related habitat-specific bird species and functional groups, conservation efforts should maintain grassland patches under different management intensities and frequencies on a landscape level. However, studies focused on determining the periodicity with which fire management should be used are still lacking.
草原生态系统与放牧和火灾等干扰因素在进化上是相关的。这些干扰因素定义了草原植物群落和生境异质性，从而影响动物群落。我们通过对不同火烧时间的草原片段进行采样，评估了火烧干扰对植物和鸟类群落以及对生境结构的影响。我们使用植物生活型和非生物变量对生境结构进行了采样，通过点计数法对鸟类进行了采样。我们记录了 862 只鸟，来自 70 种。与最近或长时间火烧的地点相比，中度火烧的地点具有更高的生境异质性和植物物种丰富度。随着火烧时间的增加，鸟类的丰度和分类多样性呈线性下降。最后，火烧时间影响植物生活型和鸟类食物群的相对分布。我们的研究结果表明，应该将火灾管理纳入草原保护和可持续利用的框架中，因为它可以促进生境异质性和多样性。为了维持生境异质性以及相关的特定于生境的鸟类物种和功能群，保护工作应该在景观水平上保持不同管理强度和频率的草原斑块。然而，关于确定应该使用火灾管理的周期性的研究仍然缺乏。
