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-PUCRS, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
PLoS One. 2020 Dec 2;15(12):e0243070. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0243070. eCollection 2020.
Despite the importance and ubiquity of grasslands, the degradation and the loss of these habitats have negatively affected bird populations throughout the world. The use of fire to manage grassland areas in some regions of southern Brazil can help to maintain these areas but can also influence the bird community in different ways. We assessed temporal changes in richness, abundance, and composition of bird communities in areas with different histories of fire disturbance in highland grasslands of southern Brazil, the most extensive remnant of grassland of the Atlantic Forest domain. We censused birds during four breeding seasons (2015-2018), through point counts in areas burned only once in the last ten years (OF, n = 3), areas burned annually (AF, n = 2), and areas without fire in the last ten years (WF, n = 2). In OF the richness, abundance, and species composition changed in the year of the fire, compared to the previous year, and returned to the initial values two years later. In AF and WF we found some differences among the years, but not with an equally clear pattern. Three of the six grassland associated species assessed individually for density responded significantly to temporal habitat modification since the fire. Our results show that two years without fire were enough time for the bird community to recover after a fire, but some responses are species-specific. Therefore, fire can be used as a management tool for grasslands and may help in the conservation of birds of southern Brazil, as long as with a minimum interval between fires in an area is guaranteed.
尽管草原具有重要性和普遍性，但这些栖息地的退化和丧失对全球鸟类种群产生了负面影响。在巴西南部的一些地区，用火来管理草原地区可以帮助维持这些地区，但也会以不同的方式影响鸟类社区。我们评估了在巴西南部高地草原地区，具有不同火烧干扰历史的地区鸟类群落丰富度、丰度和组成的时间变化，该地区是大西洋森林地区最大的草原残余物。我们在四个繁殖季节（2015-2018 年）期间通过点计数法进行鸟类普查，这些地区在过去十年中仅被火烧过一次（OF，n=3），每年被火烧（AF，n=2），以及过去十年中没有火的地区（WF，n=2）。在 OF 中，与前一年相比，火烧当年的丰富度、丰度和物种组成发生了变化，两年后又恢复到初始值。在 AF 和 WF 中，我们发现了一些年份之间的差异，但没有一个同样明显的模式。在六个单独评估密度的草地相关物种中，有三个对火烧后的时间栖息地变化有明显的响应。我们的结果表明，两年没有火的时间足以让鸟类群落在火灾后恢复，但有些反应是特定于物种的。因此，火可以作为草原管理的工具，只要在一个地区内保证火之间的最小间隔，就可以帮助保护巴西南部的鸟类。
