Post-Fire Recovery of Plant Biodiversity Changes Depending on Time Intervals since Last Fire in Semiarid Shrublands

Fire

article

Maral Bashirzadeh¹  Mehdi Abedi²  Richard P. Shefferson³  Mohammad Farzam¹ 

[1] Department of Range and Watershed Management, Faculty of Natural Resources and Environment, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad;Department of Range Management, Faculty of Natural Resources and Marine Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University;Organization for Programs on Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Arts & Sciences, University of Tokyo

关键词: fire disturbance;    plant biodiversity;    functional diversity;    phylogenetic diversity;    natural restoration;    evolution;   

DOI  :  10.3390/fire6030103

学科分类：环境科学（综合）

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Fire is a key disturbance affecting plant biodiversity patterns and evolution. Although a wide range of studies have shown important impacts of fire on vegetation, most have focused on taxonomic diversity, with less emphasis on other aspects of biodiversity, such as functional and phylogenetic diversity. Therefore, we assessed the recovery of biodiversity facets across different times since the last fire in semiarid shrublands in Northeast Iran. We quantified changes in plant biodiversity facets, including taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity, and the diversity of seven functional traits in five ecologically comparable sites that have experienced wildfire disturbances at short-term (1 and 4 year sites) and long-term (10 and 20 year sites) intervals, in com- parison to an unburnt site. Our results showed significant changes in all biodiversity facets related to the year since the last fire, with a significant increase in biodiversity and diversity of functional traits under long-term rather than short-term conditions, and in comparison to the unburned site. We conclude that wildfire influences the presence of plant species with distant functional and evolutionary relatedness and causes an increase in plant species and diversity of functional traits de- pending on time intervals. Therefore, wildfire can promote positive effects on the recovery of bio- diversity aspects and the evolution of vegetation in semiarid shrublands.

【 授权许可】

CC BY