火灾恢复年限对大兴安岭森林乔灌草多样性及优势种影响

林火是大兴安岭地区森林生态系统的重要影响因子,研究火灾对植物多样性和优势种多度长期影响,有助于火灾区域森林生态系统重建与管理。本研究以大兴安岭不同火烧年限（1~5、5~10、10~20、20~30、30~40和40~50年）48对配对样地（火烧样地与邻近未火烧对照样地）为研究对象,利用二者差值变化来探讨森林恢复年限对植物多样性指数影响,通过对乔灌草相对多度变化确认火灾恢复对优势种的影响。研究结果表明：（1）火烧与对照间乔木多样性和丰富度差值先降后升趋势,在10年左右最低,而恢复30~40年后与对照样地相当或更高。灌木与乔木变化趋势相似,但是变化趋势多达到统计学显著（P<0.05）,灌木Shannon-wiener多样性指数和丰富度差值随年限增加而线性上升。草本Simpson多样性指数随火烧年限增加而直线下降,但是均匀度与丰富度没有出现线性变化。（2）乔灌草优势种变化趋势为：乔木层白桦（Betula platyphylla）在火烧5~30年占比均超过30%,在30年后占比不超过15%,同时兴安落叶松（Larix gmelinii）在30~40年占比超过50%;灌木层在0~30年均是越桔（Vaccinium vitis-idaea）占比最大,30年之后变为榛子（Corylus heterophylla）,草本层5~30年均是小叶章（Deyeuxia angustifolia）占比最大,30年之后变为其他物种。对照样地乔木层主要是兴安落叶松,占比超过50%,灌木层主要是越桔（Vaccinium vitis-idaea）,草本层主要是小叶章（Deyeuxia angustifolia）。整体来看,乔木火后恢复需要更长的时间,而灌木和草本火后恢复更快。植物多样性及优势种变化是研究其对生态服务功能（如碳汇）影响的基础,我们研究结果为天保工程后续实施及科学管理大兴安岭森林生态系统提供数据支撑。     

Effects of wildfire on soil respiration and its heterotrophic and autotrophic components in a montane coniferous forest

Aims Episodic wildfires are expected to occur more frequently under future climate change scenarios, with substantial effects on CO₂exchange between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere. This study examined the effects of wildfire on soil respiration (R_S) and its heterotrophic (R_H) and autotrophic (R_A) components, as well as their temperature responses (temperature sensitivity,Q₁₀).     

Fixing a snag in carbon emissions estimates from wildfires

Wildfire is an essential earth‐system process, impacting ecosystem processes and the carbon cycle. Forest fires are becoming more frequent and severe, yet gaps exist in the modeling of fire on vegetation and carbon dynamics. Strategies for reducing carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from wildfires include increasing tree harvest, largely based on the public assumption that fires burn live forests to the ground, despite observations indicating that less than 5% of mature tree biomass is actually consumed. This misconception is also reflected though excessive combustion of live trees in models. Here, we show that regional emissions estimates using widely implemented combustion coefficients are 59%–83% higher than emissions based on field observations. Using unique field datasets from before and after wildfires and an improved ecosystem model, we provide strong evidence that these large overestimates can be reduced by using realistic biomass combustion factors and by accurately quantifying biomass in standing dead trees that decompose over decades to centuries after fire (“snags”). Most model development focuses on area burned; our results reveal that accurately representing combustion is also essential for quantifying fire impacts on ecosystems. Using our improvements, we find that western US forest fires have emitted 851 ± 228 Tg CO₂ (~half of alternative estimates) over the last 17 years, which is minor compared to 16,200 Tg CO₂ from fossil fuels across the region.     

Wildfire refugia in forests: Severe fire weather and drought mute the influence of topography and fuel age

Wildfire refugia (unburnt patches within large wildfires) are important for the persistence of fire‐sensitive species across forested landscapes globally. A key challenge is to identify the factors that determine the distribution of fire refugia across space and time. In particular, determining the relative influence of climatic and landscape factors is important in order to understand likely changes in the distribution of wildfire refugia under future climates. Here, we examine the relative effect of weather (i.e. fire weather, drought severity) and landscape features (i.e. topography, fuel age, vegetation type) on the occurrence of fire refugia across 26 large wildfires in south‐eastern Australia. Fire weather and drought severity were the primary drivers of the occurrence of fire refugia, moderating the effect of landscape attributes. Unburnt patches rarely occurred under ‘severe’ fire weather, irrespective of drought severity, topography, fuels or vegetation community. The influence of drought severity and landscape factors played out most strongly under ‘moderate’ fire weather. In mesic forests, fire refugia were linked to variables that affect fuel moisture, whereby the occurrence of unburnt patches decreased with increasing drought conditions and were associated with more mesic topographic locations (i.e. gullies, pole‐facing aspects) and vegetation communities (i.e. closed‐forest). In dry forest, the occurrence of refugia was responsive to fuel age, being associated with recently burnt areas (<5 years since fire). Overall, these results show that increased severity of fire weather and increased drought conditions, both predicted under future climate scenarios, are likely to lead to a reduction of wildfire refugia across forests of southern Australia. Protection of topographic areas able to provide long‐term fire refugia will be an important step towards maintaining the ecological integrity of forests under future climate change.     

Contrasting evolutionary histories in Neotropical birds: Divergence across an environmental barrier in South America

Avian diversity in the Neotropics has been traditionally attributed to the effect of vicariant forces promoting speciation in allopatry. Recent studies have shown that phylogeographical patterns shared among codistributed species cannot be explained by a single vicariant event, as species responses to a common barrier depend on the biological attributes of each taxon. The open vegetation corridor (OVC) isolates Amazonia and the Andean forests from the Atlantic Forest, creating a notorious pattern of avian taxa that are disjunctly codistributed in these forests. Here, we studied and compared the evolutionary histories of Ramphotrigon megacephalum and Pipraeidea melanonota, two passerines with allopatric populations east and west of the OVC that represent different subspecies. These species differ in their biological attributes: R. megacephalum is a sedentary, forest specialist mostly confined to bamboo understorey, whereas P. melanonota is a seasonal migrant and generalist species that ranges in a variety of closed and semi‐open environments. We performed genetic and genomic analyses, complemented with the study of coloration and behavioural differentiation, to assess population divergence across the OVC. We found that the evolutionary histories of both R. megacephalum and P. melanonota have been shaped by this environmental barrier. However, these species responded in different and asynchronous manners to the establishment of the OVC and to past connections between the currently isolated South American forests, which can be mostly explained by their distinct ecologies and dispersal abilities. Our results support the fact that the biological attributes of species can make their evolutionary histories idiosyncratic.     

Willingness of rural communities to reforest with native tree species in central Chile

Economic development of rural people is not always feasible along with concomitant forest restoration, especially when meager reforestation incentives are oriented to poor rural people who probably are not willing to plant native species in their small plots of land. Forest restoration incentives have been created by the Chilean government to engage poor rural people in reforestation using native tree species to recover degraded lands. Our objective was to compare the willingness of people from rural communities to plant native species if they had to bear the costs or if the government did, and we related the answers to environmental and socioeconomic variables. Of the 217 respondents 53.9% were interested in planting native trees if subsidies became available. Interest decreased if the respondents had to pay for the cost, but only slightly. The willingness to reforest was significantly greater at lower distance from the community to the nearest native forest for those with lower income level, and was higher when there was use of nontimber forest products or wood by the respondents. However, in spite of the positive disposition to plant native trees, only 23% of the respondents were interested in planting on their own land, which is a requirement to receive the economic incentives. Most respondents were willing to plant in open sites and on degraded hillsides that surround their communities. We conclude that despite monetary incentives, benefits cannot reach most rural inhabitants because of their lack of interest in reforesting their own land.