19
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      The role of fire disturbance on habitat structure and bird communities in South Brazilian Highland Grasslands

      research-article

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          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.

          Related collections

          Most cited references105

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: found
          • Article: not found

          Diversity in tropical rain forests and coral reefs.

          The commonly observed high diversity of trees in tropical rain forests and corals on tropical reefs is a nonequilibrium state which, if not disturbed further, will progress toward a low-diversity equilibrium community. This may not happen if gradual changes in climate favor different species. If equilibrium is reached, a lesser degree of diversity may be sustained by niche diversification or by a compensatory mortality that favors inferior competitors. However, tropical forests and reefs are subject to severe disturbances often enough that equilibrium may never be attained.
            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: not found
            • Article: not found

            Collinearity: a review of methods to deal with it and a simulation study evaluating their performance

              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: not found
              • Article: not found

              The Paradox of the Plankton

                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Contributors
                mariana.beal@edu.pucrs.br
                Journal
                Sci Rep
                Sci Rep
                Scientific Reports
                Nature Publishing Group UK (London )
                2045-2322
                12 November 2020
                12 November 2020
                2020
                : 10
                : 19708
                Affiliations
                [1 ]GRID grid.412519.a, ISNI 0000 0001 2166 9094, 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
                [2 ]GRID grid.412519.a, ISNI 0000 0001 2166 9094, 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
                Article
                76758
                10.1038/s41598-020-76758-z
                7665042
                33184441
                0ee74426-d323-492e-a7a4-3a74ff9040f6
                © The Author(s) 2020

                Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

                History
                : 8 May 2020
                : 29 October 2020
                Funding
                Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100003593, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico;
                Award ID: 402083/2016-4 and 309438/2016-0
                Award ID: 402083/2016-4 and 309438/2016-0
                Award ID: 402083/2016-4 and 309438/2016-0
                Award Recipient :
                Categories
                Article
                Custom metadata
                © The Author(s) 2020

                Uncategorized
                community ecology,plant ecology,zoology
                Uncategorized
                community ecology, plant ecology, zoology

                Comments

                Comment on this article