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Fire Damage in Seasonally Flooded and Upland Forests of the Central Amazon
Author(s) -
Resende Angélica F.,
Nelson Bruce W.,
Flores Bernardo M.,
Almeida Danilo R.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
biotropica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.813
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1744-7429
pISSN - 0006-3606
DOI - 10.1111/btp.12153
Subject(s) - amazon rainforest , understory , basal area , flammability , environmental science , vegetation (pathology) , rainforest , forestry , fire ecology , disturbance (geology) , geography , agroforestry , ecology , ecosystem , canopy , biology , medicine , physics , pathology , thermodynamics , paleontology
Neighboring upland and nutrient‐poor seasonally flooded Amazon forests were penetrated by a fire in 2009, providing a natural comparative experiment of fire damage for these widespread forest types. In upland, only 16 ± 10% (±2 SEM ) of stems and 21 ± 8% of basal area were lost to fire, while seasonally flooded forest lost 59 ± 13% of stems and 57 ± 13% of basal area. Drier understory contributes to greater flammability. Much of the area occupied by seasonally flooded woody vegetation (>11.5 percent of the Amazon region) is vulnerable to fire due to high flammability and slow recovery.