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Soil macrofauna (Diplopoda, Chilopoda, Oniscidea) in a pine forest disturbed by wildfire
Tajovský, Karel
The effect of wildfire on the soil invertebrate assemblages was studied after a large-scale fire in 1992 in the secondary pine forests in the Záhorie Lowland, Western Slovakia. Two plots differently affected by fire and one control plot with non-burned pine plantation were investigated during 1993-1995 for soil macrofauna. Soil sampling and pitfall trapping were used and parameters of millipede, centipede and terrestrial isopod assemblages were analyzed in detail. Among the soil macrofauna no survivors were found after the fire. Animal groups possessing a higher ability of migration (e.g. ants, larvae and adults of Diptera and Coleoptera) represented the first colonizers of the completely burned out pine plots. Centipedes, the representatives of predators, migrated and recolonized the open burned out plots more rapidly than saprophagous millipedes and terrestrial isopods, even they formed specific and relatively stable populations in non-disturbed surrounding plantations. Successional development of less disturbed plot was characterized by presence of some millipede and isopod species already during the first year after the fire event. These species (esp. the millipedes Cylindroiulus boleti and Proteroiulus fuscus) represent subcorticolous inhabitants, which explain their higher ability to survive the fire. The slow restoration processes after the wildfire should be attributed more to the destruction and elimination of litter layers and the above ground vegetation cover, rather than to the immediate eradication of soil animal assemblages, since most of them were completely absent after the fire event.
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