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Tropical forest fires and biodiversity: dung beetle community and biomass responses in a northern Brazilian Amazon forest

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Abstract

The Brazilian Amazon is under threat from more frequent and intense forest fires, with a few studies showing negative consequences for forest integrity and the biodiversity. However, the impacts of this disturbance on tropical forests remain mostly unknown. We investigate the impacts of forest fires on community parameters and biomass of dung beetles, a cost-effective indicator of disturbance and overall biodiversity, in the northern Brazilian Amazon. Our results indicate that burned forests harbor a modified dung beetle community, with altered abundance, community composition, and structure. Burned forest samples had lower total biomass and were dominated by small-bodied dung beetles. Large-bodied tunneler species were negatively impacted, responding to changes in environmental characteristics such as soil compaction. Lower biomass and higher predominance of smaller species in burned forest is likely to impact dung beetle-mediated ecological functions, such as nutrient cycling and seed dispersal. Our results support that forest fires in the Brazilian Amazon pose a serious threat to local biodiversity and habitat integrity.

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Acknowledgments

This research was funded by the Biological Diversity Program of the Earth Science Division of the NASA Science Mission Directorate (NNX07AF16G). RBA was also funded by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP). FZVM is granted by CNPq (304925/2010-1, 484035/2013-4, 302997/2013-0, 202327/2013-2). The authors would like to thank Raphael Didham and two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments and advice. RBA would like to thank Gabriela D’Andrea for the support during fieldwork, analysis and writing, and Izaya Numata for GIS support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp), Rua Monteiro Lobato, 255, Campinas, SP, CEP 13.083-862, Brazil

    Rafael B. de Andrade

  2. South Dakota State University, Brookings, SD, USA

    Rafael B. de Andrade & Mark A. Cochrane

  3. Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

    Jos Barlow

  4. Universidade Federal de Lavras, Lavras, Brazil

    Julio Louzada & Juliana M. Silveira

  5. Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso, Cuiabá, Brazil

    Fernando Z. Vaz-de-Mello

  6. Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France

    Fernando Z. Vaz-de-Mello

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  1. Rafael B. de Andrade
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  2. Jos Barlow
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  3. Julio Louzada
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  4. Fernando Z. Vaz-de-Mello
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  6. Mark A. Cochrane
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Correspondence to Rafael B. de Andrade.

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de Andrade, R.B., Barlow, J., Louzada, J. et al. Tropical forest fires and biodiversity: dung beetle community and biomass responses in a northern Brazilian Amazon forest. J Insect Conserv 18, 1097–1104 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-014-9719-4

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