Ancient fires enhance Amazon forest drought resistance

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dc.contributor.authorVedovato Laura B.
dc.contributor.authorCarvalho Lidiany C. S.
dc.contributor.authorAragao Luiz E. O. C.
dc.contributor.authorBird Michael
dc.contributor.authorPhillips Oliver L.
dc.contributor.authorAlvarez Patricia
dc.contributor.authorBarlow Jos
dc.contributor.authorBartholomew David C.
dc.contributor.authorBerenguer Erika
dc.contributor.authorCastro Wendeson
dc.contributor.authorFerreira Joice
dc.contributor.authorFranca Filipe M.
dc.contributor.authorMalhi Yadvinder
dc.contributor.authorMarimon Beatriz
dc.contributor.authorMarimon Junior Ben Hur
dc.contributor.authorMonteagudo Abel
dc.contributor.authorOliveira Edmar A.
dc.contributor.authorPereira Luciana O.
dc.contributor.authorPontes-Lopes Aline
dc.contributor.authorQuesada Carlos A.
dc.contributor.authorSilva Camila V. J.
dc.contributor.authorEspejo Javier Silva E.
dc.contributor.authorSilveira Marcos
dc.contributor.authorFeldpausch Ted R.
dc.date.accessioned2025-05-19T20:48:10Z
dc.date.available2025-05-19T20:48:10Z
dc.date.issued2023/02/14
dc.description.abstractDrought and fire reduce productivity and increase tree mortality in tropical forests. Fires also produce pyrogenic carbon (PyC), which persists in situ for centuries to millennia, and represents a legacy of past fires, potentially improving soil fertility and water holding capacity and selecting for the survival and recruitment of certain tree life-history (or successional) strategies. We investigated whether PyC is correlated with physicochemical soil properties, wood density, aboveground carbon (AGC) dynamics and forest resistance to severe drought. To achieve our aim, we used an Amazon-wide, long-term plot network, in forests without known recent fires, integrating site-specific measures of forest dynamics, soil properties and a unique soil PyC concentration database. We found that forests with higher concentrations of soil PyC had both higher soil fertility and lower wood density. Soil PyC was not associated with AGC dynamics in non-drought years. However, during extreme drought events (10% driest years), forests with higher concentrations of soil PyC experienced lower reductions in AGC gains (woody growth and recruitment), with this drought-immunizing effect increasing with drought severity. Forests with a legacy of ancient fires are therefore more likely to continue to grow and recruit under increased drought severity. Forests with high soil PyC concentrations (third quartile) had 3.8% greater AGC gains under mean drought, but 33.7% greater under the most extreme drought than forests with low soil PyC concentrations (first quartile), offsetting losses of up to 0.68 Mg C ha(-1)yr(-1) of AGC under extreme drought events. This suggests that ancient fires have legacy effects on current forest dynamics, by altering soil fertility and favoring tree species capable of continued growth and recruitment during droughts. Therefore, mature forest that experienced fires centuries or millennia ago may have greater resistance to current short-term droughts.
dc.identifier.doi10.3389/ffgc.2023.1024101
dc.identifier.urihttps://publicacionesabiertas.userena.cl/handle/123456789/320
dc.languageEnglish
dc.subjectBLACK CARBON, TROPICAL FOREST, SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE, PHYSICAL-PROPERTIES, TREE MORTALITY, CLIMATE-CHANGE, WOOD DENSITY, SOIL, DEFORESTATION, INCREASES
dc.titleAncient fires enhance Amazon forest drought resistance
dc.typeArticle

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