A review of wildfires effects across the Gran Chaco region

Vidal Riveros Cristina, Souza-Alonso Pablo, Bravo Sandra, Laino Rafaela, Ngo Bieng Marie-Ange. 2023. A review of wildfires effects across the Gran Chaco region. Forest Ecology and Management, 549:121432, 14 p.

Résumé : Fire is a natural element of some tropical dry ecosystems. However, during the last decades, fire occurrence has become more frequent and intense due, in part, to climate change and land use transformation. This is the case in the Gran Chaco Americano, one of the largest dry forests all over the world that extends across Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil. Fire has shaped the Gran Chaco landscape since ancient times, but today, as in many other regions, the pattern, frequency, severity and intensity are being dramatically altered. Based on information collected mainly over the last two decades, this paper presents a detailed review of the available literature on the fire regime across the Gran Chaco region. Here, we present a multi-disciplinary understanding considering fire behavior and dynamics in the study ecosystem within a very specific ecological, administrative and historical framework. A noteworthy aspect of this review indicates the clear imbalance between regions in terms of available literature; while information about the Argentine Chaco is abundant, the literature for the Paraguayan or Bolivian Chaco is practically non-existent. The rainfall gradient and drought periods are key climatic drivers of fire ignitions while cattle ranching is the main socioeconomic activity of this region and key precursor of forest fires. In general, a substantial part of the available information focused on ecological aspects of the fire regime as the effect of fires on plant functional traits such as bark thickness, resprouting ability and flammability patterns. Other post fire effects on soil, invasive species, herbivory and soil seed banks have been also explored in detail to understand ecosystem recovery and research needs. We finally highlight current necessities and future prospects, mainly related to soil burn severity (SBS), invasive species and wildlife impact. Although our study specifically focused on changes in the fire regime of the Gran Chaco, some generalities were further discussed about fire regimes that could be relevant for diverse fire-sensitive ecosystems in the tropics.

Mots-clés Agrovoc : système de culture, gestion des ressources naturelles, incendie de forêt, écosystème forestier, utilisation des terres, conservation des sols, télédétection, incendie, régime des incendies, forêt tropicale, aménagement forestier, distribution géographique

Mots-clés géographiques Agrovoc : Chaco, Paraguay, Argentine

Classification Agris : K70 - Dégâts causés aux forêts et leur protection
F40 - Écologie végétale

Champ stratégique Cirad : CTS 4 (2019-) - Santé des plantes, des animaux et des écosystèmes

Auteurs et affiliations

• Vidal Riveros Cristina, CIRAD-ES-UPR Forêts et sociétés (FRA) - auteur correspondant
• Souza-Alonso Pablo, University of Santiago de Compostela (ESP)
• Bravo Sandra, National University of Santiago del Estero (ARG)
• Laino Rafaela, Chaco Americano Research Center (PRY)
• Ngo Bieng Marie-Ange, CIRAD-ES-UPR Forêts et sociétés (GTM)

Source : Cirad-Agritrop (https://agritrop.cirad.fr/606528/)

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