Publicações
Post-fire and post-quarry rehabilitation successions in Mediterranean-like ecosystems: Implications for ecological restoration
Meira-Neto, J.A.A., A. Clemente, G. Oliveira, A. Nunes, O. Correia, 2011. Post-fire and post-quarry rehabilitation successions in Mediterranean-like ecosystems: Implications for ecological restoration. Ecological Engineering. Volume 37, Issue 8, 2011, Pages 1132–1139.
Autores
Joao Augusto Alves Meira Neto
Resilience against sudden changes in the environment is a very desirable trait in plants used for ecosystem
restoration. Mediterranean-like vegetation exhibits particularly strong fire resilience. There are two main
functional groups of fire-prone species among Mediterranean-like vegetation: seeders and resprouters.
Our aims were to describe how the theory of succession after fire relates to rehabilitation and to use this
knowledge to improve the results of rehabilitation attempts in Mediterranean-like ecosystems. Eight postfire
(PF) sites, 14 post-rehabilitated (PR) quarry sites and two woodland sites were sampled. Detrended
Canonical Correspondence Analysis (DCCA) showed that PF and PR successions were quite different.
Both displayed an increasing abundance of resprouters over time, but seeder density increased throughout
PR succession and decreased during PF succession. Nine species were common to both successions
in all studied stages. The results showed that until 15–21 years of succession, the post-rehabilitation
sites had not become as resilient to fires as sites populated by indigenous vegetation due to the lack
of a seeder seed bank. However, after 21 years of PR succession, the exponentially increasing seeder
population may allow for seed bank formation and thus eventually improve the fire resilience of the
site.