Effect of fire severity on soil macrofauna in Manna oak coppice forests

Abstract

Regarding the importance of Zagros forest ecosystems and the recent wildfires, interaction between fire severity and soil properties and macrofauna was investigated in this study. For this purpose three burning severity levels including: low (occurred at forest floor or outside oak sprout clumps), moderate and high severity (occurred inside the oak sprout clumps) were considered and compared respectively to control plots inside and outside the oak sprout clumps. Fifteen 0.5 × 0.5× 0.2 m. sample plots were randomly selected for each above-mentioned treatment along transects in the both burned and control blocks. Sampling was performed for two times, including 13 months (autumn) and 20 months (spring) after fire. Soil macrofauna were hand sorted and classified after their determination. Results indicated that low burning level changed neither the soil properties nor the macrofauna total number, whereas high burning level changed significantly both the macrofauna total number and the soil properties. Presence of earthworm and silverfish was positively correlated to litter thickness, soil organic carbon, nitrogen and moisture, based on canonical correspondence analysis (CCA), whereas elimination of earthworm and silverfish was positively correlated to decrease of the soil and litter properties at moderate and high burning levels.

Keywords

• CCA
• earthworm
• silver fish
• Organic carbon
• sprout clump