Fires in the cerrado, the Brazilian savanna

Miranda, Heloísa S.; Sato, Margarete Naomi; Neto, Walter Nascimento; Aires, Felipe Salvo

doi:10.1007/978-3-540-77381-8_15

Cited by 117 publications

(118 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Contrary to fire reconstructions from neotropical forests (18,19,(21)(22)(23) and lake records from Central American savannas (24,25), our data show unexpectedly low levels of late-Holocene biomass burning, which we attribute to fire limitation by pre-Columbian raised-field farmers, and a dramatic increase in fires associated with the post-Columbian demise of labor-intensive raised-field systems. A better understanding of how pre-Columbian inhabitants managed savanna environments-in the case studied here, over the course of two or more centuries of raised-field agriculture-may provide insights into the sustainable use and conservation of these globally important ecosystems, which currently occupy 20% of the lowland neotropics and are being destroyed at an alarmingly high rate (26,27).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Fire-free land use in pre-1492 Amazonian savannas

Iriarte

Power

Rostain

et al. 2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

111

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The nature and scale of pre-Columbian land use and the consequences of the 1492 "Columbian Encounter" (CE) on Amazonia are among the more debated topics in New World archaeology and paleoecology. However, pre-Columbian human impact in Amazonian savannas remains poorly understood. Most paleoecological studies have been conducted in neotropical forest contexts. Of studies done in Amazonian savannas, none has the temporal resolution needed to detect changes induced by either climate or humans before and after A.D. 1492, and only a few closely integrate paleoecological and archaeological data. We report a highresolution 2,150-y paleoecological record from a French Guianan coastal savanna that forces reconsideration of how pre-Columbian savanna peoples practiced raised-field agriculture and how the CE impacted these societies and environments. Our combined pollen, phytolith, and charcoal analyses reveal unexpectedly low levels of biomass burning associated with pre-A.D. 1492 savanna raised-field agriculture and a sharp increase in fires following the arrival of Europeans. We show that pre-Columbian raised-field farmers limited burning to improve agricultural production, contrasting with extensive use of fire in pre-Columbian tropical forest and Central American savanna environments, as well as in present-day savannas. The charcoal record indicates that extensive fires in the seasonally flooded savannas of French Guiana are a post-Columbian phenomenon, postdating the collapse of indigenous populations. The discovery that pre-Columbian farmers practiced fire-free savanna management calls into question the widely held assumption that pre-Columbian Amazonian farmers pervasively used fire to manage and alter ecosystems and offers fresh perspectives on an emerging alternative approach to savanna land use and conservation that can help reduce carbon emissions.pre-Columbian agriculture | anthropogenic fire | indigenous fire practices | savanna ecology | tropical seasonal wetlands M ounting archaeological and paleoecological evidence indicates that societies of considerable size and complexity emerged in some regions of Amazonia and began to transform landscapes at an unprecedented scale during the late Holocene (1-4). Anthropogenic dark-earth soils associated with intensive agriculture developed along the bluffs of major rivers in forested areas of Amazonia and its periphery, and large expanses of previously uncultivated seasonally flooded savannas were reclaimed for intensive raised-field agricultural systems (5, 6).Many seasonally flooded tropical savannas of South and Central America, such as the coastal belt of the Guianas (7), the Mompos depression in Colombia (8), and the Beni in the Bolivian Amazon (9), were reclaimed into vast agricultural landscapes through the construction of raised fields by pre-Columbian farmers during the Late Holocene. Early European chronicles illustrate the practice of raised-field agriculture by the Otomac in Venezuela (10) and by the Tainos in Hispaniola (11), who constructed small mounds u...

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

Fire-free land use in pre-1492 Amazonian savannas

Iriarte

Power

Rostain

et al. 2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

111

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“…Although the impact of fire on plants is well known, knowledge of the impacts on many groups of the native fauna is lacking (Miranda et al 2002(Miranda et al , 2004(Miranda et al , 2009). Exceptions at Emas National Park were two investigations of fire management and the feeding ecology of macaws that are attracted to grassland and woodland firebreaks during the fruiting season of Anacardium humile (Tubelis 2009a, b).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fire management and the nesting of Athene cunicularia (Aves, Strigidae) in grasslands in central Cerrado, Brazil

Tubelis

Delitti

2010

Biota Neotrop.

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Fire management is a common practice in several reserves in the Cerrado, but its influences on bird reproduction remain unknown. In addition, the nesting biology of the Burrowing Owl (Athene cunicularia) has been studied in numerous environments, but not in tropical grasslands managed by fire. This study examined the effects of fire management on the nesting biology of A. cunicularia in Emas National Park, State of Goias, central Brazilian Cerrado. We compared the number of breeding pairs and their burrows in October and November 2009 at 15 study sites in grasslands managed by fire (firebreaks) and unmanaged grasslands adjacent to and distant from firebreaks. We visited active burrows two-four times and described the burrow entrances and sentinel sites and counted and observed adults and young. A total of 19 burrows were found at firebreaks. One and two burrows were found in grasslands adjacent to and distant from firebreaks, respectively. For all burrows found, one to three young reached the adult size, being able to fly and/or run in early November. The 22 burrows found were in the ground, associated or not with termite and ant nests. Most (86.4%) burrows had only one entrance. Only three burrows had two or three entrances. Structures used as sentinel perches by adults were mounds in front of the burrow entrances, termite nests, shrubs and trees. Most of these sentinel sites were shorter than 2 m high and located less than 10 m from the burrow entrance. At Emas National Park, firebreaks appear to provide more attractive conditions to the nesting of A. cunicularia than unmanaged grasslands, likely because of the short herbaceous stratum due to frequent burning of firebreaks. This study suggests that fire management provides suitable conditions for the successful reproduction of A. cunicularia in firebreaks at Emas National Park. Resumo: O manejo de fogo é uma prática comum em várias reservas do Cerrado, mas suas influências sobre a reprodução de aves não é conhecida. Adicionalmente, a nidificação da coruja-buraqueira (Athene cunicularia) foi estudada em numerosos ambientes, mas não em campos tropicais manejados por fogo. O presente estudo teve como objetivo examinar efeitos do manejo de fogo sobre a nidificação de A. cunicularia no Parque Nacional das Emas, Estado de Goiás, Cerrado central brasileiro. Comparamos o número de casais reprodutivos e suas tocas em outubro e novembro de 2009 em 15 locais de estudo, que incluíram trechos de campo sujo manejados por fogo (aceiros) e trechos não manejados, próximos e distantes de aceiros. Visitamos tocas ativas duas a quatro vezes, descrevemos as entradas das tocas e os locais de sentinela, assim como contamos e observamos os adultos e os filhotes. Um total de 19 tocas foi encontrado em aceiros. Uma e duas tocas foram encontradas em campos próximos e distantes de aceiros, respectivamente. Para todas as tocas encontradas, um a três filhotes atingiram o tamanho adulto, sendo aptos para voar ou correr no início de novembro. Todas as 22 tocas foram feitas no solo,...

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“…Fatores climáticos e edáficos influenciam as taxas e dinâmica de transições entre os vários estados da relação árvores/gramíneas e restringir os tipos de relações árvores/gramíneas que podem ser possíveis. Essas forças estruturantes, que operam sobre uma gama de escalas espaciais e temporais, não são passíveis de avaliação em de pequena escala, ou experimentos de campo de curto prazo (House et al, 2003). Isso indica a necessidade de avaliações em grande escala e de longo prazo, mas também demonstra uma vantagem Portanto, os modelos qualitativos fornecem uma representação de duas camadas de vegetação do Cerrado: (1) o estrato herbáceo-graminoso, também conhecido como camada rasteira ou simplesmente camada de gramíneas, é constituído por formas de vida tais como plantas herbáceas e gramíneas e (2) o estrato lenhoso, também conhecido como camada lenhosa, formadas por árvores médias e grandes.…”

Section: Discussionunclassified

“…As tentativas de explicar os mecanismos responsáveis pelas interações entre árvores e gramíneas em savanas resultaram em quatro classes de hipóteses alternativas, que, por sua vez, levam a diferentes modelos conceituais de equilíbrio e persistência do bioma: (a) separação espacial de nicho (Walter, 1971); (b) separação fenológica do nicho (Sala et al, 1997); (c) competição balanceada (House et al, 2003;Scholes and Archer, 1997); e (d) gargalos demográficos (Higgins et al, 2000;Sankaran et al, 2004).…”

Section: O Cerrado Brasileirounclassified

“…No sentido de compreender melhor os sistemas savânicos, House et al (2003) afirmam que avanços conceituais e teóricos podem ser alcançados usando técnicas de meta-análise de dados e modelagem, e que modelos que incorporam explicitamente interações e dinâmica árvore-gramíneas variam amplamente em sua abordagem, complexidade e necessidade de dados.…”

Section: O Cerrado Brasileirounclassified

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Enriquecimento semântico de modelos ecológicos baseados em raciocínio qualitativo : um estudo de caso sobre a dinâmica de comunidades de vegetação lenhosa no cerrado brasileiro

Souza¹

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Moreover, qualitative models were developed to represent the structure en dinamics of Cerrado vegetation communities which the disequilibrium hypothesis of tree-grass coexistence in that biome is exploited. The models highlight the role of fire and competition relationships over resources between wood and grass layers, that allows their coexistence in Cerrado sensu stricto environments. Geographical links have been established between the occurrence of species and environmental variables with qualitative reasoning ecological models, that can be used for simulations and support predictions and explanations in the behavior of specific communities of woody plants of the Cerrado. Ongoing work aims at validation of qualitative models, improvement of the current and construction of new ontologies, expansion of databases to explore different hypotheses about the structure and functioning of Cerrado communities.

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Fires in the cerrado, the Brazilian savanna

Cited by 117 publications

References 34 publications

Fire-free land use in pre-1492 Amazonian savannas

Fire-free land use in pre-1492 Amazonian savannas

Fire management and the nesting of Athene cunicularia (Aves, Strigidae) in grasslands in central Cerrado, Brazil

Enriquecimento semântico de modelos ecológicos baseados em raciocínio qualitativo : um estudo de caso sobre a dinâmica de comunidades de vegetação lenhosa no cerrado brasileiro

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