Harvestmen were among the dominant species in the forest habitats, and erythraeid mites were abundant in the burned ponderosa pine forest and the grassland. Linyphiids were strong indicators of unburned sites. Pardosa and Haplodrassus were dominant genera across habitats. Abundance was at or near unburned levels by 2014, but species composition changed in burned areas. Permutational multivariate analysis of variance (PERMANOVA) mostly at the genus level with some higher taxon levels showed significant fire, year, and interaction effects. In this study, ground-dwelling arachnids were collected in pitfall traps in burned and unburned habitats from 2011–2015. Following the fire, Caldera staff began monitoring abiotic, plant, and animal responses. In 2011, the Las Conchas wildfire burned in the Santa Fe National Forest of New Mexico, including portions of ponderosa pine and mixed-conifer forests, and grasslands in the Valles Caldera National Preserve, a large, high-elevation volcanic caldera. Insects, snails, millipedes and worms are all invertebrates.Catastrophic wildfire is increasingly common in forests of the western United States because climate change is increasing ambient temperatures and periods of drought. Invertebrates: An animal that does not have a back bone.
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