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Recolonization of a burned Mediterranean area by terrestrial gastropods

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Abstract

Wildfires are common natural perturbations in Mediterranean ecosystems. Their frequency and extent have changed in recent decades to become one of the main ecological problems for wildlife. The response of fauna to wildfires depends greatly on the life histories and biological traits of each species. Terrestrial gastropods have limited mobility, and their presence is restricted by the vegetal and abiotic characteristics of habitats. For this reason, they are expected to have a low ability to recolonize burned areas. We have explored their survivorship and recolonization patterns according to the cryptic-refuge and fire-edge models in a Mediterranean protected area affected by a large fire in August 2003. The low number of species recorded at burned sites demonstrates the negative effects of a wildfire on the richness of gastropod assemblages 4 years after the perturbation. However, the total number of living individuals did not vary between burned and unburned areas, suggesting an after-fire shift in dominant species from woodland to open-space species. Forest species with wide European distributions dominated in unburned sites, whereas open-space species and xerophytic Mediterranean species were present at burned sites. These differences were evident even at the burned sites closest to the unburned forest, suggesting low recolonization rates from the fire edge. By contrast, the abundance of xerophilous species as well as isolated records of mesophilous species in the burned areas suggests the survival of small populations and further recuperation after fire following the cryptic-refuge model.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the people of the Sant Llorenç del Munt i l’Obac Natural Park for collaboration, and Adrià Fabrega, Mari Carmen Gámiz, Elisabet Ros and Sandra Valentin for logistic support. Two reviewers made valuable suggestions to improve the quality of this work. Marcel Costa provided meteorological data from a station near the study area. Xavier Santos was supported by a Beatriu de Pinós postdoctoral grant from the Government of Catalonia (BP-B1 10211).

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  1. Parc Natural de Sant Llorenç del Munt i l’Obac, Oficina Tècnica de Parcs Naturals, Diputació de Barcelona, c/Urgell 187, Edif. Rellotge 3ª, 08036, Barcelona, Spain

    Xavier Santos, Vicenç Bros & Àngel Miño

  2. Departament de Biologia Animal, Universitat de Barcelona, Av. Diagonal 645, 08028, Barcelona, Spain

    Xavier Santos

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  1. Xavier Santos
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Correspondence to Xavier Santos.

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Santos, X., Bros, V. & Miño, À. Recolonization of a burned Mediterranean area by terrestrial gastropods. Biodivers Conserv 18, 3153–3165 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-009-9634-2

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