Research team led by Göttingen University compares forest soils in different ecosystems in Chile.
Research team led by Göttingen University compares forest soils in different ecosystems in Chile.
Wildfires may disappear from the landscape within weeks, but their hidden effects on the soil can persist for decades. An international research team led by the University of Göttingen, together with partners in Tübingen, Berlin and Chile, has shown how wildfires in humid temperate rainforests and mediterranean woodlands of central Chile lead to very different pathways of soil recovery and ecosystem resilience. The study shows that soil structure and nutrients continue to change for more than a decade after a fire. The results were published in the journal Catena.
The researchers used a “chronosequence” approach – meaning they compared forest soils that had burned at different times in the past. This enabled them to reconstruct how soils change in the years after a fire. In two national parks in Chile, the team sampled soils in a humid temperate Araucaria forest in Nahuelbuta and in a “sclerophyll” woodland – meaning forest characterised by woody plants with small, tough leaves – in La Campana, which has a mediterranean climate with hot, dry summers. Here, “mediterranean” refers to Chile’s mediterranean-climate woodlands, which share a similar climate with the Mediterranean. The researchers collected soil cores from the top ten centimetres of the ground in recently burned areas – from forests just two days after a fire – as well as from sites that had burned up to 14 years earlier. They then compared the physical and chemical properties of the soil with nearby forests that had not burned for several decades. “We showed that wildfires do not just burn vegetation but fundamentally reshape the soil – compacting it, redistributing ash and disrupting nutrient cycles long after the flames are gone,” says Professor Yakov Kuzyakov at the University of Göttingen.
Read More: University of Göttingen
