Castaño Soler, Carles
- Department of Forest Mycology and Plant Pathology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Abstract
Wildfires substantially alter soil, water, and vegetation dynamics. This work aims to evaluate the soil, assessing how wildfires change chemical composition and physical properties and the biological quality of soil, including changes related to microbial and fungi in soil affected by wildfires. We collected soil samples to analyse the soil fungal communities and monitor soil respiration, soil infiltration and soil water repellency to assess if recurrent severe wildfires reduce the diversity and abundance of those indicators, particularly soil fungi forming mycorrhizal associations in SE Spain (Yeste, Albacete) where there were severe wildfires in 1994 (14.000 ha) and 2017 (3500 ha) with an area burned by both wildfires. In this experimental design, we established four zones to compare three burn severities and recurrence (unburnt, low, high, and high with recurrence) throughout the study period (2021-2022). The fungal species were identified by real-time sequencing, then filtered by quality to group them into UNITE Operational Taxonomic Units and classify them taxonomically. We have also assigned trophic habits to the identified taxa. The results showed that burn severity was directly related to changes in some physic-chemical properties (mainly to pH, K Ca and CEC) and inversely related to soil respiration (also the recurrence reduced it), soil water repellency, enzymatic activities (phosphatase and beta-glucosidase), basal soil respiration and carbon in microbial biomass. However, we found no significant effects of burn severity nor time after fire on the soil water infiltration, fungal community's richness and uniformity. The study provides insights into the resilience of fungal communities in Mediterranean pine ecosystems, highlighting their potential role in post-fire ecosystem recovery. However, long-term research is required to assess the time needed for microbiological parameters to return to pre-fire conditions and provide management tools to shorten recovery time. It is essential to study fungal communities and soil properties in Mediterranean pine ecosystems following forest fires to comprehend their impact on mushroom production, the local economy, and forest recovery to provide information for an optimal adaptive forest management.
Keywords
Fungal community; Biological soil quality; Fire ecology; Burn severity; Recurrence of wildfires
Published in
Plant and Soil
2025
Publisher: SPRINGER
SLU Authors
UKÄ Subject classification
Soil Science
Ecology
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-025-08145-4
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/145286