Surviving in a hostile landscape: Nothofagus alessandrii remnant forests threatened by mega-fires and exotic pine invasion in the coastal range of central Chile
MAU RO E. GONZÁL E Z,MAURICIO GAL LEGUILLO S ,J AV I E R LOP A T IN,CLAUDIA L EA L CONS T ANZA BECERRA -RODAS,ANTONIO L AR A and J OS É SAN MA RTÍN
Abstract Nothofagus alessandrii, categorized as Endangered on the IUCN Red List, is an endemic, deciduous tree species of the coastal range of central Chile. We assessed the effects of fire severity, invasion by the exotic fire-prone Pinus ra- diata, and land-cover composition and configuration of the landscape on the resilience of fragments of N. alessandrii after a mega-fire in 2017. We used remote sensing data to estimate land-use classes and cover, fire severity and inva- sion cover of P. radiata. We monitored forest composition and structure and post-fire responses of N. alessandrii for- ests in situ for 2 years after the mega-fire. In the coastal Maule region wildfires have been favoured by intense drought and widespread exotic pine plantations, increasing the ability of fire-adapted invasive species to colonize native forest remnants. Over 85%of N. alessandrii forests were moderately or severely burnt. The propagation and severity of fire was probably amplified by the exotic pines located along the edges of, or inside, the N. alessandrii fragments and the highly flammable pine plantations surrounding these fragments (.60% of land use is pine plantations). Pinus radiata, a fire-adapted pioneer species, showed strong post-fire recruitment within the N. alessandrii fragments, especially those severely burnt. Positive feedback between climate change (i.e. droughts and heat waves), wildfires and pine invasions is driving N. alessandrii forests into an undesirable and probably irreversible state (i.e. a landscape trap). A large-scale restoration programme to design a
MAURO E. GONZÁLEZ* (Corresponding author,
orcid.org/0000-0002-4333-
724X,
maurogonzalez@uach.cl) and ANTONIO LARA*† (
orcid.org/0000-0003- 4998-4584) Instituto de Conservación, Biodiversidad y Territorio, Centro del Fuego y Resiliencia de Socioecosistemas, Universidad Austral de Chile, Casilla 567, Campus Isla Teja, Valdivia, Chile
MAURICIO GALLEGUILLOS*(
orcid.org/0000-0003-4617-0980) and JAVIER LOPATIN*(
orcid.org/0000-0002-5540-7428) Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Santiago, Chile
CLAUDIA LEAL* and CONSTANZA BECERRA-RODAS*(
orcid.org/0000-0001-7754- 280X) Escuela de Graduados, Facultad de Ciencias Forestales y Recursos Naturales, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Chile
JOSÉ SAN MARTÍN Instituto de Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad de Talca, Talca, Chile
*Also at: Centro de Ciencia del Clima y la Resiliencia, Santiago, Chile †Also at: Fundación Centro de los Bosques Nativos, Valdivia, Chile
Received 4 July 2021. Revision requested 27 October 2021. Accepted 26 January 2022. First published online 24 October 2022.
diverse and less flammable landscape is needed to avoid the loss of these highly threatened forest ecosystems.
Keywords Chile, Endangered species, exotic invasion, Nothofagus alessandrii, Pinus radiata, wildfire
Introduction L
and-use and land-cover changes are major threats to biodiversity conservation that result in forest loss,
fragmentation and degradation (Pereira et al., 2010; Lindenmayer, 2012). Regions of high biodiversity that ex- perience continual threats (Myers et al., 2000) need atten- tion as the shifts in land-use and land-cover patterns, and climate change, exacerbate disturbance processes such as wildfires, insect irruptions, invasions of exotic species, droughts and heat-induced tree mortality (Allen et al., 2010; Veblen et al., 2011; Gaertner et al., 2014; Seidl et al., 2017; Miranda et al., 2020). The temperate forests of south-central Chile are a bio-
diversity hotspot (Myers et al., 2000) because of their high species richness and endemism, and habitat loss and wildlife population declines. The native forests and biodiversity in the coastal region (35°–37° S) of south-central Chile are par- ticularly threatened because of the high human population density and conflicting land-use demands (Armesto et al., 1998; Echeverria et al., 2006; Alaniz et al., 2016; Miranda et al., 2016). Here several narrowly distributed and endemic tree species of the Maulino forests (sensu San Martín & Donoso, 1996) are categorized as Endangered on the IUCN Red List because of intense deforestation and fragmentation (
e.g.Nothofagus alessandrii, Gomortega keule, Pitavia puncta- ta; Lara et al., 1996;Barstow et al., 2017;IUCN, 2018). There are few public or private areas protecting these species’ rich and endemic ecosystems (Armesto et al., 1998;Pliscoff & Fuentes-Castillo, 2011; Bannister et al., 2012). Only 15%of the total area of N. alessandrii forests lie within protected areas (Santelices et al., 2012). During 1981–1991,the N. ales- sandrii forests declined at an annual rate of 8.15% of their area, resulting in the loss of.50%of these forests in that per- iod, mainly because of the expansion of industrial Pinus ra- diata plantations (Bustamante & Castor, 1998;Grez et al., 1998; Heilmayr et al., 2016). As of 2008,the remnant 314 ha
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Oryx, 2023, 57(2), 228–238 © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605322000102
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